"A multitude of physicians and surgeons have drifted into the lives of student nurses in our graduating class. It was easy to differentiate between the physician who was to be a trifle careless in his dress, slow in speech, and the surgeon on the othr hand tended to talk swiftly, dress meticulously, and gesture boldly. But physician and surgeon alike, we nurses feel that so rare an opportunity to give well-earned praise, must notbe overlooked.
We have seen their ceaseless, unselfish effort to lessen pain and bring a smile to those suffering, and many of us have learned valuable lessons in caring for the sick by their examples.
There is no process which can reckon up the amount of good which medical art and science has conferred upon the human race. There is no moral calculus that can grasp and comprehend the sum of their beneficient ministrations. They have dispelled the gloom of the sick room. They have called back the radiance of the lusterless eye and the bloom of their fading cheek.
And finally when exhausted in all other resources and baffled in their skill, handmaid of religion and philosophy, they have blunted the arrows of death and rendered less rugged and precipitous the putting to the tomb."
I found this quaint and touching tribute in a 1950's nursing yearbook. Physicians were indeed apex predators at the top of the hospital food chain. It was reassuring to know who was really in charge of things. There were no patient satisfaction surveys or utilization review nurses telling doctors what to do. Medicine was a proud, respected profession and physicians were not cogs in the wheels of a health care system.
As a nurse, if you provided a valued service to a physician, you had job security. I was not overly concerned with Alice, my supervisor in the OR because I knew Dr. Slambow would always stand up for me because to him, I was valued as a scrub nurse. It was a nice feeling.
No doubt, OFRN, your confidence that your favorite surgeon had your back was well-deserved.
ReplyDeleteThanks, sometimes there was very little job security in old school hospitals. Every old nurse had some secret knowledge-like where the flashlights were stashed in the event of power failure or which suction machine worked best- little tidbits that had real currency with those higher up the hospital food chain
DeleteGotcha. I have also amazed those with much more education than I on the magic of how to pull up preliminary ultrasound reports in electronic medical records before being read by radiologist. In my few decades or so of practice, ultrasound tech interpretations never varied significantly from radiologists’ final reports.
DeleteI also make it a point to locate Grave’s speculums on unit when the flimsy disposable plastic ones won’t do.
However, no great surgeon EVER said “ I hope Kathy’s on back table today.” We all have our gifts, OFRN