filter

i've said it on this site before - some days being a nurse is playing a role. it's knowing that i have a lot of delicate information about the people i am caring for and if i empty the contents of my head, without filtering, i am bound to alienate, offend, and/or scare the crap out of patients. the delivery of information is a huge responsiblity and it makes my skin crawl when i hear other nurses forgetting that.

example: i entered the clinic and asked of another nurse, 'excuse me, have you heard from mrs. n yet today?' she answered, 'oh, it's not lookin' good. she is one sick puppy. soon as she gets here, i'm gonna culture her out the wazoo'. this said in a waiting room full of oncology patients peering out over their masks like a band of immunocompromised bank robbers.

come on...
could you not find any better way of stating that?
could you not have said wait a minute and then pulled me aside?
do you have a filter?
do you know how to engage it?

it's an unspoken code of ethics. well, not for long, as it appears i'm about to speak about it. we are, as caretakers, allowed off-color, inappropriate comments regarding patients and their dilemmas to each other. we are allowed to say things to each other that we would never say to the patients directly. strangely, it's part of staying human in the face of watching your fellow humans dehumanized by disease. that's a lot of humans...but you know what i mean.

it's laughing when what your soul wants is to cry.
it's spewing a little venom to someone who won't think you're a bad person for doing so.
it's expressing anger and frustration as humor or sarcasm.
it's knowing there but for the grace of god go i and needing to work for another 6 hours without losing it.
it's a tie that binds caregivers facing incessant human suffering.
it's good old fashioned denial.
it's a coping technique.

example: i asked an attending what we would give my patient if this current round of chemo fails, and he calmly answered, 'flowers'. i admit that the succinctness and blatant honesty shocked me and gave me competing urges to laugh and cry. and we half-laughed and half-cried and then went about our day.

but the system breaks down when people forget the filter...when they forget how heavily our words are weighed by those under our care...when they forget that we have been ordained as keepers of intimate, scary details of people's lives and it's with the understanding that we will choose our words carefully and compassionately.

to my colleague:
you are a great nurse, committed, hard working, caring, knowledgeable. i know that your exuberance is born out of passion. but still...you need to clean up your act a little. you owe it to all patients within earshot to engage your filter. it's part of your job.
p.s. let me know what grows out of that 'wazoo culture'