ALWAYS heroes!
I am a Registered Nurse with 15 years of experience. This experience is in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine including bedside care and leadership. I currently serve in a patient experience role helping to ensure our patients remain at the center of the work healthcare does, while ensuring we care for our caregivers. I want to clear something up for the public. I heard a commercial today that said, “in the last few weeks, our healthcare workers have emerged as heroes.” America, they have always been heroes. Unfortunately, some are just now realizing this.
It's a Monday night in a busy Level 1 Trauma Center in 2019. Patients who have come seeking help fill the waiting room. A caregiver is maintaining her composure while being berated by one of the patients awaiting care. He is accusing her of many things, not prioritizing people correctly, for example, but one of the most hurtful accusations hurled is that she doesn't care.
America, they have ALWAYS been heroes. This pandemic didn't suddenly make them heroes. They have always been heroes. In healthcare, every single person that puts on a badge is a caregiver and they are ALL heroes.
Healthcare is a calling driven by purpose. You don't go into healthcare for money. There is no amount of money worth missing Christmas Eve or Christmas morning with your spouse and young child. There is no compensation worth being witness to immeasurable suffering day in and day out. They didn’t go into medicine for praise, or recognition, or for thank you (although these help on those especially difficult days). It is a calling driven by purpose. For caregivers, work consists of 8, 10, 12, 16 hours a day facing almost insurmountable odds. Many days they would have a better chance of spotting a unicorn than partaking in the necessities of a lunch break and even a bathroom break. But they do it because it is their calling. Their hands touch the lives of the sick and injured. They care for people in the worst moments of their lives, the first moments of their lives, and even in the last moments of their lives. They have always been heroes.
We get it, pain and fear cause humans to act in a way they otherwise wouldn't. That doesn't stop the hurt and pain that behavior causes, though. It is deeply concerning to witness rude, threatening and abusive behavior demonstrated toward these heroes. Behaviors that are demonstrated toward the very caregivers who are doing their best to care for you. Unfortunately, there are countless stories like this from caregivers throughout the country. Don’t believe me? Then explain the need for signs such as “abusive behavior will not be tolerated” on the walls. They have always been heroes.
America, when this pandemic is over, we can’t go back to normal, because they have always been heroes.
You see, the circumstances around us haven't changed our purpose. Our purpose has always been caring for our communities; Our purpose has always been providing you with safe, compassionate, and quality care; Our purpose has always been to help in a time of need. Caregivers have dedicated their lives to this purpose. This pandemic hasn't changed any of that, it has only allowed some to see their worth. They have always been heroes.
