EP:6 “Suck It Up” Culture

Have you ever felt the tension in a room, where the air is thick, and something is about to erupt? We’re exploring the unsettling terrain of workplace violence from different perspectives with special guest Veteran nurse Angela Mudd and living in a 'suck it up' culture within the medical and military professions.

It’s time to shine a light on the dark corners of workplace violence.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It means someone who's super excited and if you meet them at the same level that they're at, you know. So if you talk quietly then you can calm the situation down and de-escalate them. And I quietly talked and I got really close to her so I didn't have to talk loud and I just saw her face change and I didn't she hit me so hard, I didn't even feel her hit my face. Violence in the healthcare setting. It broke it down into four types of violence. I was kind of surprised, but in the back of my head not because you know, to me you think violence is violence. But then the more we're talking right, you have to break it down is who is perpetuating the violence and what's going on. But they're talking about.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Type one is a perpetrator who has no association with workplace or the employee. So that random person who comes in and attacks somebody or shoots somebody, that is type one. Type two is it's a patient or a visitor and if you know that's a little bit easier, you know when it comes down to it, people reporting it or you know the hospital doing something about it. Type three violence was employee on employee and I know I've seen it. I'm not sure about you, but oh, yes. And then the fourth type is committed in the workplace setting by someone who has no association no, who has no association to the hospital or the healthcare setting, but they do have a personal relationship with, possibly, the person that's attacked or the people that are attacked.

Speaker 2: 1:56

School and lovers, right. So on the peer on peer one, I've experienced that and I think I mentioned on the last podcast that I had a doctor in my face, like just screaming at me in my face, and I was like holy crap and I stood my ground. I just stood there, I didn't back off, but they went and got help because they thought he was going to punch me or choke me out or something. I don't even remember what he was mad about and when it was all said and done, it had nothing to do with me. He misunderstood something. It's having obviously having a very, very, very bad fucking day and and then took it out on me. That's what happened and not not an excuse. But you know, when the stress levels go in high and one area of your world like work and maybe your personal life, and it's all building, shit happens right. So I'm not excusing it, don't think I'm excusing it. I'm just saying that should happen. So, all right, before we get going any further, everybody's probably wondering what the hell are we talking about right now? So this is detox everybody and we're having a discussion on workplace violence. And I'm doing this sans my partner in crime. I am Mr Deerley. But MZ had to step out for a little bit and she'll be back in a couple.

Speaker 2: 3:19

But I'm going solo for a little bit and I'm going to bring in people to chat with and we might have some guest hosts who you never know who's going to pop up on well, it's the Budpans, but right now I'm talking with Angela Mudd, and Angela Mudd has been a nurse for 32 years. At the 15 year mark she decided let's do a little more and she jumped in and joined the reserves and that's where I'd matter and she decided that she was going to rock it out a little bit more on top of her already impressive rap sheet. So she's been an OB and ER nurse for the majority of her career, but she's done pediatrics, med surge, geriatrics, and she's been the director of med surge and OB. So she really, if anybody has some expert knowledge, it'd be her, seeing it at every level.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Oh, there is one other thing that she did that was pretty cool is that she was one of the first reserve nurses to be in New York City for when COVID hit, and maybe we'll bring her on for that discussion at another time, but we're bringing her on to talk about the whole workplace violence and what she's seen, and what she's seen on the military side, if we've seen it, and what we see on the civilian side, and then you know what can we do about it. Right, we're all about raising awareness right now and talking about it. They're a little sass in there, right, ange.

Speaker 1: 4:42

That's it.

Speaker 2: 4:43

I appreciate you inviting me on. Always we always have good discussions, so all right. So we were talking that there was like four types of workplace violence and you know I was making the comment like kick in the face is a kick in the face. Whether that's your patient or it's a person on the outside that's pissed off that day and is going to take it out on you know the medical world, that person still is probably a little hesitant to come back to work. You know, the day after, right, it all has a mental impact. But, as we also said, we understand why it's broken down into the different categories.

Speaker 2: 5:24

So, for example, I had a lady that had a subdural hematoma. They were trying to give her meds and when they were trying to give her the medication she'd get very agitated and didn't really know why. But anytime somebody got near her just for the medication, they could put a hand on her shoulder and they would do that. They put a hand on her leg and she'd be fine. But as soon as they were going to do meds she would tighten up, and so they brought in extra reinforcement. And here I was and they said, can you hold down the legs? And I said yep, and so I did, and at least I was going to and as I put my hand down to help kind of restrain it, she picked her foot up and then clocked me right in the middle of my eyes I mean, just took me right out, nose forehead.

