All nurses and techs are storytellers

All nurses and techs are storytellers.

It is how we relate to others who do the same work. Because normal people do not relate to our humor and our capacity to talk about gross things. Or do gross things. But not all gross things, every healthcare worker has a Kryptonite that makes them gag. It is different for everyone.

Get a group of OR nurses or techs together and the stories come out.

They can range from do you know what Dr. So and So did this week? Story.

Have you heard about Nurse C? Yeah, this is what happened.

What is the grossest thing ever? Pull up a chair, I have pictures (sometimes true).

The OR team as a whole love to talk about something in the past.

We do it to spread knowledge about certain cases and certain doctors who may not be the best. But sometimes they are, and this story tells you why.

We are also competitive and love to tell a grosser story, or a time a surgeon or a leader made you so mad you couldn’t think straight.

Or the past coworker, who moved on years ago, and how they were the worst, and this is some of the shit they pulled.

Or the story about the patient that lives in our hearts and in our minds.

A bit like Barry Manilow, but instead of writing the songs, we tell the stories.

OR is kind of like Vegas, what happens here stays here. In the stories of the workers who may or may not have been in the room. We are bound by HIPAA, our stories do not have identifying names, or addresses, or churches. But we know the facts, we just don’t share them.

And then there is me, who knows stories, and facts, and definitely does not share details. At all. When telling stories of the OR, I have to be careful to not reference anything that makes the patient or the doc or even the hospital recognizable. Broad strokes is what gets the story told, and details can be changed. Who cares if it was a right arm or a left? The person whose arm it was.

Keep on telling the stories but be careful of what details are shared and who is listening.