Nurses are to be taught to be nice.
I have been taught to be nice by the Ruralshire Constabulary Department For Silly Training Courses.
I was taught not to stereotype thus: If a skinhead with hateful tattoos and big boots charges at me while clearly drunk, I should NOT assume that he is about to beat me up.
Similarly, if the local vicar walks past me and smiles, I should NOT assume that he is an innocent man; he may have just killed his wife.
This nonsense was clearly taught by someone who was either:
1. Never a front-line police officer.
2. A complete liar who has abandoned their principles for an easy day job at Headquarters.
3. Mad.
It has taken me years of pondering and observation to realise that all three options fit most of the staff at Ruralshire Constabulary Staff Citizen-Focus Induction Centre.
I once suggested that nurses could someimes be, ahem, less than enthusiastic with their customer service skills.
I escaped with my life but I was on short rations at home for a while, Debbie having once been a nurse.
I luuuurve nurses, doctors and paramedics. They are my friends. I will do almost anything to help my friends, like rushing to help them when they’re in trouble, or need a door kicking down or a drunk kicking out.
Mrs Cumswoggle doesn’t like nurses. They’re not the only people who work in hospitals you know….
Aye, that sort of training is generally a deliberate corporate back covering excercise much despised by one and all.
Delivering this sort of course is one of those jobs where I find myself asking “Why does this person need a warrant card?” Often as not it is a puzzle to me why they do.
Every Nurse I have ever met has been wonderful. Especially the one who stitched me up when I slashed my hand smashing down a door that looked plastic but was painted glass. Ooops. I never even felt it until someone said “Jack, did you know you’re bleeding?” Ahh police work.
add this to the above about being nice to thy fellow comrade in in saving lives.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-salamon18-2008jun18,0,4640607.story
It is a shout that will always get plenty of takers, even 5 before stand down. Ambulance crew requesting assistance, disturbance at casualty or on the CDU. I have so much respect for the front line NHS staff. Like us they are too few, not paid enough and stangled by red tape and over managment.
Unlike us they do not have the powers in law or kit on the belt to deal with the low life that call them then try to assault them. But as I have seen, they do have there own ways of reaping a just revenge……………
i work in the NHS, i’m a Nurse, and we don’t even get priority treatment – its all down to targets
btw, are you American or using an American spell-checker – its centre
i work in the NHS, i’m a Nurse, and we don’t even get priority treatment – its all down to targets
btw, are you American or using an American spell-checker – its centre
Right, that is OK them as long as the nurses’ have empathy with a patient dying MRSA.
Nurse, ‘Sorry that you have caught MRSA’
Patient ‘But I’m dying
Nurse ‘I do really understand your position. I fully understand and appreciate the situation that you are in’.
annonny mouse
I use an American spell-check, but it only checks once!
i always knew i picked the wrong job, can i become a detective now :p
I think the majority of people who enter a caring profession, really do care at the beginning, very much like i suspect anybody who enters the Police – right wrongs, save lives and help Doris’s find their cats….
sadly time / bureaucracy and exposure to the Public / great unwashed erodes these ideals….
but now we have a target, it will all be right again.
In essence its probably a good idea, bit of inter ward rivalry to buck ideas up, sadly management will get hold of it and f**k it all up
Our ambulance and hospital staff are indeed to be lauded, and when they do things which we find confusing we should remember that they too are led by witless buffoons whos’ only skills are in self promotion, cv building and moving on to let their legacy be reversed in their wake. Sound familiar?
I had this the other week: Ambulance control call the Plod. They have received a call stating a man is holding a knife to someone’s throat in the street having stabbed another. Ambulance staff are holding off at an RV point about 400yds away.
I’m concerned that I’m sending my staff into a life threatening situation, so I ask my control to get the caller’s number from Ambulance control so I can risk assess and come up with my plan on the basis of up to the minute information.
They won’t give us the number.
“Data Protection” they explain.
But they tell me that they’ll release it if I send them a fax (having turned off the blues and found a 3am public fax machine).
The controller was obviously scared into this response on one of the ridiculous courses outlined above. Don’t blame the staff, blame the management.
In 11 years of power, has this government done anything sane, god help us if they gain another term.
