Bitten, shot, spat on: Violence in hospitals common for staff

[babsbunny]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/16/hospital.violence.hopkins/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

By Madison Park, CNN
September 16, 2010 6:59 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- A gunman critically injured a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and later killed himself and his mother, police say -- the latest violent incident in a health care setting.

Hospitals are pressure cookers as people are often distressed, mentally disturbed or intoxicated by drugs or alcohol in a highly stressful environment. All of these factors pose possible dangers to health care workers.

The Hopkins doctor, whose name was not released, was rushed to surgery for an abdominal wound and is expected to survive, according to police.

[blondeatlast]

1. I've been hospitalized often over the years and have seen

some hair-curling stuff; including an absolute tirade directed at a nurse coming from a patient who was hooked up to the hospital oxygen line--and smoking like a steel mill in her bathroom.

Fortunately, the nurse was forner army. It was almost satisfying.

[KurtNYC]

2. My BIL was delivering a baby and the mother spat on him

"bc you are a man just like the man who did THIS to me."

Takes real toughness to work in medicine. Thank god for those who have it.

[blondeatlast]

3. That's the thing--the work involves dealing with scared, sick, and pained people.

It takes an incredible courage to be able to deal with them--and in most cases, you can't fault the patient.

[polly7]

7. That's the truth.

I was reaching across a pt. once to roll her towards me to gather and change her bedding. She bit my stomach and would not let go. It hurt so much I could do nothing, the call button was handy so I did get help .......... eventually. A woman not in her right mind, I couldn't be mad at her.

[shireen]

8. i feel bad for that kid

with a mother like that ...

And i'm sorry to hear that your BIL had to endure that disrespect.

[burnsei sensei]

4. The poverty of people in general seeking help

and the tremendous corruption of the health care system are not mentioned.
The people know that medicine exists for profit, and as a result, they suspect that the professionals attendinig to them are only in it for the money.
Where patients and loved ones perceive no compassion at all when they are vulnerable, they will strike out.
Medicine for profit has brought bad faith to the medical relationship.
The violence is, for the most part, attributable to instinct.

[Aristus]

5. As a newly-minted Physician Assistant, I have to say that practicing medicine

does have its rewards. Most of my patients are wonderful people. I've had patients hug me, say I'm "the best ever", or burst into tears simply because I treated them like human beings.

During my Family Medicine preceptorship, I had one drug-seeking patient make a death threat against me because I declined to prescribe narcotics for him. He got nasty and nearly violent; we called the cops on him.

But he is the exception. Practicing medicine has its dangers and drawbacks, but I love it like nothing else...

[w8liftinglady]

6. having been a nurse for 25 years-I can excuse patient behavior...

and non-violent family outbursts-as illness/injury affects people differently.I have had to call hospital security literally hundreds of times for physical family outbursts-although for me it was usually directed at each other.I have seen several co-workers get injured seriously enough to require hospitalization...closed head injury,ruptured blood vessels,open wounds.reduction in counselling,psychiatric care and drug abuse treatment is seeing it's effect.