We’re Not at War. We’re Not Soldiers. Stop Calling Us Frontline Heroes

[Sensei]

I decided to help out in our medical ICU this month - new team, same COVID. We got to the last patient on rounds and the resident gave their introduction and overnight events before turning it over to the nurse for their report. This was yet another in a long line of dying COVID patients, but rather than mention the patient’s delirium or pain control, the nurse launches into a tirade about her struggles with the patient’s wife who wants to come visit her dying husband. However, this wife isn’t willing to abide by the hospital’s rules - just 2 hours of visitation per day for COVID patients. No, this wife has the audacity to want to stay longer than her allotted 2 hours, rules be damned. She even “snuck” in yesterday evening after her 2 hours, and really pissed off nurse Karen and her comrades who were now just itching for a confrontation. After all, doesn’t this bitch know that anything beyond 120 minutes and the whole unit will drop dead of COVID? Soon, she’ll ask for extra rations in the food lines….

It took me a minute to get us back on track, but I managed to get through this last patient and hurried out of the unit before I could say something that I’d regret.

As I left the unit and turned down the hallway towards the elevator, my eye caught a familiar framed picture. Every time I visited that unit my eye would catch it as I left for the elevator. Sometimes I’d stop a second to stare at it and wonder how it was received by some of the family members coming to visit. It was nicely framed above a plaque that read, “Frontline Heroes” and depicted the Iwo Jima flag raising. But, instead of Marines, this drawing depicted nurses and doctors struggling to implant the flagpole.

I’d probably seen that picture a hundred times. However, today I couldn’t help but connect it to the complete lack of humanity that I had witnessed on rounds.. Start telling people that they are heroes and they will eventually start acting like professional athletes. They inevitably see themselves above everyone else and develop a fetish for rules - especially when it allows them to wield power over someone else. I get it. We wanted to recognize the healthcare providers who work hard and unite around a common purpose. However, operation MEOW (moral equivalent of war) has a big downside in formulating an us vs them mentality that can be very hard to turn off. Well, we need to start turning this shit off before Nurse Karen gets promoted to general.

[LJP]

As a paramedic literally on the front lines of this COVID bullshit, I agree Doc. Well said.

[TheNewbie]

Awesome post. Don’t feel too bad, it affects LE as well.


Really well written post. Thank you for it.

[Yung]

Perhaps you might have a meeting with whoever you need to talk to about that picture being put there.

[SCCY Marshal]

...No, this wife has the audacity to want to stay longer than her allotted 2 hours, rules be damned. She even “snuck” in yesterday evening after her 2 hours, and really pissed off nurse Karen and her comrades who were now just itching for a confrontation...

I can't type a fraction of the things going through my head as I consider what would happen if someone ever stood between me and my dying wife.

[GearFondler]

I can't type a fraction of the things going through my head as I consider what would happen if someone ever stood between me and my dying wife.

It starts with "V" and rhymes with "silence"?

[BehindBlueI's]

Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with 'heroes' or posters or whatnot. It's just human nature. Gatekeepers and literal rule enforcers are a universal human experience, I'm sure we've all encountered it in multiple venues in multiple cultures. There's a constant tug between rules and principals. If you don't enforce the rules equally, it's unfair. If you enforce the rules equally you ignore context and the result is often...unfair. Society rails against speed cameras, which mechanically enforce the rules, and equally rail against human enforcement being biased. Anyone who's been to get a driver's license or passport has probably had at least one Karen experience. Airports? Insurance adjusters? Retail?

So while I get the distaste for the imagery and verbiage, I don't think it'd be any different/better in this regard without it. It's just simpler, mentally, to mechanically enforce rules and to disassociate yourself from those it effects (the concept of 'othering', which is not quite dehumanizing but similar) and focusing on the rules instead. Some level of disassociation is a pretty standard self defense mechanism for those who are routinely affected by death and suffering around them. We can't make everyone's tragedy our tragedy and make it through a week, let alone a career. Sometimes that goes to far, though, and you get the cynic or the apathetic. It's a tough tightrope to walk, and I don't know anyone who makes it a full career without falling off at least occasionally.

[JHC]

OP is over thinking it IMO. Medical staff dealing with the 2021 Covid hospitalized are taking a beating and I see no problem with their imagery.

[JCN]

Burnout is real and sometimes people trying to control a little slice of their lives when so many things are out of their control is where this conflict arose on both sides.

Nurses have less control of their schedules and their lives as staffing disruptions and demands push them to the breaking point.

Family members not being able to grieve and support in the way they’ve been traditionally and culturally allowed to.

Hard lining either side will just make people dig in more.

Maybe a compromise can happen that makes both parties still feel like they are respected and have some control, but don’t dismiss or belittle either side’s feelings (or yours either!).

Something like visiting family can wear an N95 to reduce the theoretical risk of exposing staff or whatever. The details don’t matter as much as the feelings in this case.

[Eric_L]

I decided to help out in our medical ICU this month - new team, same COVID. We got to the last patient on rounds and the resident gave their introduction and overnight events before turning it over to the nurse for their report. This was yet another in a long line of dying COVID patients, but rather than mention the patient’s delirium or pain control, the nurse launches into a tirade about her struggles with the patient’s wife who wants to come visit her dying husband. However, this wife isn’t willing to abide by the hospital’s rules - just 2 hours of visitation per day for COVID patients. No, this wife has the audacity to want to stay longer than her allotted 2 hours, rules be damned. She even “snuck” in yesterday evening after her 2 hours, and really pissed off nurse Karen and her comrades who were now just itching for a confrontation. After all, doesn’t this bitch know that anything beyond 120 minutes and the whole unit will drop dead of COVID? Soon, she’ll ask for extra rations in the food lines….

It took me a minute to get us back on track, but I managed to get through this last patient and hurried out of the unit before I could say something that I’d regret.

As I left the unit and turned down the hallway towards the elevator, my eye caught a familiar framed picture. Every time I visited that unit my eye would catch it as I left for the elevator. Sometimes I’d stop a second to stare at it and wonder how it was received by some of the family members coming to visit. It was nicely framed above a plaque that read, “Frontline Heroes” and depicted the Iwo Jima flag raising. But, instead of Marines, this drawing depicted nurses and doctors struggling to implant the flagpole.

I’d probably seen that picture a hundred times. However, today I couldn’t help but connect it to the complete lack of humanity that I had witnessed on rounds.. Start telling people that they are heroes and they will eventually start acting like professional athletes. They inevitably see themselves above everyone else and develop a fetish for rules - especially when it allows them to wield power over someone else. I get it. We wanted to recognize the healthcare providers who work hard and unite around a common purpose. However, operation MEOW (moral equivalent of war) has a big downside in formulating an us vs them mentality that can be very hard to turn off. Well, we need to start turning this shit off before Nurse Karen gets promoted to general.

Agree. Doctor Benjamin Rush- Never resent an affront offered to you by a sick man. Sick people and their families will offer affronts, not often, but they can. They are……..SICK. ( I am not talking about battery here) A little bit of listening, compassion, and empathy covers a lot.