Читать книгу Confessions of a Male Nurse - Michael Alexander - Страница 11

Sharon’s law

A nurse is a nurse first, and a woman (or in my case, a man) second. At least, that was the thinking of my mentor, Cherie. One of Cherie’s favourite sayings was, ‘If a woman has to go down there, then so do you.’ Maybe that was why she made me go after that suppository. In Cherie’s world of nursing, there was no gender, just doing the job and doing it well. My problem was I never expected to be doing this particular job, in this particular area of nursing.

I had applied to work at the hospital as a general nurse on the new graduate programme. I expected to be offered a ‘normal’ nursing job in a surgical or medical ward. But I couldn’t turn down the offer of a full-time job. They didn’t even interview me for the position. Maybe the personnel manager was too embarrassed to admit that she had made a mistake. Maybe this was the reason no one seemed to like me, especially Sharon.

‘Stop daydreaming: pull your finger out your arse and do some work.’

The calm way in which Sharon said this left me speechless.

‘And close your mouth, you look stupid.’

Sharon seemed satisfied that she had made me look the fool and moved on down the corridor in search of her next victim. Only four weeks into my nursing career and I was learning to avoid my charge nurse at all costs. I looked over at Cherie.

‘I have to tell you something you won’t like’ – Cherie was never afraid to speak her mind – ‘Sharon doesn’t like you . . . a lot.’

With my self-esteem at an all-time low, I began to go about my rounds.

I knew that I knew nothing. It was a good thing really, as too much confidence can be harmful.

It won’t come as a surprise that I struggled with some parts of the job already. Things were unfamiliar, and it was usually vitally important that I got them right. The latest problem in front of me was called erythromycin. It’s an antibiotic, and in this case it needed to be injected straight into a vein.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Sharon asked me, as she entered the treatment room and saw me standing with a syringe full of intravenous antibiotic.

‘I’m waiting for Cherie,’ I replied cautiously.

Hospital policy stated that all intravenous medicines needed to be checked by a second person, but I felt a bit useless standing there doing nothing because mine had already been checked.

‘Let’s have a look. I’ll check them for you.’ Sharon began to look at the drug chart.

‘It’s already been checked,’ I replied. ‘I’m just waiting for Cherie, because she has to watch me administer it.’ Again this was hospital policy.

Sharon rolled her eyes and quietly cursed. I’d said the wrong thing.

There was an awkward silence; a silence which I hoped would last, because I knew when Sharon spoke it wouldn’t be to say how conscientious I was.

Sharon finally broke it with a calm voice, though I could sense the anger building:

‘Are you a registered nurse?’

I wasn’t sure whether to answer. Was it a rhetorical question? I knew there was more to come, so I just nodded my head.

‘Well, start acting like one,’ she added, her voice rising up an octave. ‘You can’t have someone holding your hand all the time. Take some initiative.’

I left the treatment room in a hurry and approached my patient.

Here I was standing at the patient’s bedside, with a syringe full of antibiotic that I’d never given before. Policy stated that I needed three months’ supervision before I could give these medicines on my own, and I was just nearing the end of my first month.

My mind was chaos turning over silly thoughts, crazy thoughts, even suspicious thoughts. Was Sharon trying to set me up to fail? What if something went wrong? I wasn’t even aware of all that could go wrong. If something did happen, no one would back me. Sharon would deny everything. What could I do? I knew what I should do . . . but I couldn’t risk facing the wrath of Sharon.

I slowly opened the intravenous valve and began to insert the syringe. In my nervousness I fumbled the syringe and it fell on to the bed. Was it still okay to use? I didn’t know, but Sharon would kill me if she saw me drawing up another antibiotic. I inserted the syringe and gave the antibiotic, because it was easier to do this than create a scene. I watched the patient’s chest to monitor her breathing. I felt her pulse . . . did it skip a beat? No, I was imagining things.

I waited anxiously those first few minutes, silently praying that nothing went wrong. Thank goodness my patient didn’t know how nervous I was, but even more importantly, thank goodness she didn’t have a clue that I wasn’t supposed to be doing this yet, even if my charge nurse had ordered me to. After five minutes, I figured that if anything was going to happen, it already would have. The one thing that even new nurses know is that with intravenous medicine when something goes wrong, it tends to happen pretty instantaneously.

I’d got away with it, this time, but would I always be so fortunate? One month in and life as a male nurse was already proving to be a minefield.