Why should Police, NHS and Firefighters etc, when they are taking shit off the low life be nice back, not in my book, I think were are all f*cked.
I have great respect for all my emergency service buddies! Its a difficult job at times (I think you guys get the worst of it)
However there are less than ‘polite’ people in these services. Its not that their bad at their jobs just not particularly friendly!
Everytime I blog about an incident with a rude nurse I get pulled up for ’slagging them off’
Don’t get any training on how to deal with them!
frontrowhero
But as I have seen, they do have there own ways of reaping a just revenge
Oh yes! I’m married to one, and the stories she told me about how they dealt with lecherous patients…
“To a policeman, the answer is always simple. If you find a woman dead and think her husband did it, you’ll find out you’re right.”
Wise words from Kaiser Sose. And as applicable today as they were when the film was made back in… er… 1995.
“sadly time / bureaucracy and exposure to the Public / great unwashed erodes these ideals….”
This is interesting, by the way. So, let me get this straight. You get into a job to serve the public, then find out you don’t like them very much?
So why bother? Do something else.
Nurses, and Doctors for that matter, should generally be nice to sick people.
Winging criminals who fake injury/illness in custody just to smuck about and then abuse NHS staff, no!
Police, well we don’t always have to be.
Mr and Mrs Nice, ok, recidivistic criminals? We can be nice to them as well as long as they play ball, cough at an early stage and then grass up anyone and everyone.
Rob – I’m guessing that in your job, if you have one, there are elements of it you don’t like.
So… er… why not ‘do something else’? Ooops. There’s stuff there I don’t like, too.
That’s human nature, really.
I’m sure you never ever moan about anything, but that makes you a gold ticket winner in Willy Wonka’s lottery of life. Everyone else – normal.
I hazard a guess that Gadget would love dealing with the majority of the public… unfortunately, it’s the 1% of subhuman filth that he mostly deals with, and they’re not so much to like.
(PS If one of them jukes you in the thigh after robbing your mobile off you you’ll be whining for gadget soon enough. So wind your scrawny little neck in, eh?)
I had an argument with a trainer once (surprise surprise) as he also said that in our job, stereotyping was evil and racist. After I suggested to him that a significant part of our job is to make fast and accurate situational assessments with the minimum of information he agreed and then couldn’t explain how we were supposed to do that without stereotyping some people.
His argument just boiled down to “well it’s wrong’ but couldn’t explain how we were supposed to do our job safely or quickly without actually bringing experience and therefore stereotyping into the equation.
Hence, pissed off drunk angry skinhead is more likely to get a smack in the grid first, than an 80 year old woman with three children in tow, if that’s stereotyping then sign me up as a member.
Well speaking as a nurse we ARE usually nice to sick or injured people.
We encounter drunk, abusive and aggressive people almost as often as you police folks do. Like you we can be complained about and are accountable for our actions.
It is hardly post-graduate thinking to pick out the chavs. You try being nice to an asshat chav at 3AM who is insisting that his mates stay on the ward.
Hmmm
Stereotyping is one of those things that people with no experience of Policing consider bad as it plays to the old axiom of ‘not Judging a book by its cover’.
Now i am all in favour of old axioms, particularly that one, its an invaluable tool in life in general but also, funnily enough, Policing in particular. I don’t know a bobby who doesn’t regularly find the opposite of what is apparent to be true, its a daily occurrence and we learn to expect may just be the case.
However as my esteemed neighbour metcountymounty points out, what do you do if you only have the cover to judge the book by? Well that’s why your skinhead is getting one in the grills and your old lady doesn’t, more often than not.
Academics dwell in the clinical, theoretical and sheltered world of the classroom and in that environment i would agree that stereotyping, on its own, will be rarely a good or fair thing. We however don’t live in such a sterile environment and we do use stereotyping but tempered with experience and that includes experiences where stereotypes have let us down, badly.
The thing about Policing, which no amount of academics will ever truly grasp, is that our stereotyping is better than their stereotyping.
That would seem a grandiose claim, buts lets consider that every day, we wade through endless lies from practised, professional liars (not talking about NuLabour here) we hear more lies than truth and everyone of us has the experience of the this and has been caught out by our own preconceptions. We also have the hard won experience of being forced to judge a book by its covers in intense situations, we probably all made mistakes along the way but crucially we have those experiences that the academics will never have.