Speaker 2: 6:15

But this lady wasn't with it. She didn't know what she was doing. It triggered her for some reason. Did we all understand it? Yes, were we all concerned? Yes, they were like are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. But I could rationalize that this is somebody that had an altered mental state, right, right. But what do you do when it's a shooter, some guy that just came in crazed, or a patient that is just pissed off because, I don't know, he didn't get his coffee in time and he's already stressed out. Or it's a peer that had a bad fucking day and apparently you walked in front of him at the wrong time and it's going to come out on you. Or you said the wrong thing that just triggered him and it's going to come out on you. I mean, how do you rationalize that and put that in a place that you can process it?

Speaker 1: 7:09

Absolutely. And you know the lack of reporting. We all talk about it, but talking about it and reporting it and following up with it and following through with it are totally different. When I was talking about one of my peers and I was in this department, for some reason I thought transferring to interventional radiology was going to be just a great thing. That lasted 60 days.

Speaker 2: 7:34

I remember that.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Yeah, not sure what I was thinking going back to five days a week after doing four years of just three. But you know, everybody saw this nurse being bullied. It was not even subtle under the table, they saw it. And when I said, y'all, this is wrong, why aren't you doing anything? Because of course my director level, you know, head came out and I'm like y'all, this is not appropriate, you all need to be reporting this.

Speaker 1: 7:58

I'd already reported it, I already did my whole thing and I even created my crazy spreadsheet of what the turnover costs are. And the CNO is amazing. So this wasn't even a department that felt under the CNO's purview, so she wouldn't know it was falling, I think, under the COO or the CFO and so she had no clue. So when I gave her all the research articles on bullying and the workplace and all the you know my Excel spreadsheet of what it's going to cost and how much they've already spent on turnover because of this consistent bullying, it's crazy, I know, and people are like, really, angela, you had to be that person. This was in the ER right?

Speaker 2: 8:38

Oh no, it wasn't in interventional, it was in interventional radiology.

Speaker 1: 8:41

I had transferred out of the ER for 60 days.

Speaker 2: 8:45

Okay. So we got to tell the backstory because this is what's even more hilarious. So she's going to get it done and she doesn't play, and I know her greatest person ever and when people are fucking around it's going to be called out. What makes it more hilarious is that Ange decided after how many years were you a director of nursing? 22. 22 years. She's like I've had enough of this. And so she left her job as director of nursing and went and worked in the ER and said I don't want to be a director of nursing, I want to get down there with the people and I want to do you know, bedside, be right there nursing. And then she did that and then decided that small transfer to IR, which didn't go so awesome, and then went back to the ER.

Speaker 2: 9:35

So I say all that one because she's a little bit of a badass, but two because her that's why she did what she did Like her eyes were already a director level eyes that was like dude. Let me just tell you, at a level that you will understand as an administrator, why this is bad. Besides the fact that the person just had their freaking head bashed in and you see that that's a problem. Let me tell you what that is in numbers, which is what all administrators will respond to, right? So I just think that's hilarious and people are like what? Yeah, I literally had people looking at me like, well, nobody cares.

Speaker 1: 10:14

So you talk about fear of retaliation. I do think some people were intimidated because everybody thinks, well, if I say anything, you know management is going to target me, or they don't know how to report it. And I had people say well, we went to the manager, what else do we do? There's always another step. There's always you and I both know. Chain of command. No, chain of command, right.

Speaker 2: 10:33

Well, let's look at it from, put yourself back in the director's eyes and that's gets reported to you. It's kind of good because we can talk to you on both sides of it, right? So you saw that and you're like fuck that. Like this is getting reported. Now you're on the director side receiving the report. What's the response? And really I think the medical healthcare world needs to understand. When the report happens, how is that viewed at, at least from how you function as a director?

Speaker 1: 11:07

So for me it's nice to say in my head I'm like I would have fired the bitch. I saw it and I literally was so uncomfortable with the way this you mean the bully, not the reporter, right, the bully Right. You know she was a charge nurse and she was. She knew her stuff and she was. She was amazing in that she knew this department well, she ran it well and she was. She was a great nurse. But then, okay, look, you can't sit there and go what a great nurse, but the pep, I mean she wasn't, and it was hard to sit there and separate the two at times. But now I've lost my train of thought.

Speaker 2: 11:49

That's okay, You're allowed to do that. Now I was just saying from the director side like somebody reports to you. You get that report. What do you do? Yeah, absolutely. And how does?

