vestmoria

a caregiver can be a RN that performs a job in a hospital, might be in a union, gets paid and has pauses, but also a person that does it for somebody in the family who needs caregiving, like an aging parent or a wife with MS.

I've heard so many stories of mostly women, complaining but mostly venting that they have a regular job AND then have to go home and must take care of an ungrateful elder, are not being paid, how taxing it is, while other siblings do nothing but offer platitudes, do not to help and have normal lives.

I can understand why people act so passively because taking care of an aging parent or a wife with MS is hard, not valued, back breaking non stop job, physically and mentally, unpaid and unrecognized by society but at the same time, expected. It's even worse because adults without this kind of responsibility love to judge and call you ungrateful for not sacrificing your life for your ailing parents (they gave you life!!, that's not christian!!). Most you'll hear from people somehow aware of this situation is that you're a hero or an angel, which is so insulting and out of touch.

I wouldn't sacrifice my life for my parents, move in with them to be their maid 24/7 like these women.

But what if it was just another job, I was paid, had my pauses and I could call in sick and clock out? It looks better.

Where you live, is this possible? How much in wages did you lose? Any regrets?

This happens in a hospital’s ICU.

The patient’s daughter, a woman from the middle east in her thirties and very limited English, after seeing her father in a bed, intubated, with several syringe pumps, a pacer, several monitoring sensors and more stuff, started yelling a long, continued aaaaaahhh…, took her phone, called somebody, started yelling at the phone in her mother tongue, left the room, left the ICU but immediately after started banging the door to be let in again, she yelled to the phone again, the woman at the end of the line started yelling as well, so that’s 2 women yelling, equally stressed. 2 family members who happened to be there started banging the door as well, a nurse approached the door, let them in, telling them in a stern voice and not looking friendly not to yell, which, to my surprise, worked a bit: the daughter kept yelling, but not so loud as before, the other 2 women didn’t yell, they all followed the nurse into the room.

I froze. This has never happened to me. I thought about hugging the daughter but being a man and not speaking an ounce of Arabic I didn’t know if she would think I was trying to assault her. I don’t know how people from the middle east, presumably Muslims, react to this.

If you ever experienced something like this, what did you do?

ETA: I wrote yelling and not wailing, because to me it wasn’t wailing: Wailing is recognized automatically, it makes you cry, this wasn’t like that, wailing cannot be faked. I was born in a household where appearances were highly valued. One family tradition where I was born is to fake cry during funerals: you’re supposed to show how sad you are by faking to sob and cry, but to anyone smart enough it’s clear that’s fake. My grandfather never loved my grandmother and when she died after 50 years of unhappy marriage, he did exactly that during the funeral.

What this woman did felt like that.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3985690

it's footage made by the Americans to be shown to the court and possibly to the German public to advance denazification. It begins with a map of occupied Europe and the names and locations of the main concentration camps.

I've seen some excerpts of that documentary on several history documentaries, but never the whole film.

In the film shown to the court we see some prisoners praying, thanking their saviors, emaciated dead prisoners, excavators burying decaying bodies by the hundreds, former prisoners describing Nazi torture techniques, a crematorium is shown...

Do you know the name of the footage and where to find it?

it's footage made by the Americans to be shown to the court and possibly to the German public to advance denazification. It begins with a map of occupied Europe and the names and locations of the main concentration camps.

I've seen some excerpts of that documentary on several history documentaries, but never the whole film.

In the film shown to the court we see some prisoners praying, thanking their saviors, emaciated dead prisoners, excavators burying decaying bodies by the hundreds, former prisoners describing Nazi torture techniques, a crematorium is shown...

Do you know the name of the footage and where to find it?

I don't quite believe this, but since I quit my last position and started my new one within the same hospital system, I've been offered 2 positions: OR and Radiology.

OR is interesting because they work with so many active ingredients, they monitor patients constantly, they get to interpret ECG and electrolyte imbalances. You can learn and work with cool stuff.

Most of the coworkers there are mature: they do their job, they explain the rationale, they teach me stuff. I like it.

There are 2 childish gossips incapable of shutting their mouths to talk about the most inane stuff thinkable. I like using downtime to learn, not to talk about boring stuff. These kind of people have always wasted my time and energy.

This is what I wanted to tell the charge: I see a future with you, only if these 2 people do not take part in my orientation (3 to 6 months) and if during downtime they do not pester me with inane stuff, but let me learn. I do not talk about my private life at work, I'm on the introverted side and when people force me to talk to them it drains me. I've worked at units where managers promised a genuine and serious orientation, but the staff were more focused on gossip than on teaching me. I don't need that. I want to be around people who take orientation as seriously as I do.

Radiology would be similar I guess.

reasons to say yes: you do you, you tell them what they need to provide so you can excel at your job.

reasons to say no: I become the asshole, as I'd be breaking the peace.

short answer: no. It happens, move on.

a bit longer answer: an elective operation with no immediate danger to a person's life like a heart operation is going to be postponed no matter what if more than one doctor calls in sick. It also happens if there are not enough anesthesiologists.

Why I'm asking this question. On my last post somebody wrote:

Nobody deserves to have their medical treatment withheld, even temporarily, even if it was an elective procedure.

My take: the person who wrote this and all of them who upvote him don't work in healthcare and have unrealistic expectations of what working in a hospital entails, don't consider the workload a nurse has to endure and how the general population's respect of nurses and doctors but specially nurses has tanked since covid.

Any heart operation is always more important than an elective one that can be safely postponed.

