What Were You Thinking?

So last night I had to take my father to the ER. He's pretty ill, with complications around a leg ulcer and his diabetes, and well, it is all kind of a very sad mess. Sigh.

I used to be a full-time pastor as I have mentioned, and so I have been in hospitals a great deal as a visitor. I've been in the hospital a couple times, too and I've visited family and friends.

Point is, I have some hospital experience, because of my former days pastoring a church. On average, I was visiting folks in the hospital, or nursing home, at least once a week. I have to say that most of the time....like 99.99% of the time, the people I have met, from doctors to aids, from physicians assistants to nurses, to maintenance staff, have been incredibly kind and patient and friendly. I always fill out those little "How'd We Do" cards and give everybody a 5 of 5 stars. I've visited folks in psych departments, ICU, maternity, rehab, cancer wards, children's hospitals, the ER. I have visited, let me count....23 hospitals. I can't even begin to count nursing homes, but a lot more than that. And these aren't in and out kind things, these were visits, you know? Pastor-type visits and repeat visits.

Again, I stand by the 99.9%. Loving, caring (or at least acting that way, for you cynics out there) people.

Last night was an exception. So of course I have to talk about it.

One of the nurses in the ER last night (I won't say where because maybe she was just having a bad day) was so totally rude and nasty. She was clearly disgusted by my father and me and all of the other patients in the ER. The eye rolling, the glaring, I had a lot of time to watch from the sidelines as she attended to others because the place was really busy.

I just don't really understand why someone would go into nursing if they didn't like people. There are so many careers out there, so many she could have chosen that would have allowed her to be behind the scenes, not with people, let alone having to be sick people and worried people and all kinds of people who might be rude or hurt or injured or mentally ill or out of their mind in pain or any number of things. Why would you choose a healing profession that you KNOW would put with people all the time, and people who aren't say, at the park, enjoying their day off, on vacation, etc.?

Why?