Stereotypes

Frequently patients or family members think I'm a doctor as I walk in the room at the beginning of the shift, or they ask if I'm doing this until I go to medical school. Maybe it's because males are less than 10% of nurses or it could be my boring blue scrubs and demeanor. Face it women nurses tend to wear happy scrubs with lots of colors and patterns. Yes, that is a stereotype and that's my point. As a male nurse we are stereotyped a lot.

Everybody stereotypes or jumps to conclusions about something or someone, its human nature. We do it with individual people, races, cultures, communities and even whole countries, and of course the occupational stereotypes.

Teaching is still a women dominated profession and we keep hearing about the ones getting caught doing a little extra curricular activities with their students.

Is there anybody who doesn't know a lawyer joke or have something positve to say?

Body building and steroid use equals small testicles. Does anybody outside of bodybuilders think this is a profession?

Doctors have that God complex. Personally, I notice this trait more in the Neurosurgeons.

Try not to stereotype a secretary, cop, construction worker, flight attendant, cook, trucker, librarian, farmer or architect. They are all noble professions, but it seems every occupation can bring up some stereotypes so don't go postal on me.

If you are offended or agree then good, because nurses still have the worst stereotype. Look at this ad I found in the Vegas phone book a while back.

For every one person who associates Florence Nightingale with nurses, one hundred think of this stereotype.



Why does Jesus hate religion?

 Last visit home I saw this sign and had to take a picture. I'm more spiritual than religious and I don't know why Jesus hates religion, but I think it has something to do with the people who preach the word in order to profit from it. I can understand that and actually commend this church for putting it out there.

Many independent studies have shown the benefits of prayer, religion, spirituality, faith or whatever cultural practices you believe in, do in fact help in the healing process.  

Survivor vs Biggest Loser

For the first time in a long time I watched a whole episode of Survivor and the show has changed. Remember when contestants actually had to show some survival skills and maybe eat a bug or two. Now it seems like they pick people who look good in bikinis or are controversial. My ideas would be different.

I want to see a real survivor show, so how about dropping these people in Canada or Northern Minnesota in the winter and seeing how they survive.

The contestants do lose a lot of weight over the 39 days. So how about combining the show The Biggest Loser and Survivor together, can you imagine the mind games on that island? Now I would watch that every week.

Shift Report

As a new grad nurse shift reports were one of those nerve racking parts of the job, but over time like everything else it becomes routine. You have your nurses who expect you to tell them everything about the patient, even as far as doing their whole shift assessment. Then you have the veteran nurses who just like you to hit the abnormalities.

Last shift I was taking over for a nurse who just worked 16 hours and I told her hit the highlights and go home. Her report for the first patient was short and sweet as he was a fresh heart cath, then she started with the second patient saying he was a 55-year-old morbidly obese Hispanic male who was crossing the border when he ate a burrito and experienced an MI, but he's fine.

I looked up from my paper because what I just visualized a Chris Farley comedy moment.

She may have been tired but this was too good to let go. I look at her and said, you just told me that an overweight Mexican was crossing the border when he ate a burrito and had a heart attack. I let her think for a minute before she had the same visual I did and laughed.

Nurses have a warped sense of humor and this patient is fine, but sometimes you need to take care of your co-workers and if you can lighten the moment then do it.

Later I looked at the doctors H&P and saw that three days ago he was crossing the border with some friends in a truck and had eaten a burrito while waiting. He then started experiencing some chest pain, and after three days of this intermittent chest pain he decided it was a good idea to go the hospital.

Dead Blogs

Haven't been in the mood to write lately so I have been reading other people blogs from all over the world, and it has been interesting to say the least. I wish I could be creative and write like some of these people, but we all can't be like the Estelle's  of the world. Shit most of my writing involves school and research papers that I love it and hate it at the same time.

Although, one pet peeve I keep noticing is that most people list others blogs on their sites, which is a good thing. But, so many have blogs listed that I would consider dead, you know they have not had an entry in over a year

I clicked on one of these links recently that has not had a post since 2008. Obama was still running, the Jonas Brothers were on top and some people actually thought Sarah Palin had something to say. Who knows maybe that blogger really is dead?

Keep moving forward

One group project this quarter and of course all the obligatory papers to write. Although looking forward to our a service learning class that needs to be completed in the community. Basically volunteering for over 60 hours in your chosen field and then writing a paper about it, and when they say over 60 hours trust me it will not be much over that, because this is not even part of the graduate program yet. Mostly I'm looking forward to being in a different health care setting besides my current hospital, even if it is just volunteer work.

But, why is it only february and I feel burnt out already.

Egypt

As I watch the continuing news coverage on what is happening in Egypt I feel so happy for the people. They are making their destiny and for the most part in a peaceful manner; which is amazing for a country so large with over 80 million people.
If that happened here the rioters and looters would be out of control, heck it take a lot less than that, sometimes just a little alcohol and a sports championship to ignite the stupidity.

I'm sure we will hear about incidents, situations and lies that a dying government will try to use, but I wish the people well on this new journey and may it stay peaceful now and into their future.

Update: I wrote this yesterday because today things turned and the pro-government thugs moved in and started clashing with the demonstrators.