The Bedpan Diaries

I swear - if I have to change another adult diaper or spend another day fetching bedpans at five-minute increments for little old ladies with teeny-tiny bladders, I am going to scream.  After today’s patient load, I have had my fill.  I don’t know as if I can even look at another bedpan without feeling a sense of dread.  But, of course, tomorrow will be more of the same.  I can’t get out of it.  Our patient population makes such undesirable, annoying exercises a constant necessity.  And, of course, I can’t really scream, as doing so would be unprofessional.  Nope – I just have to smile, be kind, and continue on with the menial tasks I have come to loathe, all the while wondering if this is really what I worked so hard for. 

Part of my frustration simply stems from working on a ward again.  Less acute patients require a different type of care than critical patients.  And, while I have appreciated taking a step back and working with more stable patients, I am beginning to miss the challenge of the ICU. 

The other part of my frustration stems from Australian nursing as a whole.  As I’ve alluded to in past entries, Aussie nursing is vastly different from American nursing.  The Australian nursing model seems determined to keep nurses functioning at a more domesticated, less medicalized level.  It’s what I imagine American nursing to have been ten (even twenty) years ago. 

Aussie nurses don’t collect patient’s medical histories or complete head-to-toe exams.  They don’t draw blood or start IVs, unless specially certified to do so.  And they have to double-check almost everything.  The lack of autonomy is often astonishing (and maddening).  From my perspective, they simply don’t oversee and organize their patients’ care to the same extent as their American counterparts.  Instead, they are obligated to focus on the very basics of care:  bathing, changing the linens, fetching bedpans, and dozens of other tasks, which could easily be carried out by aids.  To my American sensibilities, it seems like a waste of nursing education and resources.  (More importantly, it seems like a waste of my nursing education and skill set.)

Maybe I would feel different if I were working in an ICU right now.  Maybe I would feel less like a cross between a pill-pusher and pooper-scooper and more like a real nurse.  Please don’t misunderstand me, I do enjoy my job and I am loving this experience; I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  But I would really love to go an entire day without changing diapers!