A letter to my health care providers – Aids, techs, nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, physicians and anyone in between …

As a nurse or anyone in the medical field…we aren’t ignorant. In both the sense of being dumb or simply unaware of certain medical things. However, we don’t know it all. There are so many things that could be wrong with our bodies – that it is IMPOSSIBLE to know it all and be experts in it all. Anyone who claims to – is dangerous, I dare say. We sometimes know just enough to know to toot bells and whistles and to raise attention that something is just not right. We know most of the time what the “not right” is – or at the very least what “it” isn’t. We know just enough to be scared, because we’ve seen the worst.

For example – Just a few weeks ago, Abigail complained of a headache for a day then randomly threw up. I panicked and insisted on rushing her to the ER worried about an AVM. My husband talked me down and an hour later when Jackson began puking – I simmered down and realized she didn’t need a drain in her head, the kids just needed fluids and rest. We can be crazy….

We don’t seek help from other health care providers until last minute or until we are scared…because we are used to fixing people ourselves. We are used to being in control. We are used to being in charge of people who are sick or dying. We have given meds, rushed people into emergency surgeries, advocated, comforted patients who were scared, pushed meds to save lives, pushed compressions which have saved lives, held patients hands and watched monitors as they’ve taken their last breath and held loved ones as they tried to wrap their mind around the fact that they’ve lost their mother, their father, their sibling, their spouse, their child. How do we possibly take ourselves out of that role. THAT role which puts us “on top” and not in the shoes of a vulnerable place which we normally comfort and fix? We don’t like to be vulnerable.

Being on the other side sucks. So, I’m sorry to you – as my health care provider – that I have a high-HIGH standard for you. I expect nothing less of you than I provide to my patients and families – which is my ALL. I expect you to smile when you see me come to the desk to check in. Not because it’s “your job”, but because you must have to know that every person who comes – probably doesn’t want to be there. I expect you to take my vitals and ask me how my morning was. Not because it’s small talk filling in the silence, but because I’m a person, and you are a tech or a nurse – whose PRIMARY ROLE is to comfort and take care of people holistically. I expect you to listen, to assess, to advocate, to order tests, to explain and COMMUNICATE. Not because it just shuts people up or because you are trying to get in and out and not be called back into the room – but because as a nurse, as a nurse practitioner, as a physician assistant, as a physician – there is nothing worse than being that nurse mom or that nurse patient, that understands exactly what you should be doing and what you haven’t done.
Wait, there IS SOMETHING WORSE, it’s being a person who doesn’t understand and doesn’t know to advocate for themselves and is scared and comes to YOU for help.

Please, I plead with you – health care providers….hear your patients. Listen to them. Explain things to them, good or bad. Treat them as individuals – as YOU would want to be treated. How you would want your parents, yourself, your babies to be treated.

I have high expectations for you, my healthcare providers. Because I have high standards for myself as YOUR healthcare provider. Anything less than 100%, anything less than giving it your all is not okay. When you walk in a room, walk in a curtain, answer a phone – you leave whatever was going on the second before and focus on what is in front of you – and give that patient your 100%.