Nurse Ratched’s Place

Last Friday morning I booted-up my trusty Mac to check my blog’s stat counter. I usually have 20 hits by 10 a.m. because my mom, and my other relatives, get up early and log on to see what I’ve been up to. When I looked at the statcounter, I dropped my can of Coke on the floor. My stat counter was going crazy. When I followed the path to see where everyone was coming from, I found out that my blog made the “Blogs of Note” list.

I feel like I’m making an acceptance speech at the Oscars, but I want to thank the good people at Blogger Buzz and Google for choosing my blog. It’s a labor of love, and I enjoy writing about the nursing profession. I also want to thank everyone for the thoughtful comments.

Check out Advance for Nurses’

latest article about the National Nurse Act,which would establish the Office of the National Nurse. Please ask your representative to cosponsor the bill. I believe that every American deserves a nurse.

I know a place where nurses are nymphomaniacs. They work in shady places, wearing tight, white wiggle dressing, and exposing their voluptuous breasts to power hungry doctors. The doctors are lecherous womanizers who are healers by day and adulterers by night. They exploit women to fulfill their savage desires. These are the men and women of medical pulp fiction.

So, did I get your attention?

I’m not like those people who buy Playboy Magazine just for “the articles.” I buy these books because I like to look at the vamp-laced artwork on the book covers. Here are some books I just picked for the family book collection.

Mon Dieu! What’s going on here?
Where’s the nurse, and why isn’t this patient properly draped? This doctor obviously has poor professional boundaries because “his patients tempt him too much.”

“3 Women and a French Doctor:

Magoune, a promiscuous young farm wife, has her leg in a cast, yet she is still a provocative woman.

Kitty, a beautiful English adventuress, insists that giving her “pleasure” is the only cure for her pain. (As a side note, I’m sure the HMOs would endorse this type of therapy if they thought it would save them money).

Elise is a lonesome French widow. The Doctor’s massage treatments awaken feelings she could not control!

Does a doctor remain purely professional in his patients’ boudoirs? Here is the highly sophisticated, shockingly frank story of what went on behind the closed doors of a handsome French Doctor’s consultation room.”

Note to self: Keep all hot-blooded, female patients away from French doctors who make rounds wearing a loud, kiwi green suit.

Nurse! Don’t you know it’s unprofessional to parade around a doctor’s office dressed like a trollop? You certainly have the doctor’s attention. I also see you’re thinking about what happened last night after office hours instead of tending to your patients.

“His arms enfolded her as she burst into tears. His face was gray and haggard. ‘Christie, listen to me. Don’t’ you see we can’t go on like this, being together, wanting each other so damnably, without taking each other. There’s not much future in that.’ ‘It’s the only future I want, Ross,’ she told him huskily when she had controlled her tears. ‘I want to belong to you, Ross. I want to be yours completely any time and all the time. If we can’t be married for a while it doesn’t matter…Ross, I love you. I’ll never love anyone else…Never! Never!’ Recklessly, Christie offered her gorgeous, fresh young beauty to the man she loved, knowing it was all she had. A young nurse in the employ of a cynical, world-weary doctor, she knew from experience that only passion could hold a man who lived as this doctor did, pampered by women!”

What would Florence Nightingale think?

I know I’ve shared this book before, but I can’t help showing it again.

Exposed!

“A doctor and a nurse embraced in the dusky shadows of the gray walled room, their bodies entwined, their lips pressed together. Suddenly there were footsteps in the corridor….somebody opened the door and turned on the light….

Hospital Doctor takes you into the private world of doctors and mistresses, nurses and lovers—an amazing world of heroes and heels who are tempted by pretty faces and a craving for cash.

From the incisive pen of a surgeon himself comes the shocking truth behind many of the operations performed annually which lead to mayhem and manslaughter; the startling expose of underpaid interns and ruthless physicians who resort to shameless practices and character assassination in their ambitious quests for fame and money.”

Oh please, nurses don’t have time to go to the bathroom, let alone time to play “doctor” with a doctor. See the nurse in the doorway. She’s telling her coworker that she better get back to the unit because all of her patients are on their call light, wanting pain medication.

I wonder how our naughty nurse is able to keep her cap from falling off while she’s making out with her boyfriend.

Ladies, did you know that you are at higher risk for developing stress fractures because you drink cola, and that you should give it up?

Notice how the nurses are laughing. What, give up cola? Yeah, right!

According to researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, women who are worried about osteoporosis should switch to another beverage or limit their consumption of cola to occasional use. The suggestion that nurses give up their cola comes under the heading of “when hell freezes over.”

Trust me, things can get ugly if nurses don’t get their hit of high-octane fizzy sugar water. Super nurses lose their ability to outrun speeding bullets and outwork locomotives if they don’t get their cola. And you can forget about asking a nurse to jump over a tall building at a single bound. No one jumps like that without caffeine.

