The gown card reads ‘being addressed as nurse’.
Just nurse.
And a lower case ‘n’ at that.
As if that is your name.
Hey, if you are going to address me as nurse, I am at least an upper case ‘N’. I have my dignity. And more college degrees than you.
Probably.
I have 3. And I am working on #4. Because I’m that person that thinks that school is fun.
Before, it was understood that nurses would stand and give the doctor our seat in the nursing station. Thankfully, this kind of thinking has drifted away. Nurses today are not the handmaiden of the doctor. Our input regarding the patient’s condition is what drives many of the orders that the doctor writes.
For example, the Nurse calls the doctor with this report, “Your patient XYZ has a temperature of 104, Dr. Q. I have decreased the temperature of the room, had them take off the four sweaters they were wearing, and given them an tepid bath, but perhaps pharmacological intervention is necessary.”
Note the respectful address for the doctor. That’s another post.
I am more than my job class. Under the nurse umbrella. There are many types of registered nurses in the hospital.
Should we start addressing people as ‘Patient?’. As in Patient presents with… No, that would be ludicrous. There are many patients in an area such as the ER, they can’t all be addressed as Patient. How are you going to tell them apart?
Maybe by using their full name, AND an identifying feature that is mostly unique to them. Like their birthday? But that is what we do.
We would never say the patient in room 313 is presenting with… I am going to stop you right there. Nope, don’t care what they are presenting with, I need more information in order to identify and treat the patient.
Until people come standard with QR codes, we just fumble along. Using our names and birthdays as identifiers when we are in the healthcare system.
Patients are treated as whole individuals, perhaps we should do the same for the healthcare workers caring for them?
So we can tell Patient from Patient.
And Nurse from Nurse.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 