Hilary Clinton Plays Nurse

[meowomon]

Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose greatest disappointment was her failure to reform the American health care system when she had the chance to in the 1990s, will work the health care issue on a slightly smaller scale this month - as a shift nurse at one of Southern Nevada's St. Rose Dominican Hospitals.

It's part of the Service Employees International Union "Walk a day in my shoes" program, which has presidential candidates pulling a union worker's shift to meet one of the criteria for winning the coveted SEIU endorsement. The national union has 1.9 million workers, politically savvy leadership and deep pockets.

The Clinton event, which promises to be a media circus, illustrates how important Nevada has become in the Democrats' nomination strategy. This is the second candidate to choose Nevada to do the "Walk a day in my shoes" event, even though SEIU membership in Nevada is small compared with states such as California and New York. (The other candidate was New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who served for a day as a social worker.
www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2007/aug/07/566617169.html


This is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever seen. It takes years to actually become a nurse. Even after you graduate from school, the real learning is on the job training. You can't know the heartache or the wonderful satisfaction of being with another human being when they are at the most vulnerable point in their life. You become a part of this person's family and an integral part of their life for maybe a day, maybe several years.

Nursing is more than just throwing a few pills around. It is knowing that you have the highest respect for human life and dignity. It is knowing that you have to be there for this person's whole health, not just the physical health. You are the sister(brother)or the mother(father) or the child of this person. You become a trusted friend and confidant. You have this person's life literally in the palm of your hand as they trust you to proceed with your medical treatment.

Then you have, all too often,a case where a patient or family treats you as if you are just a servant and not a trained medial professional. There was only one time in my 15 years as a nurse when I "went off" on a patient. I was frantically helping a frail 84 year old post surgical patient who was having some serious vomiting. As I was rushing down the hall to get another emesis basin, a healthy soon to be discharged patient yelled out at me from the bed in her room, "Hey You!" She wanted some milk. Furiously, I informed her that, "My name is Ms. Marks, you have a call light and you need to use that instead of disturbing the whole hospital" Her eyes became big and she stuttered her apologies. There have been more that I wanted to yell back at, but their usually vulnerable state kept my furor in check.

I have been vomited on, shit on, spat on, peed on, bled on. I have dis-impacted bowels, held hair back from a puking patient's face. I have smelled smells that would turn most people green and leave them in a putrid mess of their own making. I have seen torn limbs, veins and arteries, muscle and brain tissue.

I have laughed with patients, cried with them. Sat in a room with families as their loved ones have died on them. I have injected and inserted medications into areas of a humans body that only the patient or an intimate lover have been. I have measured, calculated and counted. I have had days where my only time off of my feet was the rare trip to the bathroom to pee.

I have stood up to the shift supervisor who accused me of not being a team player when I refused a new admission. (I already had 2 more patients than was allowed by hospital protocol.) I have been been brought to tears and then resigned after my supervisor questioned me about 6 missing morphine injections. (The pharmacy made a mistake, but I was pissed off after being the last one to sign off on an emergency dose of another narcotic) I have walked off a job when I told a Director that his facility was unsafe. (He was admitting residents in his Adult Congregate Living Facility who really needed a skilled nursing home) I have questioned a doctor's order and saved him from a medical malpractice nightmare.

I have loved every minute of being a nurse even as I have hated every second of my day. And Hilary Clinton thinks she can understand a nurses world by attempting to walk one day in her shoes?

Dear Senator Clinton, you will never be able to even come close to understanding a nurses world by shadowing one for only a day. It will never be enough.

Good luck though. I wish you the best and I hope you get several healthy, ready to be discharged from the hospital patients, because you don't have near what it takes to walk even a moment in a real nurses shoes.

[PinkTiger]

1. Why do I get the feeling that if Laura Bush were doing this instead

You would be all for it?
Maybe it is because you are new here.
I think you should mend your speech a little, Cordelia.

[meowomon]

6. Nope

Laura Bush would mistake up Zantac for Xanax. In her husbands case, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea.

The point is, that even in one day, no one could know what it is to be a nurse. One day would not even give you an inkling of an idea of what it is like. Just remember this when you or your loved one is in the hospital or needs skilled nurses. Get your own fucking glass of water, the lady down the hall needs CPR.

[likesmountains 52]

2. Isn't the idea that she see's what a nurse's day is like? She is not going to be a nurse...

[Mojorabbit]

3. Well said

from a retired nurse. The last thing I would want to see if really ill in a hospital is a media circus around me.

[emilyg]

4. Lighten up

Obama did care worker or a day.

[liberal N proud]

5. I think all the candidate should be required to work some labor jobs

I think there should be more of this and not just restricted to nursing.

[PinkTiger]

7. It doesn't hurt for candidates to see how the rest of us live.

Media circus notwithstanding, the main idea is for these people to be in touch with us. Didn't I read somewhere on here (DU) that Bush didn't know about supermarket scanners? Geesh. These people often are so insulated from the real world that they have no clue what our days are like.
I'd like one to spend a day with me sometime - it would be a real eye-opener.

[Mojorabbit]

8. What is she going to do?

Wipe somebody's ass, clean up puke, give meds? Surrounded by secret service? They will assign her a nurse who has no patients to show her around and she will get no idea of what a nurse does. Liability issues will see to that.