If researchers think women shouldn’t drink cola, maybe one of them can develop a diet supplement that tastes like Coke.

Coke–it’s the real thing.

I worked as a neurosurgical nurse many years ago at a teaching hospital in the Midwest, and twice a year a new crop of interns descended upon our unit. It was the best show in town. The spectacle began with the chief of neurosurgery, Dr. Holier Than Thou, strutting on to the unit with his entourage marching behind him. He stood before the crowd in his impeccable white lab coat, telling everyone within earshot of his importance, and how he held the power of life and death in his hands. I would sit at the nurses station and snicker at the biannual parade, and remembered my first day in the hospital as a nursing student. Two interns had asked me to go into a patient’s room to get a set vitals signs. They didn’t tell me that the patient was cold, stone dead. I walked into the patient’s room, saw the dearly departed, and calmly walked back to the nurses station to find the interns laughing their fannies off. I told them they were going to make damn good doctors one day, but first they had to learn what rigor mortis looked like. Nonetheless, because every new group of interns looked like lambs being lead to slaughter, I pitied them, and I gave them information to use as a survival guide. These are the rules I taught them about working with nurses.

1) Nurses deserve respect. We are with the patients twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, while doctors are only able to see patients a few minutes a day. Smart interns forge alliances with the nursing staff, and understand that nurses can save their butts when something goes wrong with one of their patients.

2) Don’t take the last piece of pizza in the nurses lounge unless you are invited to do so. Nurses are territorial about food.

3) Nurses do not tolerate interns with a budding God complex. Nurses have no problem calling arrogant interns every hour on the hour for Tylenol orders, especially at night. Arrogance breeds contempt.

4) Don’t be stupid. If you want to complain about nursing care, be careful when you approach a nurse who is working the last half of a double shift. Refer to rule #3.

5) Nurses are your friends. We want to see you succeed, and if we like you, we will make sure that Dr. Holier Than Thou doesn’t find out that you order Demerol 1000 mg, instead of 100 mg, IM q 4 hours PRN because you were dead on your feet after being on call for three days in a row.

Look at that cute little girl in her daddy’s arms. I wonder if her daddy wants her to be a nurse when she grows up. That’s my dad and me on my grandparent’s farm at a family reunion, and yes, he always wanted me to be a nurse. He was a very practical man. He said, “You won’t get rich being a nurse, but you’ll always have a roof over your head and food on your table.” My new blogging buddy, The Curmudgeon, at Second Effort asked me if he should encourage his daughters to go into nursing. His questions made me start thinking about the qualities that make someone a good nurse. It’s a question that people have been asking for a long time.

In the 1914 book, “Practical Points in Nursing for Nurses in Private Practice,” Emily A. M. Stoney discussed the qualities of the perfect nurse. Here are samples of what she said:

Qualifications of the Nurse:

“The questions asked by physicians and surgeons before employing a nurse are: Is she neat and clean, and does she understand all the recent antiseptic methods? Does she know what to look out for in the cases under her care, and when to send for the physician? Is she modest in assuming responsibility? Is she faithful to the physician’s orders, and fitted for the cares of a severe and critical illness? All these questions are asked, together with others, and it is a nurse possessing just these qualifications that each one should wish to be.”

Responsibilities of the Nurse:

“The profession of nursing is one in which there is no limit to the good that can be done; it is also one which every woman embracing it must ‘walk worthy of the vocation wherewith she is called.’ A nurse should have such tact, as well as skill, that she will do what is best for the patients, even against their will, knowing how to manage the weakest and most irritable, and doing all that is necessary for them without their knowing it.”

“She must be scrupulously clean and neat in her own person, especially with regard to the arrangement of her hair, which should be smooth and well kept. The office of nurse is too high and too holy for any woman called to it to wish to devote much time to the adornment of her person. Her one object, as regards herself, should be to be clean, simple, neat, modest, sweet-tempered, and to know how to mind her own business.”

Duties of the Nurse:

“The patient should closely be observed, and all that can be done to make her comfortable should be anticipated, not waiting to be asked for anything. The nurse should wear noiseless shoes, and move about the room quietly; she should look where she is going, and not knock against the bed or the furniture; and she should avoid everything that may annoy the patient.”

“The directions of the doctor must faithfully be carried out, and in the absence of directions the nurse should think what he would like to have done. When she makes a mistake, it should be confessed at the first opportunity; the physician will always be found very kind; but if mistakes are left for him to find out, he will naturally lose confidence in his nurse.”

“A nurse should always wear her cap; it is her badge of authority.”

A grassroots organization of nurses is working to establish the The Office of the National Nurse, and the idea is getting a lot of attention from around the country. National Nurse bumper stickers are starting to show up on cars, and major newspapers are carrying stories about the National Nurse Act, sponsored by Rep. Lois Capps (CA-D), who is also a nurse. Go Lois!

Here’s a link to a story appearing in today’s edition of The Oregonian.

