Terrible Nurse Comment
I heard this awful exchange between a nurse and my patient yesterday as he was getting up to walk around:
Nurse: Sir, your pants are falling down!
Patient: Oh really? Thanks for telling me. My pants don’t fit anymore cause I’ve lost all this weight.
Nurse (laughing to other nurse): Haha, I wish I could do that so easily!
Patient: Yeah, well I’d probably say it’s better *not* to get cancer.
What kind of shit is that? The nurse *knew* his diagnosis too.
That is pretty awful. If I ever made a comment like that to a patient, I’d be fired on the spot, expecially if I knew what they were suffering from.
Hey I know that the comment looks horrible on the surface (and it may well be a horrible comment) but I feel obligated to to point out that you may not know the sort of relationship the nurse and the patient have. As both a patient and a physician I have often joked with patients/doctors. Out of context I am sure that many of my comments could be construed as the type of comment you mention. It is important to remember that many patients deal with their diseases by joking. Similarly, many caregivers will joke with staff/pts. Of course I would never condone making such an off handed remark to a pt you have not gotten to know but try not to pass judgment on how others interact with patients without knowing the full story.
As someone first entering the world of clinical medicine you will undoubtedly see/hear many things that will outrage/frustrate you. Some of it should but I think much of it will later make sense to you and I dare predict that yu will act in many of the same ways that you find fault in now.
Just my 2 cents.
Hello, stopping into read a few lines. That is sad, ahh, some people are rather into just getting their work done instead of understanding and relating to patients or their conditions from what I seen myself too at my job. Im always sad to see that.
You’re right, AP; always good to consider that. I could be wrong, but the patient had just moved into the unit the day before. I’d imagine more than a day is required before you’re allowed to start joking about someone’s cancer, though.
Graham, I don’t want to beat the issue to death (too late I think) but there are so many variables here. Had the pt been on the ward before? How much time must pass before you think it is OK? a day? a week? Longer? On a separate note, I just wanted to say I really enjoy reading the blog. It’s interesting seeing the transformation from student to doctor through someone else’s eyes. having been through the process only a few years ago, I can relate to most of what you say and it’s wierd to see how things change so rapidly in just a few years.
I think a better question is how long has this person been a nurse? How long has she been working with adults? How old is she? How much overtime did she work this week?
I have some co-workers for whom there is little hope. They’ve been nurses long enough and have enough life experience that they’re just not going to change. There are others with less experience I believe can be educated.
If this nurse is basically a decent person with limited experience who said something stupid without thinking, then she feels much worse about this comment than anyone else. She won’t do it again, either. I hope that’s the case.