Nursing Care Minus the Care Part

  The last two night were undeniably frustrating. The lady in the corner room spent all of my first night screaming that she needed to get out of bed and her nurse was in and out of her room trying to keep her comfortable by alternating morphine and ativan. And the fellow in the opposite corner kept hollering "Nurse" at the top of his lungs for no reason that we could discern. My fellow is being weaned off his vent so his sedation level is pretty low and while I have never been intubated I have been told it's holiday. No biggie I parked outside of his room and every time he reached for the tube I just reminded him the tube was keeping him breathing, so lets not pull on it. He was a good boy and I learned over the night that all he wanted to do as itch his nose once in awhile, so I let him.
  As the sun rose so did my blood pressure, my relief came in and instantly demanded to know why I didn't tie down my fellow. I explained that my guy was just scratching his nose and we had a couple of conversations over the night about his ET tube and he agreed to leave it alone and had held up to his end of the bargain evidenced by the fact that it was still there. I may as well been talking to a brick wall, a brick wall who was busily getting the restraints out and telling me that I must be new to believe that he wouldn't go for that tube in a heart beat. She also said the one thing that made my blood boil.

  "I don't have time to baby sit him all day and make sure he doesn't yank it out"

  Don't have time? What was she going to do all day with only one patient? Go out and get a pedicure? It's not like I didn't have other things to deal with like the admit I got at 2am that needed multiple units of blood hung, but I made it work. We deliver nursing care to out patients, they are not in the hospital for our convenience, they need care. 
  Yes I am new and I do believe that our job is to care for our patients not to "fix" them or "patch" them up. Maybe the real world hasn't ground me down enough yet or maybe I am totally out of touch but I take pride in the care I provide for them. 
  Take care out of Nursing Care and what do you get, just a Nurse. Which seems apt in this case because none of what she was doing was about the patient it was all about the nurse.