By
Jennifer Larson, NurseZone feature writer
Anita Whitlock, LPN,
knows what it’s like to be a nurse who becomes a patient. A number of years ago, she was
working in the newborn nursery at a Cleveland, Ohio, hospital, when she had to undergo a
hysterectomy.
Suddenly Whitlock
found herself facing a situation from the other side: She became a patient herself at the
same hospital. Suddenly nurses were caring for her.
“I was on a
medical-surgical floor, so none of the nurses knew who I was,” she said. “They
didn’t know I was a nurse.”
It was a difficult
surgery and recovery period for Whitlock, and she remained hospitalized for 10 days.
Whitlock experienced a good deal of pain, but sometimes her nurses were reluctant to give
her adequate pain medication.
“Pain management
was a real issue for nurses. It was interesting to see a lot of the reactions these nurses
had,” she said, noting how she became frustrated when the nurses tried to delay giving
her pain medication.
“I’m sure I was
not an easy patient to take care of,” Whitlock admitted, but the experience made her
realize that it’s impossible for anyone to really know what it’s like to be a patient,
scared and in pain, until she’s been a patient herself.
“There is probably
no better way of learning than having to be on the other side of the bedrail,” Whitlock
said. “It gave me insight into how to deal with my patients.”
Whitlock is not the
only nurse who has found herself in this type of situation. Even for seasoned nurses, it
can be disconcerting, if not downright scary at times, to become a patient.
After all, nurses
are accustomed to providing care and making decisions, not to receiving care and listening
to others discuss their treatment.
Merle Kentner, LVN,
has had good experiences as a patient for the most part, but there has been at least one
time that she was less than impressed with the nursing care that she received. A nurse
seemed annoyed with Kentner, who had undergone knee surgery, when Kentner asked for pain
meds.
“She gave me the
impression there was no order for pain meds, and that she didn’t want to be bothered,”
Kentner said, but added that it seemed like a case of a nurse struggling under a heavy
patient load.
“Had she not been
so overwhelmed with the standard twice-as-many patients than what is safe and
reasonable…maybe she would have had time to check my orders on return to my room,”
Kentner said.
“I’ve had
disappointing experiences with nurses every time I’ve been a patient,” said Doreen
Henricks, RN, a nurse in Atlanta, Georgia.
Henricks remembered
a nurse who snapped at her for asking for a pain-reducing shot after surgery and another
nurse who neglected to assess her abdomen after she was admitted to the hospital for acute
abdominal pain. She was also concerned that one nurse did not administer pain medications
to all the patients in a timely manner.
“I’ve tried to
learn from these experiences and treat my patients better than this,” she said.
In fact, many nurses
were inspired by their experiences as patients to become better nurses.
Judith Levin, RN,
was in the hospital during the birth of her third child, a son, 16 years ago when she
found out how frustrating it can be to be a patient. Despite the fact that Levin was a
nurse and “knew the routine,” she felt that the nurses who tended to her were not very
helpful.
Although Levin had
planned for the birth with her doctor and decided on a spinal epidural, her nurses told
her that she had to have a general anesthetic. The frustration continued when she could
not get a nurse to help her sit up after she had a Caesarian section. As she struggled to
a sitting position, she overheard some comments made by a couple of her nurses.
“I felt the staff
could have done more to achieve a [happier] customer,” she said. “I believe I try more
now to see the other side of the [person’s complaint].”
Whitlock was
originally inspired to become a nurse because she vividly remembered how it felt to be a
scared new mom, huddled over an Isolette as her newborn baby fought for his life in a
neonatal intensive care unit.
Her second child was
born with congenital heart disease. He died after only four days of life. Whitlock said
she remembers feeling helpless and vowing to help others someday who might go through the
same sad ordeal.
One thing that many
nurses say they learned from being a patient themselves is how to treat their patients
exactly as they wish they had been treated.
It took a car
accident for Beverly Iglai, RN, to discover a few things that she would do differently.
She was hit by a drunk driver in 1985 when she was living in Parma, Ohio. She was taken to
the community hospital where she worked.
“I learned not to
ever use a rolled-up towel as a pillow. A towel is a very uncomfortable thing, and I would
never do that to a patient,” she said. “I learned that having to use a bedpan is a
very embarrassing thing, and that having to have a friend actually empty that bedpan is
worse.”
Iglai also
discovered that some hospital procedures, like moving patients to the X-ray department,
might be improved. Moving from a gurney to an X-ray table with a broken bone can be quite
painful, she noted, and she speculated that there could be better ways.
“I also learned
that being in a hospital bed all day long is a very boring thing, and I’m not one who
gets bored easily,” Iglai said.
That inspired her to
make at least one behavior change when she got back to work.
“I always try to
spend extra moments with patients who don’t ever have any visitors,” she said.
Whitlock’s later
experiences compounded her resolve to be a caring, compassionate nurse. When caring for
patients who had undergone surgery, she made sure that she was especially sensitive to
them.
“I knew what kind
of pain these people were in. I didn’t waste time getting them their medication,” she
said. “I didn’t question that they were having pain. I knew how to take care of them
better because of what I had gone through.”
But despite some bad
experiences with some nurses, many nurses said that they’ve been fortunate to encounter
quite a few other nurses who were truly dedicated to providing good care to their
patients.
Iglai counts herself
as lucky that the nurses who treated her in the emergency room after she was hit by a car
knew her from work. The night nursing supervisor stopped by to visit with her, as did many
of her colleagues. One nurse even called in the IV team to start Iglai’s IV, even though
she had years of experience in starting IVs.
Levin found herself
grateful for a nurse at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Her son was
born with a cleft palate, and the staff at the children’s hospital were very sensitive
to his needs. As a nurse and a mother, Levin especially appreciated the care.
“The staff was
very good at teaching me to feed the baby and have him put on weight for his surgeries,”
she said. “Thanks to the nurses in Chicago and to a few who helped at the local
hospital. And thank God I was a nurse, too. Otherwise, I would have been very surprised
and not known what to do.”
Henricks also
emphasized that she has encountered many excellent nurses during her own periods of
hospitalization.
“To be fair, they
were in the majority,” she said. “Some of them knew me; some did not. But from them,
there was an incredible outpouring of kindness and compassion. The negative experiences
were far outweighed by the goodness of these individuals.”
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