What is the most messed up thing you have seen a nurse/doctor do to a patient?
Sometimes it’s all about what they do NOT do which makes all the difference.
A couple of months ago, a nurse in my girlfriend’s urology ward refused to change a male patient’s bandage (after a surgery on his genitals), because she found it inappropriate to see his manhood.
And exceptional though it was, that was not a problem in this particular case, because she knew the patient (but still).
THE SANDWICH PREDICAMENT
Sally is the type of nurse who — totally ignoring standard hospital OR procedures after twenty years of working experience — gives the patient a sandwich an hour before surgery “because he was hungry.” And when the surgeon almost volcanically erupts because she or he cannot believe that Sally did it once again, she innocently utters:
“What do you mean doctor ?”
If the patient’s stomach contains food, there’s a risk of vomiting and/or introducing food into his or her throat and lungs due to the anesthesia.
She just does not understand this basic medical formalism — not even after all these years.
And she does it all the time.
THE UNINVITED NURSE
This happened only recently.
Sandra approached the operation table, and simply stood there, watching, without saying a word. My girlfriend asked what this was all about. The answer was rather unsettling:
“It’s rather calm in our department right now, so I decided to go watch you surgery instead — I find it very interesting.”
Leaving your department “because it’s rather calm” is extremely irresponsible in a hospital, and entering an OR without having even talked to the surgeon beforehand while not being an OR-nurse at all, and then standing there as if you are a character in House, MD, is definitely a no-go.
So Sandra was sent away, but when the operation was over they had a little chat.
About surgery not being a TV show, about the many responsibilities of hospital staff, about the sheer disturbance an uninvited guest introduces into the OR, about the stress she gave my girlfriend — and hence the unfavorable circumstances she created toward the patient.
Nurse Sandra then asked whether she could come watching the next time.
There was no next time though.
(Happy New Year !)
SOURCES: Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons (© public domain).
