Pointless Lectures

This afternoon, I was taught many things I apparently didn't know after 2 placements and months of crappy University.

I was told prejudice was wrong. AGAIN.

I was told stereotypes were wrong. AGAIN.

I was told discrimination was wrong. AGAIN.

Am I supposed to forget these things, until they remind me? Or am I supposed to be a rational fucking human being?

Anyway, they sort of made the point that discrimination and prejudice happens (shock horror) but shouldn't. And that you, as a nurse, don't have the right to 'like' patients.

The lecturers were a pair of PC nodding heads who seem to live in a dreamland. They propose we treat everyone equally but individually. They argue that it's not right that religious members of staff aren't allowed to wear any garments which could add to cross infection.

My opinion is thus: Nurses are people. People aren't perfect. I'm a person. I like some other people, and I dislike some other people. I'm quite indifferent to some. Just because I don't like a patient, personally, doesn't mean I can't treat them perfectly well from a professional point of view. And what else could I do? Force myself to like them? Highly unethical, and impossible, to boot.

It's fundamental for nurses to be real people, deep down. To care. To emphasise. And real people don't love everyone they meet. Doesn't mean you cannot be professional.

Treating everyone equally but individually? Come on. In a perfect world, fine. But in a world were we don't have the staff to actually suitably care for patients, it's nothing more than Carl Rogers' wet dream. And if you start it, where do you stop? If someone wants to die, as an individual, we can't kill them. If someone's big on scat and wants to sit in their own bodily waste all day, can we? It's just not workable in the literal sense, but they continue to bang on about it.

And don't get me started on positive discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or religion. If one person is allowed to wear something other than sterilised surgical scrubs in theatre because they believe a little story quite strongly, why can't I wear a baseball cap? We don't live in a theocracy. It's a democracy. I love freedom. But positive discrimination is not the way in which to attain this.

< /rant >