To the blonde “healthcare professional” seated behind a staff only desk, Tuesday night at the ER: Remember me? I was the overly polite blond who inquired about the status of my cancer patient mother’s then three hour wait for medical attention. I want you to know that your general attitude is absolutely deplorable. I do not care in the least whether or not it is in your job description to answer my questions. I was very courteous to you, and did not deserve to be spoken to with such intense disrespect. After the initial shock, I was even nice enough to smile and respond by saying, “Oh, well then, so sorry to inconvenience you.” However, I should inform you that I am NOT nice enough to put off launching a formal complaint to your superiors. I hope that as a repercussion to this experience, you will learn to project a more agreeable attitude in the future. I am sure that anyone who has ever spoken to you would agree that your attitude is completely unacceptable. It is really quite a shame that others must be subjected to speaking with you at all, let alone working with you on a regular basis. I wonder if maybe you wouldn’t be better suited to a different field… one where extreme bitchiness is accepted as the norm. Oh, or maybe you could relocate to the local morgue where the people exposed to you would not have to suffer through the dilemma of preferring death to a basic conversation with a pompous, self righteous person such as yourself. I mean, Seriously?! “Healthcare Professional”? Ha! More like “Professional Bitch”. —Passive Aggressor
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.
They are in a union – there are no repercussions.
Sorry for your situation, no one concerned for the well being of a loved one should have to deal with attitude
I was in the emergency room Tuesday night as well OP, and I had a run in with a ‘healthcare professional’ as well. I’m not sure if they were the same person, as I met mine while she was tearing an IV out of my arm, but it seems to be the place for supreme bitcheyness. There are some fantastic healthcare professionals there, but there are some supreme bitches as well.
Well, don’t forget, they’re probably only earning, like $60 and hour.
While we’re on the topic, I’ve also noticed that there is a disproportionate number of obese health care workers. And by that I mean nurses. Health. Professionals.
So what if they eat burgers. They know how to make sure you get the meds you need.
I hate anyone who is a huge bitch on the job. You filled out the application bitch! Not me! Be mad at yourself! Free smiles? No?
Excuse me but you are not the patient or related to the patient. Second of all the person is a clerk and not a doctor and therefore would not be able to release any information to anyone as that is the job of the doctor or nurse. Thirdly, you’re entitlement attitude is just plain wrong and probably continued to ask questions that the clerk IS NOT ALLOWED TO ANSWER.
I suspect, Bro Tim, that the clerk, at least, could have have looked up with a sympathetic furrow of the brow and said, “I’m sorry – the ER operates on a triage basis and patients are seen in the order of urgency. Depending on the case it may take several hours longer to be seen. When the doctors are ready for your mother she’ll be called. I’m sorry I can’t provide more information.” The OB was quite correct. The patient in question was her mother and accompanied her mother to the ER. Healthcare professionals should be expected to demonstrate empathy as well as professionalism with whomever they may come in contact.
The clerk probably did but some people don’t like no for an answer and makes the person saying no look like an ogre. The OB should clarify things, cancer patient mother’s sounds like the mother of a cancer patient. If it was her mother then she should have said “my mother who is a patient (malady doesn’t matter) but still she cannot answer her question or the questions of everyone else in the ER.
OP, google “How to annoy ER staff” and then put some of those things into practice next time you are at the ER.
As a healthcare professional who works in an emergency department, this post and the comments that have followed it have been so disheartening and upsetting to read!
There are always two sides to every story, however your comments generalizing ER Health care professionals (namely nurses) as “overweight, overpaid and bitchy”….
is extremely insulting and offensive!
I work with some of thee most amazing people I have ever met, and everyday we work together to give every patient and their families in that department the best care we possibly can. I assure you, we do not make “$60 an hour”…not even close! We work tirelessly, often short staffed and without food or breaks! We are verbally and physically abused by patients and their families day in and day out, but we continue to provide the best care possible… if your healthcare professional is “cranky” or “bitchy”… maybe its because 2 minutes before you spoke to them, a patient yelled at them about wait times, something that is not in our control!
Would you go to a bank, be standing in line and run up to the teller at the desk and yell at them asking them how much longer this is going to take?? You can see people ahead of you, they have been waiting too, but it’s not appropriate to go ahead of them and yell at somebody who has no control over putting you ahead! So why is this an acceptable behavior in emergency departments? If you are sick, you WILL be brought in right away, it’s a triage system, and it works.
I am proud to be an Emergency healthcare professional and I am honored to work with the staff that I do….they are amazing people who deserve to be respected and not slandered by the un-informed public on this website!
i have visited the er on several occasions, bike accident, broken ankle, dog attack. sure i’ve had to wait but was always treated with respect. tho i’m not a kunt
As someone who spent 2 full(effing) years in hospital 91/93, I saw the rainbow of nursing. The vast majority, especially emerg, surgical and ICU nurses were kick ass and amazing.
ERProud, please don’t confuse some posters’ statements with reality. I am even guilty of going on a verbal bender, just to hear myself talk.
Nurses do great work and the crappy ones are a small minority. I’ve been the subject of so much caring and skilled nursing, I’ll never be able to pay them back for it.
Not to mention, a lot of you ladies are fine as hell, and I still get kinda smiley seeing you in your scrubs, kicking ass. Needless to say, I’ve had a couple Nurse Crushes over the last 20 years. 🙂
Thanks for your hard work in a sometimes horrible but ALWAYS vital job.
Paul
Ooooh, Yeah – the nurse crush. Always makes me think of Jenny Agutter in “American Werewolf in London”. Rrrrrow! I’ll throw my voice in here as well, 2 trips to the ER (Hfx & Dartmouth), 3 times taking my wife, innumerable visits to Blood Collection Services at Bayers Rd and the folks I’ve dealt with have always been first rate. Yeah, waiting’s a pain. Even when SOBova was going through the agony of a gall bladder attack I made damned sure to stuff a paperback in the pocket of my jacket. But ,no matter how stressful the situation – kindness, empathy and humour have always been the order of the day from the nurses, docs, EMTs. You folks Rawk!
…and all those moon songs^^the only nurse i didn’t like was during childbirth but i wanted to kill everyone anyway. i watched one of the baby eagles flap his wings last night, he was so exhausted he did a faceplant afterwards…screeeeeeeeeeeee
Have you met my sister?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3ohcQm08djA/S_R_…
http://thefunambulistdotnet.files.wordpres…
60$/hour?? Not a chance. Don’t generalise, not all are overweight.
A proprotionate number of physicians are overweight as well i’m sure, but that does not matter. The care you get remains the same.
Anyhow, haven’t you had a bad day at work? Probably… so forget about this incident.. If you aren’t getting the response you want from one staff worker, ask another a few minutes later. Eventually you’ll get a good response. I think there’s a math equation for this..??!