i think my dad might have been right about rescuers...that we rescue to fill a hole. i was thinking about myself and all the other rescuers i know and there is a common thread here besides the usual perpetual love for animals, a natural do-goodiness/ fix everything and a feeling of self importance...there is an arrogence too. we know more, we do more, we are more than everyone else....and we know this is true.
of course, the question arises...are we?
just becuse we think other people are stupid, does not make them stupid. just because we think we know it all, does not mean we do.
and how do we know if we are being arrogent?
that part is easy...as soon as we sneer at someone else for "whatever," we know we have the arrogence bug. mention someone else's name, directly or implied, make that all telling statement of hidden contempt for someone else or their efforts and what they do or how they do it and bam..the "i am better" flag just rose to the sky ( that flag is just flapping in the breeze, it is not actually accomplishing anything useful)
we all do it, every single one of us...some of us know it, and some of us don't, but i have yet to meet anyone is rescue who's opinion about others does not reflect an opposite (and much better ) opinion about ourselves.
why is that? is it like that elsewhere? i rarely see it in nursing. but maybe that is because we all get the same training, we work from the same standards to practice, we have the same code of ethics as everyone else.
lone ranger nurses cannot survive in the health care system any more, the team is too important. and you never hear the nurses from RCH bashing the nurses at VGH either (or visa versa.) same set of challenges, same difficulties faced, the same ultimate goal...the care of our patients before anything else (although universally we do bash the government for all the road blocks it has set up to prevent good patient care)
i think it is an interesting question to ponder...why are rescuers so different in this regard? why is it more about what we think than what we actually do? and why does what we think or even do have anything at all to do with someone else?
maybe it is because nursing really is the worlds oldest profession...we have been nursing others since mankind began. rescue is a newer thing, it is just over 100 years old.
food for thought for me while i stumble thru today, but one thing i have already figured out...the arrogence in rescue starts because for some reason we feel a need to justify who we are and what we do. we do that by looking at others, and then we start defining ourselves. we take it one step further and just have to tell ourselves and others that we measure up better than someone else.
it is a long walk back from that kind of edge of life experience, physically and emotionally...you have done so very well..... that is because you are a tough, steel souled nurse..they either have to knock us off completely or just get the hell outta our way cuz we got things to do. sigh, yes dogs are good for keeping us from sleeping too much.