Speaker 1: 11:59

that look Right exactly, and I tell people. I said if you're going to give me something, I need it in writing. It doesn't mean I'm going to go. Angela said that you were picking on her because there is an aspect of confidentiality. But one director of HR said to me one time she says, angela, confidential is only as confidential as confidential is, which means if somebody is being accused of something at some point along this process, they have a right to know who is accusing them of whatever Right. So initially there's some confidentiality because you still have to investigate because maybe it's garbage, maybe it's not or maybe it can't be substantiated, and so you don't want to single anybody out, and so I always tell people it needs to be in writing. I had no problem putting things in writing because you know what I'll say. Whatever I need to say in front of the person and the manager, I'm okay with that. A lot of people aren't comfortable at all with that because that's still a type of you know, that difficult conversation, that confrontation people are not good with.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Well, imagine a new nurse, Say the new nurse watches it.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Yeah, exactly, and you know, this one department, in a six month period, had lost like six employees between nurses and nursing assistants, something like that. When it's brought to a manager, they are obligated. Obligated, not pick and choose. They must take it to human resources, because this now is something that's escalated and this is where the manager, who was so nice, but you know this was part of, you know, in my opinion, a progression of the reason why six months later she ended up losing her job and the nurse who was the original bullier kind of saw the writing on the wall as well and she ended up going somewhere else.

Speaker 1: 13:47

But HR is like we never heard anything about it and that's a problem. Yeah, and so you know you've got the retaliation fear. There's no clear reporting method and then people don't do the footwork. How do I report this? And then also the belief that nothing will be done, because the people that say they were reporting it were sincere about their belief. They had said something. Nothing was done, so it's just validated. Nothing's going to be done. You can take it to the manager. Nothing will be done, and so are they going to report it again.

Speaker 2: 14:19

Nope, why bother? Nothing's going to be done, and it really only takes one time for that to happen.

Speaker 1: 14:25

You lose trust. You lose trust to the manager yeah, or the director.

Speaker 2: 14:30

And communication breaks down right up and down the ladder. But communication also breaks down horizontally with the peers, right. Let me tell you, that is sure the hell where you don't want that communication breaking down when you have lives on the line. So you don't need that, you need trust. We all have to trust each other. I mean, you know in the military you're going to have each other's back, right, right, that's a requirement. And when we don't because there's people that we don't, you and I both know we're like yep, if I don't have to have you in my circle, I'm not. If I have to, because we do get stuck with people we don't want to work with, then it's going to be very cautious, guarded and limited.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Nothing right. It doesn't. We're trying to protect ourselves. In the meantime, communication's breaking down, so it's just a disaster everywhere. And then you brought up another good point the cost. Cost allows money to train a medical person and to bring them into hospital, especially if they're coming into a new field. Maybe they're cross training. So just if the civilian audience is listening, just so you know, a nurse is not just a nurse, it's just not just a nurse. A nurse is a nurse is a nurse. That's not it. We all have specialties and you take us out of our specialty and stick them somewhere at a place. We haven't worked, we've got to learn right. So we are, we're costing money when people are like you know what, I'm going somewhere else, I gotta go anything, I gotta get out of here, like that. So yeah, so that's definitely a good perspective. What would you say cause I brought it up a little bit what would you say to the brand new nurse that saw that scene, that saw a bullying scene?

Speaker 1: 16:25

Well, I guess you have to reinforce to them that this is not appropriate. And at that point again, this is in my opinion at that point the entire department should have had a general meeting and HR should have been there. And you know, this is a process that shouldn't have happened. And we know that people have said things, or at least they say they've said things. But here's the process and this is what we do. But you've got to sit down and have, you know, one-on-ones with everybody, because you got a level set at that point.

Speaker 2: 16:58

It's culture. You got to create the culture Like if it's a no tolerance, what in the military? Drinking is zero tolerance? Right, we have drinking and driving. Sorry, Drinking is 100% tolerance, but it's a driving part. We don't push right. So we hear drinking and driving and we know zero tolerance. We know you get caught and, depending on your rank, You're going to lose something you know, and higher rate the more you have to lose.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Right. How many deployments were you on where you didn't even have to be driving. If you cut your finger and you had to get sutures in it, they were going to be doing a Right. But also at some point, like in when I was in the Middle East, we had eto H. They would sit there and they draw that to see if you'd been drinking.

Speaker 2: 17:48

That's right. Well, some places you can't even chew gum out there, the sugar crystals, there's a big no go. Right, so right, I get what you're saying. It's. It's a no tolerance thing, no tolerance, and we have to have that today and we'll talk about that in a minute. But I wanted to ask you have you experienced workplace violence yourself? Have you ever had somebody come up?

Speaker 1: 18:12

and attack you. I have you know you kick their ass back.

Speaker 1: 18:17

I would have, I would have liked to, and some people said I can't believe you just squatted down like that and let her punch you. So I had a young girl. She was autistic, so she's on the spectrum Right and not high functioning at all. She was also schizophrenic, so she you know, of course this is during COVID, it was matter of fact, it was 2020. It was the end of summer 2020. I had just gotten back from New York, I had taken my leave and I went back to work and when I returned to work, I had a fracture in my pelvis. Not because of this assault, but because I was. I decided that I was going to be the poster child for running and I ran so much that I had it cost a fracture.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Oh, I know, right, right, I have to do this. So you're going to be a mile and a half for your PT test, not a marathon for your.

