Nursing student slapped in the face

credit: Dyanna

So today one of the nursing student’s was slapped in the face by a grumpy old man.
Yes he was confused, angry at the world and lacking insight… and also just down and out rude.

“Get out of the way or I’ll kick you in the head” he pleasantly replied to the nurse’s greeting in the morning.

The guy is a nursing home patient with poor social skills, anger management issues, and paranoid tendencies which lead him to distrust most people around him.

The student was fine in the end, albeit a little shook up and shocked, but it led to a fairly interesting discussion – I recalled back to my first few weeks as a Registered Nurse when I too had been slapped pretty hard in the face by an angry old lady. What did I do to deserve this? I brought her some food, and apparently she didn’t think that was a good idea!

A quick survey of 3 Registered Nurses in the immediate vicinity of this conversation revealed 3/3 had been kicked or hit or slapped at some point while working in a hospital. 100 percent!

So what does this say about the nursing profession – you have a pretty good chance of copping abuse at some stage? I’d say your chances are excellent. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who has been doing the job for several years who has escaped some form of verbal or physical abuse.

I guess you could put it down to part of the job, dealing with the angry and confused patients etc – after all don’t the police also cop all kinds of abuse on a regular basis? Quite likely – it’s ironic though that this happens so frequently to a profession who, at it’s core, is there to help people!