Reactionary

I was the third person in a room with a new person and her preceptor. After the third time I was told to stop interfering, I was annoyed. After I was cut off or talked over the second time, I was pissed. After it was announced there was a great liver case tomorrow and would I like to circulate it, I was a simmering pot of rage. And this was with someone I thought I got along with. I couldn’t help feeling somewhat betrayed though it wasn’t at all surprising. She’s a scrub-hog and she’ll drag brand new people into massive cases so she can scrub them and say she’s “teaching”. Plusly, this is the way I’m being treated lately, as a doorstop, a commodity, a ping pong ball (PPB), clearly versatile enough for me to do anything they need me to do and yet too stupid to scrub a big case when there’s someone else who wants to do it.

I’ve been there over two years. I have yet to scrub a pancreas or a transplant or a liver porting case. And yet, this latest crop of new people are in these cases the second week they’re there. Don’t get me wrong. That’s good. They need to know these cases… eventually. Not now. I need to know them now. I need to scrub them, not circulate. When I was new, the program was much more guarded. I was co-circulated for so long, I was so bored I thought of quitting. Now they have them scrubbing the second week they’re there. The reason I know what I know is because I have a very good visual memory and I taught them to myself while circulating since I wasn’t good enough to scrub them. I never double-scrubbed big cases and now I’m left to figure it out for myself if they come out or shut out altogether because the new people “need to learn”.

Recently, I’m being used as a body to fill rooms full of cases I hate. If they have no one to scrub with the Big Man because of absences or to shield the new people, suddenly I’m good enough. I don’t like scrubbing with him. He intimidates the hell out of me, but there you have it. Only a few people will work with him and without so much as a by-your-leave, I’m IT.

I’ve gotten a bit off topic. The above-mentioned incidents had happened in my room for the day and I was irritated enough as it was. Then, as the last case was winding down, I was contacted and told to go get someone out of another room. I hate the surgeon in there. Seconds later, I hadn’t even had time to leave the bleeding room, the office calls again. I’m not supposed to go to that room now. Go to another room to get someone out for a meeting. Was I the only person available, given that I wasn’t really available since we had an orientee in the room who can’t and shouldn’t count as a regular staff member? As if I were a piece of the positioning foam we use to be stuck wherever it suited anyone, nevermind my wishes on the matter. I hoped in my heart that orientee would be okay since she’d be acting as a lone scrub person thanks to her preceptor refusing to scrub in with her. I’ve been there. I know.

I went to the other room. Pulled the case. Set up. Brought the kid back. Was helping the kid onto the table when the phone rings. Guess who it is and what they want. It’s the goddamn office and she wants to me to go to ANOTHER goddamn room to get out yet another person who needs to meet with the manager. This last person is one of those people who gets along with no one, who constantly is complaining about something, and what she really wants is special treatment. Since she’s currently with child, she walks around making it clear there’s something in there and is suddenly loathe to walk into any room where the kid may have TB, a cold, you name it. Listen, bitch, if it’s not a known teratogen (of which there are only about 5), you’re in there with the rest of us. I’m not disposable because I’m not currently seeking to continue global overpopulation.

That was the last staw. The worst part was the guy who I was in for wasn’t even back yet. I was pissed. The other nurse who I was supposed to be relieving came back and I vented. I couldn’t help it, especially because I was feeling singled out at that point and considering who this other favor was for. If I need to see the manager, I do it on my own time. I don’t ask people who have already worked a full day to inconvenience themselves and stay longer than they should because I have something to say to the manager, which in this case is more BS and I don’t even have to know what it was about.

The surgeon noticed and he interrupted one of his stories to look concerned, genuinely concerned. “Is there anything I can do?” he said. There wasn’t. All of this is really out of all their hands, but he’s the only one who cares. This is why we all love you, you know. This is why you’re the best.

He’s never seen me angry like that before. Usualy, work isn’t worth it. It’s only a means to an ends for me and it’s not for the edification of humanity, either. The room I went to was a mess. I didn’t even want to look at her and told her to leave. I cleaned up. Counted stuff. Gave the scrubbed person what she needed. Answered so many pages, I was ready to throw it away. Argued with the collectively absurd surgical team. The bitch never came back. The office had the foresight to send someone in who was there on a longer shift to get me out so I could go home. I saw her in the locker rom hanging out when I was leaving as if I and my time didn’t matter. I hate being a PPB.

Posted on March 20th, 2007 under Life •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback