'Sister Nurse' Responds to Critics

Nursing

My issue with your article lies completely in the fact that nurses are forefront in your attack on the system.

Maybe the doctors were on break, making your daughter wait for attention in the ER. You can't get medication until you are evaluated and it is ordered. You know that, but America does not.

Maybe your state is closing hospitals, like mine causing wait times to explode-due to lack of funding and reimbursement for charity (emtala) and reduced medicare/medicaid reimbursement. Waiting times for all have increased.

Perhaps, you have a uninsured, underinsured, or illegal immigrants using your services as a primary care office. NJ doctors turn away Medicaid, and good luck if you have no insurance. Receptionists don't let you in the door.

Maybe its because Americans and their access to quality healthcare is down the toilet causing an increase of sicker people with higher admissions rates-BUT THERE IS NO ROOM AT THE INN-so they are boarded in the ER. Less beds for an emergency.

These are all valid reasons why care is not what you think it should be, and were not even touched upon. They would be the first ones I would be pondering, as I know they are causing an "emergency" in my neck of the woods. Let America know the truth.....this is the basis of/or lack thereof medical treatment in hospitals. Stressed out nurses who are overburdened and rushed are a side effect.

You seem to think you have opened a dialogue for nurses, it hasn't been a positive one. Your comments have tainted us, and I don't like it! How do you think those former students may have felt? I am surprised your college has allowed articles like this without review. Your article and so many others, leave me asking what is wrong with nursing professors and nursing academics? Where are you all coming from and what do you hope to accomplish through articles like this? Passive-Agressive, don't like it at all!

The only positive thought I can send your way is that, I am glad your daughter is recovering from her surgery. I truly hope her the remainder is swift and she is 100% quickly. I also hope that in the future, your articles if negative will include ALL personnel involved-keep it fair.

Karen Madsen

I too would like to add to the discussion on Karen Madsen's encounter in the ER. I have been in healthcare for my entire professional career, and I have experienced the same dilemmas that Karen mentions.

A nurse in any hospital situation with a family member/loved one is in a precarious position: he/she knows what should be done etc., but is not the ‘nurse’ at this point but ‘a knowledgeable consumer’. To speak or not to speak: I say speak.

I agree that nurses need to have discussion about what really is broken in the health care system and the nurse's role. The first step in making anything better is to address it and label the behaviors so that they can be talked about. Nurses do need to stand up and talk about these issues. Thanks Karen for bringing up these issues.

Nurses always need to present themselves as professionals. Yes, I agree that nurses also need to be able to blow off steam - but in private please!

I would also suggest that nurses need to re-examine why they joined the profession. Ask the hard questions of yourselves: have I lost my way? Am I more concerned about me and less about the people I am entrusted in serving? Has my spirit been deflated? Do I need to find another job?

There are plenty of materials to help nurses with the difficulties they encounter each day in their work. The HcPro 'Stressed Out" series is one vehicle to help nurses with common areas of concern. There are others.

We need to use the resources available to us and not just throw around rhetoric and play the blame game. In some cases we need to turn around and face the enemy and find out that the enemy is us.

Nursing

As a nurse of 27 years, I am in complete agreement with you on most of your points in your article, Ms Madsen. And what your comments are is a policing our own actions and attitudes as nurses in Nursing. If writing a column about your experience highlights the need for some remedial education, then so be it. I would have also followed up by writing a letter to the Nursing Director along with names and specific examples. I would have cc'd her/his management also, along with the Directors of the ER and the Floors. I, too, would have included names and specific examples of outstanding performance ON the spot to upper management. You mention in the article that you were not acting as a "nurse" but as a "mother". Mother's aren't always calm, cool, and collected when it comes to their children. I can't fault you for that. However, I recognize within myself to have to 'govenor' my own tendencies to overreact in a demanding and caustic way when I have been in a similar situation. That being said, it's very difficult to do when one is under stress and feeling guilty about missing the symptoms delaying care.

Nursing

I'm a nursin student in Michigan, and generally an optomist. Now I wasn't there that night so I couldn't say who was right or wrong, but I know that if I had a sick child I would do whatever I thought was necessary to see them through. So congratulations for you determination and resolve.

That said, the only way to "fix" the problem or concern that you raise, is by instituting smile, and term of endearment quotas. Rediculous. Can you name one profession where everyone can be trusted to do their best every time? All we can really do is police our own actions and attitudes, hope that it encourages others to do the same, and maybe point out the outstanding contributions when you see them. Did I mention that I'm also a realist.