Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Perspective

I have pretty good perspective. I've worked in nursing homes, on ambulances, in the lab, on med/surg, in the step-down unit, and briefly in CCU prior to my "stick" in the ER. I've been on both sides of most of the battles, and the battles are the same, though the fighters change.

I'm of the opinion that the biggest reason we fight amongst ourselves in the hospital (and pre-hospital, too) is simple lack of perspective. If we knew how it was on the other side, perhaps we would be a little bit more accommodating, and less critical. There have been a lot of posts lately about this, but two of them really caught my eye, and I think you should go check them out.

May at about a nurse very eloquently shares the med/surg perspective.

And Miranda5 at O Brave New World reminds me quite effectively of what it was like to work as a unit secretary. *shudder of horror with thumb sucking*

There are a couple other viewpoints coming up in Change of Shift; make sure to check them out. And if you have submissions, please get them in by tomorrow.

Thank you, that is all.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks, Monkeygirl.

I love my job. :D

SeaSpray said...

I blogrolled miranda 5.

I agree with you monkeygirl - it definitely helps to have the different perspectives.

SeaSpray said...

PS- I'll come back to read about a nurse. 3:20 am here!

911DOC said...

i'm clueless. what is change of shift and how can i play?

may said...

thank you for sending people my way:) now they know a little bit from OUR side of the story.

Natalie Heitz said...

SO true! That's why I think residency rotations, while not always as educational as they should be, are great opportunities to learn about what the "other side" is like.

I got crap for admitting a guy s/p CABG with a syncopal event last night (for those who don't know...had a bypass before, passed out tonight for no reason we could discern.) Well...my point of view. "holy crap...prior MI w/o pain...bad disease...passed out. Needs to be watched." Medicine's..."these guys never have anything, or you'd see it immediately." We're BOTH right, but the consultant certainly didn't see it that way!

Full-On-Forward said...

Daaaang!

36% - I would've crapped. But it just goes to show- you treat the Patient and not the monitor!

Good story

John