WWBD?

You ever have one of those days where you struggle to maintain yourself?

I define myself as a positive person, one who believes that people are good and someone who strives to make at least one other person’s day a little bit better. Today, I had a hard time being that person, but am happy to report that I stayed true to myself, even with the challenges laid ahead of me.

Working as a Transport Nurse means that I wear many different hats. At times, I’m out on a transport, stabilizing and transporting patients and families with the help of my EMS partners. Other times you may find me drawing blood at a patient’s bedside, or placing a new line. Sometimes you may see me at a Rapid Response, Code or a Trauma offering a helping hand. The majority of the time though, you’ll hear me answering phones and triaging possible transports. We take demographics, a basic story and an assessment and then figure out which doctor to call, where the patient should go and the disposition the team. Will this patient need an ICU or a floor bed? Will they go to the ED? Do they need a full team including a provider, respiratory therapist and a nurse to go with EMS or perhaps they are stable enough to send EMS to pick them up on their own? So many questions to answer, and luckily, we have the resources to answer them.

Today I was challenged in a situation. A doctor was busy and couldn’t take the call, but this is a hospital that we always transfer from. There are, of course, multiple do’s and don’t’s as well as an operating line that lands something between grey and marble-colored, so we try to operate as close to this line as possible. I was in a jam, so I called someone higher up the food chain to make the decision. They said to transfer the patient, so I do. The patient comes here and the initial doctor has to see them. Frustrating for that doctor, right? But at the same time, this was a kid that needed his specific skill set. What was the right thing to do?

Hard to say.

What made this rock and a hard place difficult was the response from this person who was clearly upset. I apologized, I listened, I offered what I could in assistance (which wasn’t much), but when the call was done, I felt deflated. It took me a good hour to come back to my own. Me. My positive self. The person who can make a difference in at least one person’s life a day. That’s my goal. Luckily, I was able to do that, and in doing so, found myself again.

There are of course, many other factors in play in the above scenario, which I just can’t go through for the privacy of the patient and all involved. It’s one reason I don’t write a lot about specific patients or situations at my job. Maintaining the privacy of my mini-superheroes is important, but I wanted to share this encounter with you to remind you that being yourself may be extremely difficult in multiple situations. Even though there will be opposition to it, stay true to yourself. For me, I try to maintain my positive, happy-go-lucky self, and even though it can be difficult, it is EASY to rise to the occasion.

And just ask yourself, “WWBD… what would Buffy do?”