Speaker 1: 19:08

Absolutely. And you know, it's when I was telling people all day long with this girl, y'all, keep an arms link, keep an arms link. Even my, my amazing mental health tech, who's like six and a half feet tall, he's like 300 pounds, he's like he's, he's just the nicest person, he's a big bear and I even told him keep your arm, you know an arms link. So she's going to swing at someone today. I didn't mean that she was going to be swinging at me and so you know, here I am. They gave me all these patients because they would always say, one of the charge nurses would say but you're the psych whisperer. What does that mean? Yeah, right, right, I like, just because I don't complain, I don't know. Yeah, I don't like mental health, I don't like having to deal with those patients. I do it sometimes because I think the thing, if you do the things that you don't like, you become better at it.

Speaker 2: 20:03

Well, I want to clarify when we say we don't like mental health. I just want to clarify that when we're talking about that, we're talking about, like the extreme end of it, the inpatient, the people that probably should be institutionalized, like the person that has depression. Yes, we're talking like way far where the experts were like go get them tiger.

Speaker 1: 20:25

That's it. And I don't want to be that nurse, you know. Just like I don't want to do dialysis, I don't want to be a dialysis nurse and I don't want to be a mental health nurse. But in the ER, you and I both know you got to do whatever walks through that door.

Speaker 2: 20:36

That's right, and it's all kind of like Walmart watching sometimes.

Speaker 1: 20:44

And this girl was talking and so I thought if I just lowered my voice and I got close to her face and was talking, because she'd been good all day long, no issues, no aggression. And you know, when I started talking to her, I just saw her face change. It was literally like she was a different person and I knew it was coming. I did, I knew it was coming. She hit me so hard in my face I didn't feel it and I'm glad to, because all I was thinking is please don't knock my teeth out.

Speaker 2: 21:14

She said that's hard. You immediately went numb. You're probably your brain is just associated from it like shit.

Speaker 1: 21:24

And I immediately went down to the floor and covered my head and she just pummelled my back and thank God, there was a paramedic who just brought a patient in and he was like just a few feet away and of course he runs and he jumps on her and they go through one of our breakaway doors. I was shaken up at the moment. Of course you know it's that fight or flight and I just didn't feel anything. I wasn't sore, I was shaky, but that was it. Everybody came to me, the director and the manager and the CDN, everybody checked on me and they're like you want to go home? And I'm like nope, nope, I'm going to finish the day Right. I wish I had just brought him home.

Speaker 2: 22:01

Well, you know, you bring up a good point. So when this stuff happens, right, everybody like to say how they're going to respond and we hope, like with us in the military, depending on our training, we hope that our military training kicked in. Or like when we're in a code, we're trained for codes. I mean, the majority of us train for codes and you hope that your training kicks in. I mean, that's really the best you can hope for is that your training kicks in and you respond. But we really don't know how we're going to respond until it happens.

Speaker 2: 22:38

So where I know you and I know that you don't back down from things, I mean you're not aggressive and mean by any stretch, but you're confident and you stand your ground, you, you know you. If she would have swiped and missed you and stood back, you know you stood back and she missed you that would have been a different story. You would have been trying to handle her, to bring her down, but she made contact, rung your bow and at that point you went down and you don't know where she is. So you're just like the safest thing to do is stay small until I can figure out where she's at and then go from there, so absolutely.

Speaker 1: 23:17

And then and then. You know what do you do? People are like I can't believe. You just sat there and didn't do anything. She's on the spectrum and she's schizophrenic. What am I going to do? That's like attacking a five year old.

Speaker 2: 23:28

Well, and I'll tell you, then you have a very strong five year old.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Very big, five year old, then you have to think about. You know, civilian world doesn't quite get this how we respond. It's our license. So, for example, I'll give up kind of an unrelated. But when I was in college, out with my friends party, in on our way home, a guy, apparently also partying, was driving a bike, riding his bike and didn't navigate the stopped parked car that was right in front of him and hit it full force with a bicycle, but he ended up with a gas in his head and I don't know how I saw it. We were there and I just jumped out because, you know, I'm a nursing student. I put my cape on. I'm going to save some day I don't know what I'm doing right, your stethoscope on to. I would. If I, if I would have had it, I probably would have pulled the stupid thing out, right, trust me. And so, anyways, the whole point was that I, I just responded and I got out there and I applied pressure and all that stuff. Okay, cops came, the fireman came, they took over, I'm done.