Stereotyping will have at some point let us all down and we know its a dangerous tool but we also realise that sometimes its the only tool we have.
Stereotyping has saved my life and equally made me look a fool, as times goes on its gets more refined and equally i learn to appreciate its dangers more effectively. No matter how much service we have, we never stop learning.
Stereotyping isn’t good or evil, its just another, important, tool in the tool box of the street cop who wants to go home after the end of their shift.
As for Police Officers who become trainers and just spout the academics latest theorums without thought or reference to common sense, well, I dislike them intensely and I have no respect for them at all. Civvy trainers cant be blamed, they don’t know any better, but Bobbys or ex Bobbys should and do know better!
I think Nurses are nice enough already, the Angels who serve in our locals A&E rarely bare their teeth but they are sharp and they do know where to bite to hurt most. Occasionally some of them seem to loose their halos, but normally with good reason and nothing to gripe about really.
I don’t hold nurses to account for the problems of the NHS or in fact any Medical staff type, even if the Doctors can be a bit odd at times.
If another member of the Emergency services of the medical staff at a hospital shout for help then they will always get priority service over anyone else for a equally serious matter.
This is a pratical response as of one Ambulance crew goes offline, one fire engine gets put out of action or one A&E gets clogged up with shit heads then other decent peoples lives WILL be placed at risk.
Its also an emotional response as my colleagues in the other Emergency Services and Hospitals stand with us against the anarchy of minority, brothers and sisters in arms if you like, doing our best to protect society. (Bit cheesy that i know, but hey, sometimes a nice bit of ripe cheese goes down lovely)
notellin, excellent response as usual!!
Way back (50 years ago)- why police were protective of nurses was that police were male (mostly) and nurses were female (mostly).
But now you all have been democratised.
Does it hurt.
Nurses are still mostly female – and police officers are still interested – both male and female!
…and as my subordinates address me as : “Ma’am”, I’m giving you all a bit of a clue here!!
[...] smile? There has been much in the UK press this week about the need for nurses to smile and Gadgets post of yesterday had me mulling on this [...]
Stereotyping? Example – Ever ‘traveller’ I have ever encountered has been on their way to or from a ram raid, or in a stolen car, or in possession of crack, or wanted on warrant. None of them can remember their own date of birth but all can tell you the number of their friendly solicitor.
When you PNC the Shogun (which was paid for in CASH and is always registered to ‘Plot 3…somewhere’), you just know that if you try to pull it, it’ll make off, or will stop and you’ll find yourself talking to ‘John Smith/Lee/Betteridge’, DOB unknown.
So, how come a poster display in ‘Training and Development Services tells us that in fact, travellers are a recognised ‘ethnic minority’ who have been ’suppressed’ for centuries.
We are told we should ‘celebrate diversity’ even if that means celebrating the fact that we’ve just been burgled, or a stolen Land Cruiser has mysteriously parked itself INSIDE the local post office or off-licence for the third time this year.
Stereotyping? Count me in.
@ steve
Much as I’d love to conduct a trolling war ad infinitum with people like yourself, I’ll confine myself to saying that the multiple assumptions you make in your post make you sound like an idiot.
I’m guessing that’s not the case, and you’re just a little angry at what you’re perceiving as some sort of slight on the writer of the blog. It wasn’t.
See what happened there? It is possible to make an assumption about someone without being offensive.
You should try it. And, at the risk of descending to your level, keep your cretinous trap shut until you’ve figured the difference out.
Er, can I just say I think stereotypes is like what we do, some stereptypes are real and some are not, so like someone has already said, some stereotypes might save our lives; others might just get us into bother.
Stereotypes also change with time and we need to change as well. The problem with stereotypes is that some suit cladded chappies or chappesses have declared sterotyping illegal I think, under the RRA. I think they call it indirect something or the other.
Twining does have a solution; if we get a stereotype wrong, just say “sorry.” That’s something we like, are not so good at.
Most good people will accept that, especially if we buy them a free Ruralshire Constabulary T shirt too. Just jesting with the last bit. I am going to order mine soon….
25, why don’t you f*** off you troll.
Nurses are Great!