At the time though, they experienced it, fought it, and lived that
horrible moment.
But they lived, with good outcomes. They and their family were grateful
for the care we gave and the interventions that were used.
I still occasionally have nightmares about one of them.
In my day-to-day practice I hold a person’s hand and talk
soothingly to them until they are unconscious, whereupon I make a remarkable
transition from a kind hearted person to looking at the patient to a nurse seeing them as a puzzle
needing to be solved. Intubation tube in. Catheterisation done. Patient
positioned as required for surgery. Dislocate the hip for better access.
Suction. Diathermy. Sutures.
We do awful things to people
Awful.
Well documented, fully researched, best practice, global standards
of awfulness.
It’s not until I am at the pub and make a flippant comment related
to “burning the patient” and have to explain that it was deliberate and totally
ok, that I realise how truly messed up what we do is.
Actually, what we do isn’t messed up, it’s how we get our heads
around it that is messed up. Everyone varies in how they cope. But I PROMISE
that if you know and love a nurse, that they disassociate in some way, in order
to do what needs to be done on a daily basis. The alternative is the disturbing
concept that they are ok with doing what they do to a person that they get to
know.
So next time you ask someone who cares about you to look at you
like a patient, and diagnose or help you Please don’t get upset if their face
goes oddly blank, and they give their answers in a way that doesn’t seem
entirely like them. And do not get cranky with us because we are unsympathetic.
You are asking us to do our job. To look at your body as a just a sum of its
parts, a puzzle to be solved, a problem to be fixed. We can’t CARE how it
feels. We can empathise, but not sympathise.
It’s an important differentiation.
They are looking at you like a patient, because if we cared when we
had to do what we do, it would rip us to tiny pieces every day.