Speaker 2: 24:48

So the next day, of course, I'm still a little adrenaline filled and I'm like I'm telling the nurses what happened, I met my job and I'm like, oh, but what blood? Well, I sure the hell wasn't prepared for the response that I got, which was you need to go get your blood drawn and you better hope, like how, that you didn't get AIDS or hepatitis or anything. And I'm like whoa what? Because in my mind I did a good thing, absolutely. But they turn around, said you're doing care outside the hospital, girl, that is not what you're supposed to be doing. That's what we have paramedics for, that's we have EMT first responders. That is not you. And I was like what? Now there is good Samaritan act and all that stuff that we fall under.

Speaker 2: 25:30

But they were trying to make the point to me. Like you know, you did your deed, but your role. You have to be careful of how much you're doing. You know we can only render within our scope, right, so it can have ramifications. So let's just say we'll take your scene. What if you turn around, kicked her ass? I was defending myself, she's, she's coming after me. I took her down. I'm a black belt in whatever, my God or something. I took her down and I restrained on her. I'd be curious what that would have resulted in honestly, and especially nowadays.

Speaker 1: 26:12

I mean, we see, we see all the stuff that's going on in the news. It's not like it's not talked about. I think this you know this is going to lead us into a different whole conversation, but I think this is one of the reasons that nursing groups in general are becoming more vocal and becoming louder. You know, this is the push for unions, and I'm not a union supporter, but it's things like that where people don't feel protected, they don't feel safe, they don't feel like administration has their back.

Speaker 1: 26:43

I was lucky in that I really do feel like my facility was taking care of me. I push back and I'm like no, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I don't need to go home, I don't need to see work. You know employee health, I'm good. It wasn't until about nine months later that I really got angry about the whole situation, because I'm not that person who calls out sick. I'm a dependable team player, I'm reliable, I am there for my peers. And when I found, you know out that my manager not my director, but my manager, who was still new to management counted me absent, that we it was like happened on a Thursday and then Saturday, sunday, I called out sick because my back was really hurting, I had trouble walking and again I still didn't go to employ health. But I was just like wow, you counted me absent and didn't even tell me.

Speaker 2: 27:30

And it wasn't until to absent different than taken.

Speaker 1: 27:33

just clarify absent versus taken, time off or no it's an occurrence is an occurrence if you, if you take time off. In my head, that's like you're. You're requesting vacation days. So, in the hospital setting. They call them occurrences and even with the doctor's note and occurrences occurrence, you're not at work when you're scheduled to be there.

Speaker 2: 27:52

So that's what the absence there, that's what they were saying, that you, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:56

And my manager said well, you said you were fine. Well, I was, until I wasn't right. You know, I felt, I felt kind of betrayed, even though it was my own fault. I, you know, I should have followed through with having somebody check me out and things like that. But you know, this point, it is what it is, but I will not do that again.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Well, you bring up a good point, right, because we are all built and trained, or trained, to handle the crisis. So that's how we we perform. So when a crisis happens, we jump in there, we do what we do and then we go have lunch. I mean how many times your friend comes down and you're like, oh, hey, what's up? Oh, we just get down to code. Okay, hey, what's the special today? I mean like we just kind of move on until it starts getting us later. So you know, I remember the first time I had to deal with a baby that passed away and it was still born at term, 37 weeks.

Speaker 2: 28:54

It was the first one I'd ever done and, yeah, I left a big impact. But I was like, okay, off we go. And I just moved on right. I was like, all right, it happened. I mean, I was a little adrenaline over just all new and handling it. And Two months later, three months later, I'm falling apart, crying over God knows what could have a Kleenex commercial. For all I know and the time. I don't know why I'm falling apart. I have no idea, because that was three, four months ago and I'm not connecting the dot. So we are all really Masters at carpimentalizing things. We are as medical and we are as military, so we're doubly good as military, medical.

Speaker 1: 29:40

But and and just to clarify before the nurses, because you and I both know we critique everything the nurses do. So before any of the nurses start emailing or messaging or texting you and me about 37 weeks is not term. When we did this 20 years ago, 37 weeks was term. Term Was term. 37 weeks now is considered late preterm. For all those OB nurses that are out there listening trying to critique us and.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Good call, good call. Yeah, we are a little bit more mature nurses. Yeah, it was term back then, that's what it was considered so, but yeah it was. I didn't respond until like two months later, like I fell apart crying one day and I did not know what the hell I was crying and why. I'm not a cryer. That's not what I do.

Speaker 2: 30:27

So we are collecting this over time and then let's just add more to it. We just had COVID. That just wreaked havoc through the medical community on many levels. First were the heroes and then were the villains, and we lost a ton of them in the beginning because they got COVID themselves. We lost a ton more from pure exhaustion. And then there's still a whole other group that decided not to come back.

