Tuesday, December 06, 2011

are we crazy?

Its 10 am. The fire alarms are going off (being tested). You know how loud they are in a hospital. The guy who uses that big loud machine to clean the floors is currently doing his thing. The monitors are going off. The patient call lights are going off. The phone is ringing.

In the middle of all this I ask myself: are we all insane? Is the ability to work in an environment that would send most people running for the door normal? I don't think it is. The fact that it is like this and yet we continue to keep doing it, makes me wonder about myself. Why would I put myself through this? And I have been doing this for years.

A lot of ER folks like to tell themselves that they are pretty special, pretty great, because they can function in this chaotic, loud, stressful environment. We get off on that fact. But are we special, are we pretty great because we can function in this chaos, dealing with all of these dysfuncitonal people?

Hey I know somebodys got to do it. Thank goodness there are people who will do it. But sometimes I wonder why I would choose to work in a situation like this. A chaotic, stressful, sometimes abusive environment in a place that places expectations that people are unable to fulfill. A nurse who left the ER once told me that she thought working there was self abuse. Hmmmmmm... any thoughts?

5 comments:

  1. I'll go for self-abuse and add to it a ton of instant gratification. Not many people know what to do in an emergency. Knowing what to do and in what order to do those things can be literally life-saving in myriad circumstances.

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  2. I don't hear any of those noises any more, but the ones in my head are getting louder.

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  3. Yes, we're insane...glad someone has figured it out. Ha! But I'm also with Linda...ER/ED work can be immensely, intensely, and immediately gratifying!

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  4. Yeah, definitely crazy. I did it for over 25 years (night shift). Left a couple of years ago and am now doing office work and although I wouldn't want to give up the experience and highs and lows I experienced during that time, I could NEVER now go back to working in such an environment and doing such hard, crazy work. Of course, I'm 60 now and I don't think there are many people my age who SHOULD be doing that work. Kudos to all of you who hang in there.

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  5. Hey I know somebodys got to do it. Thank goodness there are people who will do it. But sometimes I wonder why I would choose to work in a situation like this.
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