In Praise of Nurses By DANA JENNINGS

I love and admire nurses. Oncology nurses and ostomy nurses. Radiation nurses and post-op nurses. And those essential, always-there-when-you-need-them, round-the-clock nurses. (And though most of my experience is with female nurses, I admire male nurses, too.) Now this isn’t some abstract infatuation, based on seeing “South Pacific” one too many times. I’ve been hospitalized six times in my life, and the medical personnel I came to know best — and like best — were the nurses. To generalize: Nurses are warm, whereas doctors are cool. Nurses act like real people; doctors often act like aristocrats. Nurses look you in the eye; doctors stare slightly above and to the right of your shoulder. (Maybe they’re taught to do that in medical school?) My most recent dependence on nurses came in 2008 and early 2009 as I was treated for an aggressive Stage 3 prostate cancer. But more about that later. My first vivid nurse memory comes from the summer of 1970 at Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire. I was 12 years old — almost 13 — and a benign tumor in my right knee needed to be cut out. The night before surgery, a no-nonsense nurse in starchy whites strode into my room like a drill sergeant. She carried a basin of warm water, shaving cream and a razor, and I soon found out that she was a real baseball fan, a Boston Red Sox fan. “The Sox need to trade Carl Yastrzemski,” she said as she began shaving my right leg. “They need to start dangling him … dangling him, trade him for someone like Roberto Clemente or Dick Allen.” I never even noticed the razor had planed my leg to a hairless sheen. When I spent six weeks in the hospital in 1984 — first at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey, then at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York — some of the nurses started feeling almost like family. And, like family, nurses can sometimes be a bit too frank. I was admitted to Englewood because of heavy bleeding from my ulcerative colitis. My hemoglobin level was 5.6 — the normal number for men (as all nurses know) is between 13 and 17 — and the admitting nurse offhandedly said, “I’ve never seen anyone alive with a hemoglobin that low.” I thought my wife, Deb, was going to faint. A week later I was bundled into an ambulance and packed off to Mount Sinai, where the days passed in a “Matrix”-like blur. I remember the nurses calling, “Keys!!!” and the big fist of keys zipping and zooming up and down the hall floor … the old man with a thick Yiddish accent chanting, “Noice, noice, noice!” … the nurses wrapping my arms, sore and swollen from all the IV needles, in hot towels. Finally I had surgery to remove my ravaged colon. Post-op there are always those disorienting moments as you shake off the anesthesia. Angelic visions flutter about the bed, swabbing your forehead, slipping ice chips between parched lips, and you wonder: Heaven? Or recovery room? “How’re you feeling, Mr. Jennings?” Recovery room – whew! And most recently, for my prostate cancer, I was treated at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Jersey. Except for a flip-flopping energy level, I’m doing well. Every three months, I get my PSA tested — so far, so good. It made me smile that the nurses there called the two round, plastic drains that dangled from my side ”grenades.” And it was one of my grenades that made one young doctor understand that I was more than just another ”prostate cancer, post-op.” I can’t recall her name, but the doctor had been told to remove my drain, my last grenade. She needed to grab it firmly, then tug. Instead, she held it tentatively, as if it were a surly garter snake, and waggled it inside my body. It hurt. I got dizzy, nearly threw up and broke out in a cold sweat. When I told her I was going to pass out, she sheepishly went and got help. Real help. She went and got a nurse. Dana Jennings, an editor at The New York Times, is the author, most recently, of “What a Difference a Dog Makes: Big Lessons on Life, Love and Healing From a Small Pooch” (Doubleday, 2010). Read more at well.blogs.nytimes.com

MALE NURSES

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An open letter from a ‘sexy nurse’ to Dr. Oz

For anyone who watches day time TV, surfs the internet or frequents this wonderful website for nurses you probably have heard about the Dr. Oz debacle and the nursing profession. One of our fellow bloggers posted some thoughts on it here (jump on over and read it here of you’re not familiar with the scene). So a month later Dr. Oz (or should I say Dr. Oz’s ‘people’) releases a formal and public apology with some politically correct and publicly sound words. As a nurse I wonder why some think this is enough? So I thought I’d write my own ‘letter’ to Dr. Oz (or his people) expressing my and hopefully many other nurses concerns. Dear Dr. Oz (or his ‘people’) I’m a registered nurse of 5 years young. I’m a health care professional and a fellow ‘healer’. You’re November 4th episode that lauded the efforts of a weight loss success story was initially inspiring, but eventually quite damaging. I myself did not watch it. I’m not a fan of day time TV (sorry). I do however support any activities that promote and attempt to improve our overall health and wellness. So for those efforts I thank you. But, the show took a turn for the worse and got quite out of hand in the eyes of your fellow professionals. Were you aware of the guests’ actions prior to the taping (I’m assuming it’s a live studio audience)? Or were you actually caught off guard? Was this whole routine rehearsed, or was it spontaneous? Regardless of it’s origin the whole process has angered many of your fellow ‘healers’ including myself. Did you notice I referred to myself as a ‘healer’ and not a subordinate? Did you notice there was no reference of ‘sexy’ anywhere in my description? As a physician partner I can only assume you have worked with ‘our kind’ prior to your fame. Yes, our kind. We are called nurses. We are trained health care professionals, not a colloquial fantasy, nor a subservient helper. Somehow during the taping of your TV show you forgot that. Oh, wait did I mention I’m a male nurse? So the whole ‘sexy’ reference truly hits a chord with me. You are being chastised by our profession because of what profession you represent. As a physician partner we hold you to a higher standard. We assumed you held these same standards. During that show, regardless of when you were made aware of the guests actions, you should have stopped it. Stopped it in its tracks before it progressed. You as the heralded professional’s professional should have had the common decency and forth right professionalism to put the brakes on that charade. I’m all about fun, but when it mocking a profession fun? Our profession continues to battle stereotypes of all kinds. We continue to lose the battle against warped public knowledge, internet fantasy, misguided beliefs, historical falsehoods, and just simple ignorance. But, when we have to wage that battle with a physician it’s both angering and disheartening. Is this how you show the ‘respect’ you speak of? We expected more from you dear doctor. Shame on you for not ‘knowing’ the difference. And the battle continues. Read more at scrubsmag.com