High School Hospital

I was one of those people who didn’t enjoy high school. I didn’t hate it either, but I saw it as a stepping stone towards something greater. I certainly didn’t enjoy the petty backstabbing, clique forming, ass kissing groups that smiled at your face while their lackeys stabbed you in the back. Leaving high school was great because I was finally free of the aforementioned people. But they were quickly replaced by another set. In university, they wanted to rip off your academic accomplishments. In the workplace, they want to strip you of your professional accomplishments. But no matter what stage of life they’re in, they all have one thing in common – they’re all a bunch of vindictive bitches who know how to ‘work the system’. They can be mean, and they’re often stupid, but they get in touch with the higher ups (some of whom couldn’t give two shits about what’s actually going on in their units so long as the right paperwork is done) and so, they can make your work life HELL! Mean cliques can be especially dangerous when they’re led by stupid people.

Sadly, two of my very good friends (and highly competent nurses) are in trouble because of such slithering snakes holding nursing licenses. Without giving too much information away, the first friend got called into her manager’s office because he has allegedly been providing consistently unsafe patient care. Never mind that none of his patients have ever complained against him or have suffered any adverse outcomes but because the manager is chummy-chummy with the snake, all of his charts are going through review. I’m sure he’s going to come out of this unscathed but it’s extremely unfortunate that so much time and effort is being wasted on trying to look for something that doesn’t exist. The icing on the cake - when I was orienting, this nurse told me "basically it doesn't matter what kind of insulin you give - they're all the same!"

The second friend was also called into her manager’s office for violating “patient confidentiality”. Over dinner. During her days off. What did she have the misfortune of uttering out loud? “Some days I hate work [name of hospital] because I’m sick of dealing with demanding people who have their heads stuck up their asses”. Ummm, isn’t irritation with oblivious demanding masses almost a prerequisite for working with the public? Some manager-ish person who was sitting nearby and heard her called her into her office to discuss the “image of the workplace she’s projecting when she’s not working”. We quietly talked about how certain TYPES of patients (did NOT mention specific names/cases) drive us mental and how we deal with their crap. Apparently we’re not supposed to talk to our friends or our close support systems – we have to talk to hospital employed specialists. I would much rather rant and bitch to my closest friends get it done with and then go on with my bloody day rather than speak to a stranger! What I still fail to understand is HOW patient confidentiality was compromised considering no specifics were mentioned – no names, no specific cases, no ages, no locations. Because of some gremlin trying to cozy up to higher management, my friend is stuck dealing with idiotic management on several levels.

Right now I’m furious on behalf of my friends and any nurse who has had to deal with obnoxious backstabbing bullshit because it can easily happen to any of us. My naivety led me to believe that a nurse’s first priority would be to provide the best possible care to patients, not to keep a bunch of vindictive people with the mentality and intelligence of high school punks happy.