Excuse me? I am not sure how being curt is viewed as rude. If I’m curt or short with you, it is because time is of the essence. Someone who doesn’t understand curtness said that to me the other day. They were also offended by the “foul language” that was being used in the nurses’ station. After the, “oh no you didn’t,” stage of my anger went away, I thought about just what it is that makes me upset about this and why I’m not a rude or crude person.
My personal experience in both medicine and trauma is extensive. As some of you know, I’m a veteran. I have seen mass graves and death inflicted on combatants. I have seen traumatic death, disease, performed CPR on a child and an infant and held a woman named Louise’s hand as she passed from this plane to next because no one was there for her, except me. All of this while juggling patients or being expected to go right back to work. I try, as all my colleagues do, to put on a happy face and go back to patient care. These things do affect us, and we combine it into the care that we provide for you. I’ve been a nurse for 20 years, an NP for one, and I worked EMS for 5 years before I was a nurse. This does not make it an excuse for me to offend you, but I think you’re a little too easily offended. Surprisingly, I hold the door, have manners (and use them), I don’t mistreat someone intentionally, and apologize when I do. As tough as it is, I own my mistakes. I’ve had patients I don’t like, but I did not give them any less than the best care possible. I am very rough around the edges, but I have a high moral standard. Life’s not perfect. I certainly am not, but I’m a hell of a lot better than you are giving me credit for.
I say this because no matter how much your life is uprooted, we are certainly not trying to belittle you or be rude to you, and it really is not your place to judge. I will say that we are far more likely to challenge your bullshit behavior towards us because we simply don’t have time to deal with it. Like I said, we know you’re having a rough go and we’re trying to help you with that. The face we put on in front of you as providers are far different than the one we may have in our office or at the nurses’ station. We are all humans, and we are all under a lot of stress every time we set foot on the floor or the ward. Sometimes, it is difficult to vent that stress in a manner that would appear polite. That venting is also not intended for you, and it certainly has no effect on our care of your loved one.
Most of the time nurses use gallows humor to lighten the stress of dealing with death and disease. I can tell you that a lot of my family and friends who are not in the medical profession don’t like to eat dinner with me. The things discussed over dinner in my years of nursing would make someone with even the strongest stomach gag sometimes. So, why?
Most people have very little experience with medicine or more importantly, the intricacies of it. Just like Karen talks about her job at Walmart, which is probably more shocking than my job, we talk about ours. And if there’s more than 1 of us at a table, we usually talk shop. It’s just who we are. When I worked EMS, I was literally cleaning the puke off the inside of an ambulance on a Friday night and discussing with my partner what we wanted for dinner once we cleared.
I will bet that you will always get the finest care we can provide. I have not met a nurse or other provider who doesn’t put the patient first before anything else. When I admit a patient, it doesn’t just stop there. I check on that patient every shift to see how their hospital stay is progressing. All providers do this.
So, we seem rough around the edges, not holy and moral, irreverent, short, grumpy, whatever… We are that way because we’re already five minutes ahead of the conversation that we are having with you.