Work Frustration

For people reading this that may not know, I am a nurse in a busy emergency room. Today was an okay day as far as days in the ER go. Something happened at the end of my shift though, that really bothers me. In fact, it probably bothers me a lot more than it should. Here's my question. How is it you can spend six hours trying to  build a rapport with a patient, going over and above for that person, putting up with whatever they say, no matter how inappropriate it might be just to have them tell a co-worker that you are rude at the very end of the shift?

I think it bothers me so much because the patient didn't even have the guts to tell me what bothered him. For the record, I wasn't rude on purpose. Whatever was perceived as my being rude was just that, a perception on the part of the patient. If he had bothered to talk to me about it, I would've had an explanation and an apology for what he considered rude.

I feel like I work hard to be a good nurse and to take the best care I know how of ALL of my patients, regardless of what kind of a person they might be. Every day is a learning curve and every day, I gain a little bit more experience and a little bit more perspective in the world of nursing. The bottom line is, you can't make everyone happy, no matter how hard you might try.


I really dislike it when a shift ends like that. I dislike it even more when I am overly bothered by another person's actions that I have no control over. I think I need to work on that. I can't change the way that patient feels. I guess all I can do is learn what to do differently next time. I think I'm ready to let it go now that I've had the whole ride home and this blog entry to think about it. The other good note...I have the next 3 days off!! Here's to hoping for a better roll of the dice and a nicer patient next time.