Dear Doctor.

Dear Dr. Napoleonic Complex Hospital Consultant:


I am writing this letter to you because I think that you need to be made aware of a few issues. You are about to get your ass handed to you on a plate and I want you to know why. I hope that this letter will open your eyes. You do not spend any amount of time on hospital wards and are very unaware of what exactly is occurring.

Your lack of knowledge, your ignorance, your attitude problem in conjunction with an ego that is writing checks your body can't cash and a propensity to lash out with opinions that have no grounding in reality often makes you look like a wanker. I am writing this in the hopes that in the future it prevents you from the misfortune you had today of looking like a complete asshole in front of your patients.

Currently our hospital is short staffing the wards to the point that we have so few registered nurses that we are completely ineffective. You know this is true unless you are completely stupid. Today's nurses chose to go through a very difficult program at university to become nurses despite the fact that the pay is an insult and that other university graduates who have an easier major get more respect. We are intensely serious about providing good nursing care. We are so overwhelmed that we go home in tears. We are beaten and broken but we come back the next day fighting because we want so badly for our patients to have good care. Plus I think my uniform makes me look hot.

Don't forget that many patients are sensible, intelligent and aware of what is going on because they have eyes that can SEE . Please pick and choose carefully your audience when you make mean spirited and unprofessional comments regarding the nurses.

If you are going to make comments such as "too bad these nurses don't care about you" "the nurses are too stupid to understand that you should have this now” “the nurses are too lazy to walk you to the toilet" "the nurses are too stupid to understand that people who can't feed themselves need help" PLEASE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD DO NOT SAY THESE THINGS IN FRONT OF SENSIBLE long term repeat admission to the same ward patients.

This is especially true if these sensible patients have been present on the ward all day, day after day after day, and have watched one nurse and one assistant run around looking after nearly 20 patients on their own for 12 + hours without a break or a drink.

It is especially true if this patient /patients watched one nurse simultaneously do a drug round, deal with a patient who was deteriorating whilst feeding 2 patients as 11 others waited and cried for help. Same patient witnessed this nurse deal with a cardiac arrest 2 minutes later. Same patient overheard the nurse crying to management crying for help only to be told “tough”. "You have a housekeeper on the ward, put her to work as a nurse and you’ll have help." says manager. (Yes he really really said that. I swear it on my life).

This same patient day after day after day gives the nurses encouragement and tells us that we work too hard. She was there the day that due to a glitch we actually had a decent amount of staff and saw the difference that made to the patients. She saw a manager come down and see how many staff we had and saw him send some home as they had accrued so many unpaid hours that he wanted them to take some back. Then she saw the ward descend into chaos. She knows what short staffing does. She sees all kinds of non nursing staff sitting around the desk with uniforms that are similiar to the nurses' uniforms.

This patient is with us a lot due to a chronic problem and her husband often brings energy bars and cakes in for the nurses because he knows we go all day without eating much of the time. We don’t tell the patients what is going on as that would be unprofessional but sometimes they SEE. We try to hide our fear and anxiety to avoid scaring them. But sometimes they SEE. Basically this patient knows the score and you Dr. Complex just made a big mistake.

You came down to the ward on your round and made unprofessional and derogatory remarks about the nurses in front of this patient. You told a little old man in one bed that he has a pressure sore because the nurses are too lazy to turn people. You told another patient that the nurses don’t want to feed people because they don’t care and then you told my sensible patient who sees what goes on that the nurses are too stupid to know that she can have her venflon out now that her IV meds have been changed to oral so “make sure that you tell them”. The confused woman in the next bed who isn't your patient saw you walk by. She pointed at her catheter and asked what it is and why it is in there. You told her it is because the nurse is too lazy to walk her to the toilet. The woman is in pre-renal failure and needs an accurate fluid balance maintained you moron.

The sensible patient glared at you unblinking and said “get away from me you son of a bitch” barely above a whisper. You are not used to being spoken to like that are you kiddo? Day after day your ward round usually revolves around making derogatory comments about the nurses in front of staff and patients and no one has ever challenged you. You got closer and asked her to repeat what she said to you. She repeated herself just a little bit louder in a tone that even scared militant medical nurse. This time your whole medical team as well as the rest of the bay heard her. You certainly slithered your way out of there fast. The woman has balls. Militant medical nurse was impressed.

After you left she used words to describe you that would make a sailor blush and she had a good belly laugh over your stupidity. I, of course, did not join in and agree with her because that would be unprofessional but I ran out of the bay into the treatment room and laughed until my sides split at some of the creative swear words she used to describe you, your stupid comments, and your looks. I told my colleagues of your interaction with her, what she said about you, and we all split our sides laughing at you. Laughed until we cried. Thanks for that. We rarely have a laugh at work.

Then her husband came to visit and she told him what happened and he spent most of the afternoon remarking on how small your penis must be to make you feel the need to try and kick the nurses while they are down like that. It took all of my energy and self control not to laugh with them and frankly I was too tired by that point anyway. I managed to keep a straight face and say nothing.

They raised an interesting point regarding doctors and wanted to know why the docs don’t try and get their patients cared for properly by having enough registered nurses around? I couldn’t answer them of course because if I had I would have told them that the doctors really don’t give a shit. But I am too professional (on the job, not the blog) to tell them that.

Patient and her husband are closely connected to certain people who could make your life suck career wise and not only are they putting in an official complaint about you Dr. Complex but they want to take it further and see you get your ass, scrotum and very small penis handed to you on a plate. It's a crying shame because clinically you're not half bad. I hope that you get nothing more than an attitude adjustment and a personality transplant.

Please doctor heed my advice, If you are going to act like a total dickhead in front of patients please make sure that you choose your audience wisely. Avoiding sensible people who know what is going on day in and day out on that ward would be a good idea. If you are going to insult the nurses and accuse them of things that are not based in reality, don’t do it in front of people who see how overwhelmed the nurses are and how hard they are working to try an pull the impossible together.

IF you have issues about your small penis that cause you to try and feel like a big man by beating down the already drowning nurses via verbal diarrhoea please please confine those comments to the doctors lounge. If you feel the need to bash a nurse for not being able to astroproject and be ten places at once than pull her aside and let her have it without an audience.

If you have issues regarding shitty nursing care than GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DEMAND THAT THERE ARE ENOUGH REGISTERED NURSES AROUND TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR PATIENTS. IF YOU AREN’T DOING THAT RIGHT OFF THE BAT THEN NO ONE BELIEVES THAT YOU ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT.

Good Luck Doctor Complex.

Sincerely,

Militant Medical Nurse

PS.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha