Read an article by a nurse a while ago. Can't find the bookmark.
November 22, 2021 11:38 AM Subscribe
I'm trying to find an article or blog post I read last year. It was written by a career nurse, about her experience working in an emergency room, and her concerns about the state and future of her profession. Not to do with Covid; as I recall, it was either written before that, or about experiences which took place before that. The details, some tragic and rather graphic, are in the extended explanation (not to do with sex or violence, just medical misfortune).
I'm trying to find an article or blog post I read last year. It was written by a career nurse, about her experience working in an emergency room, and her concerns about the state and future of her profession. Not to do with Covid; as I recall, it was either written before that, or about experiences which took place before that.
Some tragic and rather graphic details below (not to do with sex or violence, just medical misfortune):
It included a description of a patient she helped treat one night. An elderly African-American woman with advanced dementia and diabetes, brought in from a local nursing home. She'd had all four of her limbs amputated due to diabetes complications, and because she couldn't swallow due to the dementia, was fed using some sort of shunt into her stomach. The patient had been put back into bed too soon after feeding, had vomited, and aspirated the vomit into her lungs. She died that night, essentially from drowning.
The nurse pitied the patient, and wondered if all the measures that had been taken in the last years of her life hadn't been exploitative, keeping her caretakers employed at her expense rather than letting her pass away at what would have otherwise been her natural time.
Later on in the article or blog post, the nurse talked about the younger generation of nurses. Their education had been much more academic, with less hands-on training and experience early on. She was concerned by the proportion of them who regarded things like bathing patients to be beneath them, and considered nursing proper a stepping-stone to better-paid administrative or supervising positions.
That's all I remember, and I can't call any Google-able phrases to mind. Does it ring any bells with anyone here?
I'm trying to find an article or blog post I read last year. It was written by a career nurse, about her experience working in an emergency room, and her concerns about the state and future of her profession. Not to do with Covid; as I recall, it was either written before that, or about experiences which took place before that.
Some tragic and rather graphic details below (not to do with sex or violence, just medical misfortune):
It included a description of a patient she helped treat one night. An elderly African-American woman with advanced dementia and diabetes, brought in from a local nursing home. She'd had all four of her limbs amputated due to diabetes complications, and because she couldn't swallow due to the dementia, was fed using some sort of shunt into her stomach. The patient had been put back into bed too soon after feeding, had vomited, and aspirated the vomit into her lungs. She died that night, essentially from drowning.
The nurse pitied the patient, and wondered if all the measures that had been taken in the last years of her life hadn't been exploitative, keeping her caretakers employed at her expense rather than letting her pass away at what would have otherwise been her natural time.
Later on in the article or blog post, the nurse talked about the younger generation of nurses. Their education had been much more academic, with less hands-on training and experience early on. She was concerned by the proportion of them who regarded things like bathing patients to be beneath them, and considered nursing proper a stepping-stone to better-paid administrative or supervising positions.
That's all I remember, and I can't call any Google-able phrases to mind. Does it ring any bells with anyone here?
That is a truly horrifying story. I wasn't able to find anything about or by a nurse, but I found some related articles about how amputations for Black patients with diabetes is out of proportion to treatments for people of other races.
ProPublica article from May 2020 (Link)
LA Times article from last week (Link)
Maybe the ProPublica article is the one your are thinking of - or inspired the one you are thinking of.
posted by rw at 5:14 PM on November 22, 2021
ProPublica article from May 2020 (Link)
LA Times article from last week (Link)
Maybe the ProPublica article is the one your are thinking of - or inspired the one you are thinking of.
posted by rw at 5:14 PM on November 22, 2021
Not about nurses, but physicians and has very much the same vibe that’s you’re looking for.
posted by furnace.heart at 6:41 AM on November 23, 2021
posted by furnace.heart at 6:41 AM on November 23, 2021
Response by poster: Not specifically the one, but in the same category. Thanks for the replies. And yes, rw, this patient's treatment does sound like a particularly tragic example of that pattern.
posted by Bufo_periglenes at 9:25 PM on November 23, 2021
posted by Bufo_periglenes at 9:25 PM on November 23, 2021
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posted by Bufo_periglenes at 11:39 AM on November 22, 2021