"It's crap" my colleague told me, in describing our working conditions and why she is leaving the group. "I understand why you are geographically tied here, but...it's crap."
She and another colleague fell in love, and are moving to Indiana to be with her brother. The pace of life is "much slower there" and "it's a much better opportunity for the children".
Remember the colleague I told you who had the six thousand dollar a month house payments a few years back, and how I was concerned because that was unsustainable? Yes. This one used to babysit my boss' kids before he went to college and medical school. He could have been the next boss had he played his cards right. But apparently, it's not worth it.
Both of these workers have horrible commutes. My boss does too. There is a freeway called the 91 that has traffic 24/7, and it's bad. Their distance and time is at least double mine, and mine is twenty minutes if there's no traffic and one hour if there is.
Both of these workers had the many loans to pay off--undergraduate and medical school.
Both of them each have two children. I'm not sure about the former spouses and the custody, I don't want to ask.
My intuition read the body language months ago, when they would sit by themselves at lunch on the patio outside the doctor's dining room. They looked like an old married couple. I didn't even know about their private lives.
But it's done.
She was called on the carpet for something that really wasn't her fault recently, kind of like I've been called on the carpet for something different but still my boss felt the need.
Now she's left for a better life...
Medicine in and of itself is a fascinating subject. As you can see here, it's a 3D rendering. It's not a real hospital room. It's clean. There's hardly any equipment in it. This is what comes to mind when you think of medicine, at least, it's what people want you to think. It's cool, it's efficient, it's driven by science, and it's there to heal.
As we learn more about what makes us healthy, and we add to it the business practices of medicine, it makes it unlivable and unsustainable a lifestyle.
Remember the commute of my colleagues?
The hostility of the labor deck nurses was so bad that for five years my friend couldn't look them in the eye. What we need for health is connection, emotional bonds with supportive friends and family and work environment. What we need for health is guaranteed, uninterrupted sleep. And time with home and family. We need exercise, sunshine and fresh air. For OB anesthesia, the physician is stuck in a windowless call room in a basement, for twenty four hours, and at the mercy of the patients and nurses the whole time. We are talking interrupted sleep, missed meals, and total isolation in an environment where even I, the tough cardiac-surgery trained former associate professor, would make mistakes due to the evil eye and willingness to write me up of the nursing staff. I was written up once because 'Super Freak' was on the radio/Pandora during a c-section and 'it ruined the delivery for the mother'--even though it was the surgeon who had asked for seventies music in the middle of the night during the case, and even though I was more concerned with uterine atony and massive bleeding after delivery than the song on the radio, I got written up. I've been written up because the labor and delivery charge nurse felt like I 'did too many generals' for one shift where we had a crash c-section with no epidural, and two postpartum tubal ligations where the mothers wanted to go to sleep.
In summary, physicians and nurses and surgical technologists (scrub techs) and the people who push the gurneys and clean the rooms...are being treated like commodities, or machines. More and more work is being squeezed out of them.
It's sad.
If you go to an emergency room in the United States, there is a possibility that your nurse had to sign a contract that she or he would not eat or use the toilet for twelve hours while they are working.
This is against every labor law that exists! But it still happens.
Perhaps in your twenties, if you aren't pregnant...but even how can you be mentally focused, sharp, and vigilant under those working conditions? You need to take a break just for your mental health during a shift. What you see is difficult and heart-wrenching.
Don't let the looks fool you.
Be kind to your caregivers.
I know two excellent nurses who just left our O.R. One is to become a nurse educator at the hospital closest to my house (she lives in my same town). This means--no nights, no call, no weekends, no holidays--just nine to five with a 401K and benefits.
Another just left to become a Nurse Navigator--office job outside of the hospital, lots of time on the phone, no nights, no call, no weekends, no holidays--with a 401K and benefits and her seniority transfers over.
These are good nurses who got tired of the heavy lifting (when you prepare a patient for surgery you must wash and position the body parts to be worked on...lifting the legs for cardiac surgery prep is very painful for the nurse. They scrub them and hold them up until the special holder thing that is sterile can be placed under them.) They got tired of the long hours. They got tired of the politics. They are done...
We have been sold a story that all is well. That medicine is good, dental health is good, and that our health care systems are in place to care for us.
Medicine--medical expenses--are the number one reason people go bankrupt here in this country.
Like cigarettes once were back in the day, many things and treatments that were once said were 'good for us' are found to be not necessarily the case. Statins to lower cholesterol are the latest drugs to be found to have dark side effects in long term treatment. I had been on proton pump inhibitors for years, and those now are deemed too risky to give long term. Things that seem harmless or innocuous might have devastating far-reaching ramifications to the patient. And the doctors don't know, they can't study it--not everything--so they do what they are told. The nurses the same...
The students are sincere in their desire to help others. And somewhere along the way, the entire system gets twisted...and a little off course.
Trust your gut, your inner knowing when it comes to your health and the health of your loved ones.
Look for something better if you are in the system. Pray. And you will be guided enough so that even if you stumble and bump into things that aren't exactly better along the way in the end you will find something more suitable for you and your talents.
Know you aren't imagining things if you are feeling burnt out.
Remember this healing community, we are here to comfort you and encourage you that in spite of your bills, there is a better way. You aren't stuck. Things are going to get better because at least now twenty years into my career people are talking about the problems with medicine! Because it was all hush-hush...
Reiki is an incredible resource to help you clinically and personally. It will help you replenish your exhausted self, and align you energetically with a better future. It will help you grasp where your patients are coming from, and to meet them favorably in your interactions with them, without triggering any co-dependency tendencies you like many healers may have. It will sustain you and help restore you after long work shifts. It will raise your confidence so you will realize you don't have to torture yourself just to make a living, just to do your job. Your value as a healer is immense. Trust in it.
As a patient, Reiki will help you too. You will make wiser lifestyle choices, and be better fortified to handle any life lessons regarding health which come your way. You will bring higher vibration into the very dense and low vibration of clinics and hospitals and treatment centers and surgery centers. You will make a difference because you are infiltrating the system just like we are, the caregivers who are awake and working on our vibration too. Together we shall transform it into something wonderful!
clap! clap!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The Love