Speaker 2: 30:59

So we're sure I think I read a study or some article where they said by 2030 will be a half million nurses short.

Speaker 2: 31:07

I'm like, ooh damn, it's not a time to be sick, right? I mean, so now you take somebody that's already storing it away, going to a place that is chronically short staffed, dealing with Stressful job all by itself, I mean, whether we're dealing with codes Decompensating patients, family members and not even violent people Just, maybe they need Support. Maybe it's their child that is now has cancer, and now you're the, you're the medical support person for them, because when they see you, they just Bomb it, their fears and worries on to you. Right, you're taking all that in, everybody's taken that all in, and Then, and then we have to handle all that, and then an event like this happens Somebody loses their shit and it's on you. And then you're like why the fuck am I here? What am I doing? Where is my purpose here? Because you're just done and right now I feel like we're a hamster on a wheel or hopefully not in the toilet bowl, just on a wheel right now, right.

Speaker 1: 32:15

Absolutely. You know. And talking about New York and COVID, you know when we talk about the, the nursing shortage, or the Nursing shortfall, or people are applying to schools but there's not enough teachers, so nurses can't get in to get trained good point. So the entire state of New York, as of 2021, only had a hundred and ninety thousand nurses. That's nine point six, eight nurses per one thousand population. Can you believe that? Oh my god, that's that's not even.

Speaker 1: 32:43

You don't even get ten nurses for every thousand, you get three quarters of a nurse. So that's, that's crazy. I mean, in Texas We've got two hundred and thirty one thousand Nurses for a population of thirty million.

Speaker 2: 32:57

That's almost eight nurses per thousand people, and and I'll tell you, you know, you and I both nurses I stepped away, I I decided to, you know, at 30 years of it and I said I'm good, you know, you're still getting it done. Which mad respect for it. And there are other people and there's no shame in whatever people choose, you know. And that's the other part. So in workplace violence and I'm kind of putting a whole picture here on how it impacts everything, right. So we have all this stress going on and then you have an increase in workplace violence Because of we're short staff, people are getting frustrated, etc, etc. Which leads to them going I'm out, this is too dangerous, I'm getting out which just leads to more Chronic short staff.

Speaker 2: 33:46

We're going on and on, the question I have is where's the cog? Go in the wheel, like what happens? Like you said, one freaking report. You know, let's weed out the shitty people. If it's pure on pierced stuff, I'm sorry. I don't care if you can do surgery on a Nats ass. If you're an asshole or You're bullying and stressing other people out and it's gonna make 10 people quit. You don't need to be here. No, not at all.

Speaker 1: 34:18

So what about the hospitals? I think hospitals, you know, there's clinics, all of it hospital clinic.

Speaker 1: 34:26

Yeah, and I think we're. You know it's a mixed bag there, because if it's a hospital and even if it's a patient who has mental health issues that doesn't give them, you know, a ticket to act out aggressively and injure, threaten, scare the medical staff, they have to be held accountable. You and I both know there's going to be those patients that there's nothing you could do. You you could sentence into jail or whatever. It's not gonna make a difference because because they're not there, they're just mentally, they're not confident. Yep, yeah, it's. It's like, you know, punishing your one-year-old baby.

Speaker 1: 34:57

They just they won't, they won't understand it, it's not gonna make any difference. But you know, I had one. A nurse from Oklahoma sent me their picture when I took my dad in the spring. He just got treated for esophageal cancer and walking into the hospital facilities or the clinics or Whatever type of any type of health care setting. It was kind of an in-your-face sign like I was shocked about it Because I wish we had that here in Texas, and it literally says Warning assaulting a medical professional who is engaged in the performance of his or her official duties is a serious crime.

Speaker 1: 35:37

Now, it's not a law but it's part of their statutes, so it can still be considered a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the. You know what you're doing. I think every state should have something like this and we shouldn't have to petition to get it done. We shouldn't have to have, you know, a nurse or a doctor or somebody else die. We shouldn't have to, you know, have total lockdowns. I mean, we've had some pretty bad stuff happen in the last few years here in in the Houston area you know, shooting at a children's home in the Houston area. You know, shooting at a children's hospital in the parking lot, and so it's you know. We shouldn't have to wait for that to happen to be protected.

Speaker 2: 36:13

No, and I agree, there shouldn't. There shouldn't be like, get a hundred signatures or a hundred thousand signatures, like whatever. What the hell does a freaking? What signature mean? Go, do something. Right, exactly like across the board. You know, I was just thinking about this too, I. I was thinking about how it all plays together. So everything affects everything.