I believe that every American deserves a nurse.

How time flies when you’re having fun. (Sorry, no pun intended). It seems like it was just yesterday when the summertime temperatures were in the triple digits, and now with Halloween just around the corner, merchants are gearing up for Christmas. Yes, it’s the new American holiday traditional. I’ll never forget when my oldest daughter wanted to go trick-or-treating dressed up like a Christmas tree. If you have a hard-to-buy-for person on your Christmas shopping list, CNN reports that the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog is full of great gift ideas.

Do you know someone who wants to get away from it all? How about giving them a trip to outer space. That’s right! For a mere 1.7 million bucks, you can charter a trip for six into the wild blue yonder. But wait, there’s more! The package also includes an all-inclusive four-night stay on Virgin Chairman Richard Branson’s private retreat in the British Virgin Islands. The retreat sounds like fun, but I’d pass on the space trip. I get sick on roller coasters. Enough said.

One day nurses will go into outer space. Here’s Cindy, ready for action. She’s traveling to the lunar space station to give first class patient care. Doesn’t she look calm? I bet she’s an emergency room nurse. I’m amazed how E.R. nurses stay cool, calm, and collected even when everything around them is falling apart. Emergency room nurses have nerves of steel. Yeah, they rock!

As you may know, I idolize Nurse Chapel. She could do anything. When she wasn’t pining over Spock or pulling another double shift in Sickbay, she was whipping up tasty dishes in the kitchen. I want this book. It’s the Official Star Trek Cooking Manual: Compiled by Mary Ann Piccard from the Logbook of Nurse Christine Chapel (1978, 1st printing). The Star Trek Cooking Manual contains over 100 favorite Star Trek recipes, all of them galactic, culinary delights. There are recipes for “tempting snacks, delicious main dishes, and luscious desserts from the farthest reaches of the Federation.” The book showcases the favorite recipes of Dr. McCoy, Kirk, Scott, Spock, and the rest of the crew. Recipes for Romulan, Klingon, and Vulcan ethnic dishes are also included in the book.

I’ve always heard that the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Maybe that’s why Nurse Chapel was always inviting Spock to her place for a bowl of plomeek soup.

When I’m at work and I start feeling stressed out, I begin this mantra: “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.” At first, my coworkers thought I was nuts. I told them this mantra keeps me calm, and if I stay calm, I won’t start screaming in the nurses station.
Don’t get me wrong, I really do like my job, it’s the healthcare system that makes me pull my hair out. As a bedside nurse, I’m frustrated by what I see at work. Our healthcare system is falling apart. It’s dysfunctional, making it harder for doctors and nurses to take care of their patients. There’s a new treatment being used today called “Brief Therapy.” No, I’m not kidding. I think an insurance company came up with the concept as a way of saving money.

When you’re having a bad day at work, do you ever think about getting a new job? Nurses have so many options, the hardest part of getting a new job is deciding which offer to take. Years ago when I entered the nursing profession, nurses had few options; they could work giving bedside nursing care, or work in a doctor’s office, clinic, or school. After a few years, some of my friends left nursing and got married. See our cover girl? She’s trying to decide which path to take. Will she marry Dr. McDreamy or stay in nursing? Only time will tell.

The best thing about nursing is you can quit your job, go into a completely different field, and still be a nurse. Don’t believe me? Pick up a newspaper and look at the want ads, or better yet, go to Nursing Jobs.org for an up-to-the-minute list of available jobs. There are positions available in every imaginable arena.

This is a poem sent to me by one of my former coworkers. She tried my mantra, but it didn’t work for her. She’s now working somewhere else.

I Love My Job
By Dr. Seuss

I love my job, I love the pay!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, he’s the best!
I love his boss and all the rest!

I love my office and its location,I hate to have to go on vacation.
I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day.
I think my job is really swell,there’s nothing else I love so well!
I love to work among my peers, I love their leers, and jeers and sneers.
I love my computer and its software.
I hug it often though it won’t care. I love each program and every file.
I’d love them more if they worked a while.

I’m happy to be here. I am. I am.
I’m the happiest slave of the Firm I am.
I love this work, I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.
I love my job – I’ll say it again – I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who’ve come today,
In clean white coats to take me away!!!

I’ve been tagged by At Your Cervix. In today’s meme, I am to reveal what five songs I want played at my funeral. I’m sorry, but death is not an option. My employer has forbidden the Grim Reaper from taking nurses who are scheduled to work Christmas. However, just in case Mr. Reaper didn’t receive the memo, here are my top five picks.

To Where You Are, by Josh Groban. This one is a tear-jerker.

Fields of Gold, by Sting.

Over the Rainbow, by Eva Cassidy.

Here Comes the Sun, by the Beatles.

My friends and family may sing any drunken Irish pub song they choose as they dump my ashes into the Chesapeake Bay.

I tag Julie, RN, Sean, Mad Mike, Deacon Barry, and rx850.