It's not only a respect issue, but a literacy one as well, as many patients and their family members come to us with really stupid questions and resent us when corrected: no, statins do not cause dementia, no, the pills your friend gave you so you don't have to inject yourself with insulin twice a day for the rest of your life so your diabetes doesn't spike are BS and are the reason why you feel tired and dizzy.

Nurses are no longer celebrated but considered as malicious agents with a hidden agenda, insulted and struck.

I wrote sick doctors, but in emergencies or mass casualty incidents several or all elective surgeries get canceled.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3626563

with people with good skills to defuse a tense situation at the workplace I mean everyone of you, because I suck at this and I'm sure anyone here is better than I am with this kind of stuff.

Tense situation is a karen yelling at one of my colleagues because her father's operation was postponed because I kid you not 4 doctors called in sick today. Rumor has it they're striking for better pay.

My instinctive response if someone starts behaving like a childish, snippy, entitled karen and acts passive-aggressively is to leave and ignore the person. In this case, the karen started ranting to my coworker, getting all snippy and wouldn't shut up. A rational conversation with people that irrational is impossible, so I kept doing my job, transferring a patient to another ward.

I never expected this colleague to tell me she felt let down because I didn't help her to deal with said karen. She said simply staying next to her would have sufficed. I told her I'd do that next time someone yells at her.

I consider myself lucky because I can leave to do my job but my colleague was trapped with this person.

My questions to you people with good social skills:

does it really help to simply stay next to my colleague, letting her do the talking while I do nothing but looking at the karen in the eye?

what if, each time the karen opens her mouth I repeat 'calm down' ad nauseam till she either tires, shuts up or walks away?

what do you say or do to support your coworkers while they're being verbally abused that somewhat defuses the situation?

what if avoiding conflict is a trait of mine to the point that I let people walk all over me?

how do you resist the urge to walk away? Situations like this trigger my fight or flight response.

what if I have to do this with a man and it gets physical? If somebody strikes me and I strike back, and I can guarantee you I'm striking back, I'm as guilty as the first aggressor.

with people with good skills to defuse a tense situation at the workplace I mean everyone of you, because I suck at this and I'm sure anyone here is better than I am with this kind of stuff.

Tense situation is a karen yelling at one of my colleagues because her father's operation was postponed because I kid you not 4 doctors called in sick today. Rumor has it they're striking for better pay.

My instinctive response if someone starts behaving like a childish, snippy, entitled karen and acts passive-aggressively is to leave and ignore the person. In this case, the karen started ranting to my coworker, getting all snippy and wouldn't shut up. A rational conversation with people that irrational is impossible, so I kept doing my job, transferring a patient to another ward.

I never expected this colleague to tell me she felt let down because I didn't help her to deal with said karen. She said simply staying next to her would have sufficed. I told her I'd do that next time someone yells at her.

I consider myself lucky because I can leave to do my job but my colleague was trapped with this person.

My questions to you people with good social skills:

does it really help to simply stay next to my colleague, letting her do the talking while I do nothing but looking at the karen in the eye?

what if, each time the karen opens her mouth I repeat 'calm down' ad nauseam till she either tires, shuts up or walks away?

what do you say or do to support your coworkers while they're being verbally abused that somewhat defuses the situation?

what if avoiding conflict is a trait of mine to the point that I let people walk all over me?

how do you resist the urge to walk away? Situations like this trigger my fight or flight response.

what if I have to do this with a man and it gets physical? If somebody strikes me and I strike back, and I can guarantee you I'm striking back, I'm as guilty as the first aggressor.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3524630

former bed side nurse here on sick leave till the end of the month. I should start my new job away from patients with normal working hours on October 1st.

I feel drained, even though I eat and sleep well, the best I've slept in months, my circadian rhythm is that of a normal human being, I can cook, go shopping, I even play some hobbies now.

Nobody yells at me or makes passive aggressive or backhanded remarks for me to hear.

The 1st. of October is a week away and I don't believe I'll be a fully functioning human being by then, most probably I'll ask for a 2 week sick leave extension.

what worked for you to go back to your normal self?

former bed side nurse here on sick leave till the end of the month. I should start my new job away from patients with normal working hours on October 1st.

I feel drained, even though I eat and sleep well, the best I've slept in months, my circadian rhythm is that of a normal human being, I can cook, go shopping, I even play some hobbies now.

Nobody yells at me or makes passive aggressive or backhanded remarks for me to hear.

The 1st. of October is a week away and I don't believe I'll be a fully functioning human being by then, most probably I'll ask for a 2 week sick leave extension.

what worked for you to go back to your normal self?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3511467

I learned what non violent communication is a day ago and I'm using it to mend a friendship.

Have you however used it at the workplace?

I find it unpractical: there are so many things to do at the workplace and the last thing stressed people with deadlines need is to have a conversation about feelings, but maybe I'm wrong?

A question for nurses working bedside: do you actually use non violent communication at your ward with your patients and actually have time to do your other duties, like charting, preparing infusions and meds, dealing with providers, insurance, the alcoholic who fights you, the demented one who constantly tries to leave the unit, the one who wants to leave ama (against medical advice)?

I learned what non violent communication is a day ago and I'm using it to mend a friendship.

Have you however used it at the workplace?

I find it unpractical: there are so many things to do at the workplace and the last thing stressed people with deadlines need is to have a conversation about feelings, but maybe I'm wrong?

A question for nurses working bedside: do you actually use non violent communication at your ward with your patients and actually have time to do your other duties, like charting, preparing infusions and meds, dealing with providers, insurance, the alcoholic who fights you, the demented one who constantly tries to leave the unit, the one who wants to leave ama (against medical advice)?