Speaker 2: 36:37

And it brought me back to one of my first duty stations. I was at a large military medical facility and I was working in the ER and I had a guy that he OD on his medication by accident and so I'm trying to get an n? G tube down him and get some charcoal in him. And you know how that goes. So fast, right, and we're on you than anybody else. Right, right, you're. I'm like I don't even know if this works because, yeah, you're right, I get a better. So usually on my hands by the time we're done. So he I'm putting it in, it's coming out his mouth, it's just not going well. All of a sudden and he's a good sport All of a sudden we both hear this, russell, and if you couldn't imagine, I'm in one of the trauma rooms and I'm facing out towards, like, the nurses station and it's so the beds facing towards the nurse station, and I'm standing beside the bed and I hear this Russell, and we both look and this guy, because the door is open.

Speaker 2: 37:38

This guy shows up in the doorway and he you could tell he's completely deranged and he hollers I've got aids and I'm gonna give it to you. Like just screams this out and I'm like what the fuck is, before I can process a thought, to police tackle him, or like security forces, tackle him onto a stretcher and he's taken care of, right, he's restrained, and that's it, we're done. And I looked at the guy and he looked at me and I'm like are you okay? And he's like, yep, I'm like okay, let's try this again. And we went back to Benji too, which was successful, I'd like to add Eventually.

Speaker 2: 38:24

But it makes me think, you know we're, what if that same incident happens? And you know first responders, police, all them, their short staffed as well, and what if they didn't have that same level Of protection that we had? You know they were right there, they took him down. He obviously was not competent, you could tell, and that was the end of it. But what would have happened if nobody had tackled him? Right, I'm standing there with a. I'm going to whip him with an ng-tube, I mean, and I'm in a room full of needles and Everything else in there. Like what does he run to? I have no idea. I hope he's not there. Like what does he run to? I have no idea. I hope like hell I'd stand between me and the patient and protect. But it would be.

Speaker 1: 39:14

I would have been a whole different story and you know we sit there and say what we'll do. But you're right, you don't really know until you are faced with that. You know you and me are different, different birds.

Speaker 2: 39:27

I was like established a long time ago.

Speaker 1: 39:29

I know right, and and it's not unlike most of us that are in the military when there's something going on, our first thought is not run and hide, try to escape. It's running into it. What can we do?

Speaker 2: 39:44

to save everybody else. Yep service before self right. Exactly exactly that is.

Speaker 1: 39:51

You know that's that's going to be our, our cross, that we bear just because that's. That's the kind of person we are inside right.

Speaker 2: 39:58

And you take you know I'm thinking about this too my little squirrel Crack. Squirrels are on the wheel right now and you know we can tell these stories right and and the different scenarios we've been in and and I'm sure well, actually I know for certain. I did a poll. I wanted to find out more like just in the social media world the response. So I put a poll up on a Nurse humor site and it was all about yeah, and it was good for a week. And then they took it down, they slapped my hand and they said this isn't funny.

Speaker 2: 40:40

If you want educational things, go someplace else. And I'm like, oh sorry, but in that week I got like 86 votes or something like that. And I will say that At 50 no, it was set about 80 percent of them had either Experienced it themselves or experienced it and seeing somebody else experience it 80% and the other small percentage that was actually more than that. It was more than that. It was like 90 something, because I remember it was like 7% said no, they hadn't experienced it, but they had witnessed it.

Speaker 1: 41:24

Well, and you know that goes back to the reporting. That's a lot because you know, if you think about you work with 10 people. That means nine of them have either experienced or witnessed it. The reporting is only 20 to 60%. Can you imagine if only literally 20% of people that have been, you know, verbally assaulted or bullied or whatever, had reported that site to intent?

Speaker 2: 41:54

I mean, that's the low side of it, but you we have to say you know, we're not going to be able to say that, what do we do?

Speaker 2: 42:03

We create a culture because medical and military themselves are similar, even without being military, medical Right. We have a suck it up mentality, yeah, and to suck it up culture, and even to the point that we suck it up for as long as we can, and then when we don't or we I'll say break, we're not going to be able to say that, we're not going to be able to say that, we're not going to be able to say that I think we're broken, I think we've been through a lot, and so you've got to step back and let's say, let's say it was a workplace violence thing and it injured somebody so bad that they either have to take time off from work to heal or they can't come back to the job, right, and then what happens? Shame Guilt. You know they're not going to be able to do that and they're going to be able to get back to their craft and they can't get back to it.

Speaker 1: 43:02

So now we're dealing with a whole I'm not enough On top of everything else. Well, and, and you know what, what's really disappointing and I've seen this and this is probably where I come from on both sides of it. You know, I've had nurses that have been injured at work and they need to be on life duty, and so you put them at the desk and then the other nurses get angry because, oh yeah, and so you know, then I started gosh, you know, I would tell employee help I can't have this nurse on my floor because it's unfair to have her the target of, you know, negativity because she's been hurt. It was that was one of the reasons too that, even while I had that hip fracture, I mean, I was walking down the hallway and one of the doctors walked around the corner and he cracked me up.

