I'm Here to Care

When you work in the Emergency Department you see all walks of life. All classes, races, and ages. You see the broken and those who seem to have it all together. You see the athlete, the child, the working man/woman, the provider, the caregiver, the lonely, the abused, the addicted....

It can be easy to become jaded and write people off when you see the same patient for the same reason for the 3rd time that month because they chose not to care for themselves or couldn't care for themselves at home. Or when the demanding patient barks orders at you without the slightest thought of "please" or "thank you". Or the drunk patient who you've advocated for all night only to have them take a swing at you and spit at you.

Those are the hard days. Those are the days that many go home and wonder "why do I go back?" "why do I put up with that treatment?" But to let these experiences overwhelm  your day is to ruin your spirit, your passion, and your heart as to why you did this in the first place. We do it because we love. We want to give back, we want to help people. You have to count the wins in a day, even if it was just one. When you see the glass half full, the day is better and you are able to let go of the encounters that start to beat you down. 

There was  patient who nearly brought me to tears. He was psychotic and extremely emotional. I gave him every ounce of patience, time, and attention to help calm him down and ease his paranoia. I felt I gave him great care, and he about broke my spirit because nothing was going to satisfy him. I was exhausted and feared coming back to care for him again. Yet that voice in the back of my head said he deserves the same care as everyone else. He is not in his right mind. Meet him where he is. Take a deep breath, smile, and know that you can only help those who want help. 

Last week I oversaw a student starting an IV for the first time. She palpated for a vein and made small talk with the patient. Feeling over one in the crook of the elbow she looked to me for confirmation on her vein of choice. It was a bit scarred. The patient nodded, "It's a good one if you go right above the scar. I used to be an IV drug user".

His honesty was much appreciated. Often you approach a stick a little differently knowing the veins of IV drug users are either few and far between and/or much harder and require more force to hit.

"Thanks for the heads up!" I told him. I explained to the student how this was helpful information in starting his IV. We continued as we had before and the significant other looked up at us with relief. 

"You know, she said. You guys are so great. The last hospital we went to, the second he said that the nurse totally gave him the cold shoulder and was stand-offish the rest of the time".

This took me back. Wow. I turned to her and said gently "We're not here to judge. We appreciate the honesty and just want to see him get better".

It was a beautiful moment that reinforced to me the importance of just caring. We are called to "love our neighbor as ourselves" and "treat others as we would want to be treated". I go to work to serve others and to care, to be the hands and feet of Christ in my work. There will be days that are hard, days that make me cry, and days where I wonder why I am in the profession I am, but I go back to moments like this and remember that I won't always be able to fix it all, but I can give nonjudgmental care and respect to each person that walks through that door. Sometimes that's all you can do, and sometimes that's all they need.