The post-it reads ‘Don’t know and don’t care to know’.
This was brought up by a former coworker of mine. They have years of experience in other hospitals/operating rooms. And I’ve worked with them in other operating rooms and their years in the hospital outnumber my own.
Their bonafides are not in question.
And they are shocked by the lack of curiosity of today’s new nurses and techs. That the newer nurses and techs resemble automatons. Or, to put it more plainly, robots. The case comes to their room, they do the case, end of case they go and sit in the lounge. They are there for the case, and maybe their favorite doctor.
End of list.
Not for the patients who are not their own. Not for the department. Not for the hospital.
There is a lack of intellectual curiosity in hospitals now. It’s been happening for awhile now.
I’ve heard stories about the nurses and techs who are only there for the paycheck, for punching their time clock. And their knowledge and caring for the patients are only while they are on the clock. This is something that is not only happening in the surgical services. I’ve heard about it from other specialties, from the emergency room to Med-Surg to respiratory to the labor ward.
To say that this is not good is to understate the case.
Healthcare workers no longer want to do anything outside of their job duties. Committees? Who wants to do that? But they will be the first to complain when something changes without input by the corporation that they work for.
But we didn’t know, they cry. And they had been asked to be on committees, or taskforces and the like.
This is the dumbing down of nursing.
And it must be stopped.
Do you want the nurse who mentally clocks out when it is time to go to break? Or home?
Or do you want the engaged person who wants to help, even if it is outside their comfort zone and comfort doctors? Who gives ideas, no matter how many times they have been turned down.
The pandemic and the overwhelming patient volume that it has prompted accelerated this problem. But the roots have been there for years.
I can’t make people care about the department, and the hospital.
I wish I could.
I’ve been banging my head against that stone for a long time. The others who and I do not want change without input. That leaders on the C-level (executive suite) don’t know the entire picture, especially what the nurse at the bedside is facing. Input about a change made to keep patients safe is actually doing the opposite.
How do you give input? Join a committee and see.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 