Finally, after numerous attempts to get my attention, I went to her. She smiled, took my hand and said, "You’re the nurse that scrubbed my vagina." I gasped and clutched my pearls (but wait, being a man I didn’t have any pearls, but I did have a stethoscope, so I clenched it) and said, "As lovely as that sounds I think you have the wrong nurse."
I turned to walk away when she said, "It was you all right. I pee’d all over the stretcher and you scolded the girls for leaving me that way. It was a couple of months ago. I was so embarrassed but you helped me through it. Thank you is all I wanted to tell you."
They pop out of nowhere these "thank-yous for yesterday’s care" that they almost seem to compensate for the pop-ups of the Secret Shopper.
Yes, the fabled Secret Shopper. It's a surprise attack of a vicious nature that guarantees to enthrall and captivate a triage nurse. It is not a myth of the nursing world. The Secret Shopper exists and I am imprisoned by two memories...
Lady One sat down and informed me of a seizure she endured while sitting in the waiting room.
"You had a seizure?" I said mystified while taking her pulse.
"Yes, while I was waiting for you to call me," she answered while dabbing her lips with cherry Chapstick.
Just then her hand trembled and the Chapstick fell to the floor. "See?!" she told me. "It happens and I have no control over it."
"That was a seizure?" I said with disbelief, but turned to grab a stretcher from the ambulance bay. I rolled it over to her and guided her onto the rough mattress when she exclaimed, "Don’t give me any Ativan! I’m allergic to it."
A seizure patient allergic to Ativan was a red flag, not to mention her glazed over appearance. It’s like talking to an owl, I thought, and knew she was up to no good.
Lady Two, sporting a lopsided mullet, was a spy who did not love me. Before she sat in the chair she asked me in a British accent as authentic as Madonna’s, “Where do I hang my coat?”
"You can place it on that chair." In my head I thought, Right next to the drug addict, biyatch.
"But it’s an Ann Taylor," she professed while laying the coat down. (I must admit, labels are a way to my heart.) But then the drug addict lovingly stroked the jacket claiming, "I love Burlington Coat Factory!"
"Oh?" I said devastated at the thought. "Whatever do you mean?" said the spy.
When I asked the patient her name she said, "Oh, I’m not here for that. I just want to see the doctor for my cough." It was then that she started coughing a cough so fake and forced that I was surprised the academy had not nominated her. It went on and on like a thrown-up hairball.
"Please offer me a napkin," this time the accent was Scottish. (Susan Boil-ed over).
It was then I realized I had to react to this Secret Shopper, so I handed her the Kleenex and started to complain about my dull, chapped hands. "I’ve been washing them all day," I said. "Look at how brittle they are."
The Shopper was horrified to see the cuts on my knuckles and proclaimed, "I’m not here for that."
Realizing this woman was doing a horrible job convincing me that she was a patient, I asked her where she lived in NYC.
"I live on the West Side," she answered. But after I named a few restaurants and bars she said, "I live on the East Side."
I was clearly beside myself when I asked her to put on a mask since her coughing proved as uncontrollable as her lies.
"A mask?" she asked with astonishment. "But I’m not here for that."
That's when I escorted her to an isolation room and notified an ER doctor.
Hail the clean vagina that left me so starry eyed. "I'm here for that."
As a nurse of 32 years I can identify with every word. We need the humor, so keep it up.
ReplyDeleteYou guys have secret shopper patients?! I work in a Canadian ER and thank the Lord we don't have fake sick people here.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up with the squeaky clean perineums, though :).
Sometimes a thank you is all it takes to enter my heart.
ReplyDeleteI deal with a lot of spinal cord patients and I generally distance myself from the quads. The complications scare me, the patients tend to be a little on the demanding side, and I've just never clicked with one. Needless to say, I recently had a patient who is a quad. I'd done your average care for him until one day his wife and brother pulled me aside and said, "Thank you for taking such good care of him. He always tells us that he knows it'll be a good night when you're on."
That was all it took, I was hooked. I still consider he and his wife some of my best friends.
I appreciate that you articulate what goes through many of our minds but often feel ashamed of saying it outloud for fear of being perceived as a "bad nurse".
ReplyDeleteAs always love it!
You kill me! I love your stories and am glad I found your site! Keep writing! OB RN
ReplyDeleteToday I got a 'thank you' from a little old Cambodian woman who speaks about 3 words of English (now five).
ReplyDeleteMy little patient has been on our ortho ward now for about five weeks, she's a full assist with no mobility and only speaks when she has pain or needs needs something. My thank you was for knowing that she needed to go to the toilet and for taking her.
It has made my day, and I hope that I can brighten hers too.
I used to secret shop for a grocery chain. I felt like the things they asked me to do would be a DEAD GIVEAWAY that I was a secret shopper! We were taught how to angle for a sample in the bakery and produce section in a way that no customer would ever think!
ReplyDeleteOh, and secret shopping an emergency ward? Save it for the gift shop, please!
ReplyDelete'you scrubbed my vagina'?! so eloquent...
ReplyDeleteI know its a tough job, nursing I mean, although scrubbing vags would qualify too, but I do hope you were gentle...
Love the post...but please to all of us, these are patients, professional relationships, not friends. Nurses need to be nurses in the lives of our patients, that is what they need most from us, to be really good at what we do. Even if we spend weeks on end, for 12 hours at a time, we do not have the professional freedom to treat people as friends. The opposite is treating others as enemies. And lets admit it, there are patients we avoid until we would be charged with abandonment if we did not respond. So for the sake of health care equity, do not be proud of boundry violations caused by a simple human kindness like a thank you.
ReplyDeleteWhat,anonymous? What did you say?
ReplyDeleteBoundary violations because he washed her crotch? Or because he got a thank you for good care, and he mentioned it (without any identifying information)? I'm torn between saying you aren't making any sense, and asking you to buzz off.
Speaking of boundary violations, secret shoppers in the ED? Trying to fake a seizure, and jumping the line ahead of the real sick people? Triage level 5, because based on my assessment they are not actually sick. And a note on the chart that the "seizures" disappeared when the patient thought she was not being observed.