Re: Off Topic~Thirty Years Ago This Week

I'm so sorry for your loss hopinso. I went through a horrible time for 3 years when I was 17-20. First my mom died, then my grandma died the next year, my other grandmother and my dad died a year and a half after that. The sadness of the losses never quite go away, do they? Your courage and strength are commendable and a witness for all of us.

Because of my losses I became an RN. I wanted to help people get well. Now I look back and realize I was part of the process that many times did just the opposit. I exited from medicine some years ago, disillutioned.

My last nursing job was about 12 years ago. I worked for an internist/oncologist. I worked in the internist part of his practice, but became acquainted with the oncology nurse and some of the patients and had the opportunity to be involved on the fringe with the chemotherapy end of things, just as an observer mostly.

I will never forget what the oncology nurse told me one day. He said, "the chemo doesn't do any good, it just helps them to die faster." As in, we will speed up and intensify their suffering so that it will end sooner rather than let it draw out for a longer time, cause we are pretty sick and tired of having to deal with this, since there is nothing we can really do for them anyway. In addition, we make more money by giving them chemo rather than just giving them pain meds. My impression, at least, of what was going on.

Another oncology nurse once told me that if she ever had any cancer, no matter how minor, she would pack herself a suitcase full of morphine and check into a motel.

After having seen too many people loss body part after body part to surgery, and the devastating effects of radiation and chemotherapy, I have decided in advance to opt out of all of it. I will go alternative. In fact, my next plan for my health is going to be a grand cancer preventative program, since I had a basal cell cancer frozen off my shoulder about 5 years ago with no recurrance. Chances are good that there is some cancer lurking around somewhere in me. Iodine is part of that plan.

I got out of nursing after working in that office, hearing that comment, knowing this doctor who I felt didn't care about anyone but himself and making money, and a problem with HIV treatment.

The internal medicine part of the practice was frantically busy. I had to hop from room to room to do treatments that the doctor ordered as we passed each other in the hallway. We had another nurse assistant who I time shared my job with. She had been a phlebotimist and they were using her as a doctor assistant, or nurse really, which she was not trained for. I had to try my best to train her to do nursing procedures as time allowed. He paid her minimum wage.

We had to just bop into a room, do a procedure the doctor ordered, jot it down on the chart, and go onto the next room. All day, no breaks. One day this nurse assistant gave a shot to a young man, then stuck herself with the needle. She reported this to the doctor who informed her that the patient had HIV. We were both horrified, as I then learned I was doing treatments on people that had HIV and I never knew it. There was nothing on the chart obvious to us that these patients were HIV.

This girl and I confronted the doctor with this. We wanted to be informed if the patient was HIV or had any other communicable disease so that we could take proper precautions to protect ourselves. Taking proper precautions meant taking a lot more time than we had in order to see the patients in a reasonable amount of time and keep the workload flowing properly, but it had to be done.

We handed the doctor the patients chart and asked why it was not flagged in some way to inform us that HIV was present.

He said, "It's up to you to read the chart because it's against his civil liberties for me to tell you or flag the chart in any way."

The chart was about 3 inches thick and buried somewhere in there was the information that the patient was HIV positive. It would have taken us hours to find this information. Completely impractical in this busy office.

When we confronted the doctor with this issue, he said, "then you have to treat each patient as if they were HIV positive."

In many medical settings this is posible to do, and is done. However, in this particular setting it was not.

My friend quit that day. I quit a week later after trying to use HIV protective measures, which didn't work at all. I decided that my health, and the health of my family wasn't worth it.

I never went back to nursing after this. It was the shortest job I ever had, only 3 months. Nursing had been my passion, but I never regretted walking away from it. I guess thousands of nurses found themselves in the same situation and quit; and as I understand it, this created quite a nursing shortage for many years, if not even up to today.

Before anyone jumps on me for not wanting to treat HIV patients, I want you to know that I was perfectly willing to do so. I simply wanted to know that they were HIV positive so that I could take proper precautions. But their civil liberties trumpted my need to know and protect myself and my family. So, I walked away, especially after learning that nurses have the highest percentage of people who get HIV who are not involved in the usually risky behavior to acquire it.

Once again, politics and political correctness make their mark.

On the other hand, I am now glad this happened so that I got out of allopathic medicine. I can still help people with the alternative medicine methods I have learned about, just fewer people.

I am now on my 3rd job since leaving nursing. I worked as a tax preparer for an accountant....boring. Then I had my own business for 5 years selling art supplies and having art classes, turned my hobby into a business. I sold that when a big art supplier (Michaels) moved into town 3 blocks from me. I am now a hostess in a Chinese Buffet Restaurant making $11 an hour (long story on this one). And this job is a kick, I just love it. Can barely pay the bills, but am having a lot of fun.

So, things work out, don't they? I do not miss working with doctors though. 97% of them are like the internist/oncologist I worked for, they are in it for themselves. However, in defense of these people, most are doing their best based upon the knowledge and beliefs they have. They think they are doing a lot of good. They make a lot of money, but they work really hard, sacrifice their families and themselves, and die young. Most of them are just as ignorant and uninformed as the rest of us about the downside of allopathic medicine. And, medicine is their passion and they believe they are right.

They know not what they do.

So, it's up to each one of us to become informed participants in our own health, and hopefully help our loved ones and others to become better informed.

It's awesome that sites like this can help each of us to do so.

Mamahuhu





Tweet