RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:
J.B.Katz said:
...when we have treated these workers so badly during the pandemic.
None of them, not even docs, earns enough to be forced to risk their lives daily because half of Americans have made it abundantly clear that they are OK with these people risking their lives daily because their government and about half of the American people value selfishness over responsibility.
Didn't most healthcare professionals know going in that they were going to be exposed to sick people and disease? I would think so. What do you propose that your government should have done differently? Like with most other professions, if you don't like your job or the risks associated with it, get another job.
You are basically accusing and judging Americans that get sick for making healthcare workers sick. That sucks.
OK well this is sure enough personal to me. Although retired I worked in hospitals, not cushy breast augmentation clinics!, for years at Baylor and at Duke Med Ctrs and I can tell you FIRST HAND what it is like to be scolded and congratulated daily and yes, you damn sure know what you are signing up for, but the job is a burn out stress bomb waiting to go off on any given day. Most RN's change jobs bc although you try not to let it be an emotional experience after a while you can't help it and so you move somewhere else or you become an administrator or manager. Sometimes you work when you are sick yourself and sometimes you are called in at a moments notice because someone else is sick. The only thing I would not tolerate is not having the tools I need to properly care for a pt, but that is why you have a "safe harbor" option and you can withdraw with notice from a situation if you don't feel safe. Nobody wants to do this, but in order to protect your license it is necessary.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the work cuz I function well under stress and the pay is really good in most places. Travel nursing if you like to move about is the best of both worlds. At Duke I worked with RN's from all over the world and almost went to Saudi Arabia as a rehab specialist that would have paid me $200K/year for 5yrs tax fee, but I weighed my options and decided I couldn't handle the climate or the women! LOL. Nevertheless, I made great friends and I don't remember ever blaming a single pt if I got sick. As you said it is just part of the gig. If anything, it gave me a stronger immune system which only means I could be a carrier but never get sick although I could make you sick as such.
Like any profession you take the good with the bad. I've had pts code on me and die and I saved a few too. I was a cardiothoracic RN so I mainly dealt with heart and lungs and I did not like GI, neurology or cancer pts although everybody knows enough to at least give standard care.
As far as the pandemic goes this is no different than any other disease we've ever had but it's just more noted bc it is more deadly. The real truth is you could have it right now and you might not ever know it or you could fall flat on your face in 24hrs. But it makes me crazy when politicians yap and yap about it as if they know anything. I'm telling you right here and now you don't know squat until you have lived through it. Masks are ridiculous but hey if it makes you psychologically feel better by all means wear it. You just like a bank robber!!!
Govt will weaponize anything they can. They don't care about you and this Fauci guy changes his mind as often as I change underwear. I laugh my a-s-s off when I see Biden giving a indecipherable speech to a bunch of people sitting in crop circles, but this is what our society has come to. And that is why I have so many firearms as I know how and where to put a bullet in somebody such that they will never know what hit em. That's my solution to health care. I've worked in the OR and had gunshot victims at Parkland, even some like Kennedy where your brains are falling out of your skull or put someone in a medically induced coma so I can pull their face off and treat that. Remember FACE-OFF with Travolta and Cage...well I've seen that. I've pulled bullets out of orifices and peeled skin off to get to it. You get tough pretty damn quick or you go throw up and never come back.
That was my life for years !!!