Speaker 1: 43:45

He's not very tall, he's shorter than me and he's so nice. He's got his hands up and he went oh, angela, please, can't you just go home? And I'm like, wish I could, wish I could, I wish I made that, you know. And how am I going to? I still have to pay my bills because you and I both know, even short term disability or workman's comp covers maybe half of what you your paycheck would be. You can't.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:11

That's a whole thing too.

Speaker 2: 44:12

Yeah, it's a whole other area and the military side is similar. So where somebody gets hurt, hurt, I used to work in a with a program where we took care of all the garden reserved and if they were injured we'd have them back on orders. But they couldn't do full duty so they would same thing. They'd be there answering the phone or doing the stuff that they could do, and I'd have commanders call me and be like I've got six guys in this office or in this area. One of them's down and he's sitting there answering the phone and it's bringing morale down for the other five and they're getting pissed off and I'm like, well, did they ask to be hurt? I mean this is not their fault.

Speaker 2: 44:56

We take injury and we're like you're not better yet. I mean it's been three days, it's been a week, it nope, we're not better yet. It takes time to get fully there and we don't honor it because, guess what, we're short staff. The medical community short staff. The military community, they're always short staffed. I mean that's just the way we always run and because of that, when it's not fast enough, then everybody turns and looks at that person's like you suck, like you're still answering the phone, yeah, and now the person's like shit and guess what, as we all know I know nobody wants to get all holistic-y and stuff but when you increase your stress level you ain't gonna heal as fast and we don't acknowledge and we don't honor that. So we're like perpetual self-licking ice cream cons. So many levels I mean really this.

Speaker 1: 45:53

This whole conversation has just really gone all over the place. I mean, we, we talk about, you know, violence in the workplace, referring to more, I think more we were talking about initially thinking it was going to be patients or visitors on healthcare, you know, professionals. And then we, you know, we've even talked about the bullying, because that's, that's violence, it's word violence, it's, it's still violence. And you know, now we go to injuries and and people may being made to feel bad because they're life duty and they need to work or want to work. You know, I think most of us want to be there, they want to contribute and being there and helping. You know, even during COVID, you would always know which employees were, were on like duty, because that would be the nurses that were screening the patients. You know, let me scan your forehead for your temperature as you walk in like that. I would have just killed myself if I had to do that all day long. But it's something. It's better than taking the nursing assistant off the floor.

Speaker 2: 46:52

It's better than taking our new grad off the floor who can help us, okay, well, I give it to somebody who I think we went all over because we're what I think and you and I are kind of both good at this is that big picture. So workplace violence, that small little subsection of everything else that goes on, has a massive impact and we kept following down that path to show it affects every aspect. I mean there was a study I said it on the last podcast that they were family members were afraid for their family member to go to work. So spouses and kids were afraid for their family member to go to work because of the risk of workplace violence, somebody coming in shooting. I mean there was one that wasn't long ago. It was in, it was in Tennessee I don't know if it was Nashville or where it was and it was a.

Speaker 2: 47:52

It's a very well loved physician and I want to say hand specialist pops into my head. But they walked into the clinic and killed him. Somebody came in freaking, popped him off. Wow, how like the sky is blue, the grass is green. I think I'll go shoot a doctor today. I mean the hell, yeah, yeah. And we don't say this to like make everybody like start triggering and freak out and wondering what the hell they're doing with their life, and that's not the reason why we're saying all this. We're saying that we have to somewhere put the cog in the wheel, and so Oklahoma's starting to do it. They're putting these signs up that says you couldn't be a dumbass, you could get arrested for this. So you do any violence and there's consequences to it.

Speaker 1: 48:44

I mean, we know there's those professions Police officers. If a police officer gets shot we're like, oh well, that's their job. Well, not to get shot, but in the law, Not to get shot. But they are inherently working in a violent job At risk. It can be. Nobody wants it to happen and God bless all of those men and women that are brave enough to put on that vest and do what they do, Because I don't know how they do that Kissing their family, goodbye every day.

Speaker 2: 49:17

Well, we can compare that, though there's one area in the military where workplace violence I'll say workplace violence is pretty much a given, and that's when we deploy. I mean our whole deployment is workplace violence, depending on what you are level you're at.

Speaker 1: 49:37

And so.

Speaker 2: 49:38

I mean, I remember my husband was deployed and then a good friend of ours deployed out not long after him and when I talked to him he's like, oh, we met up for coffee and it was kind of a nice thing. He comes home. And then she comes home like I don't know four months later, whatever it was, and we're talking and, yeah, right after your husband left. She's like they had a bomb. I think it was near the DFAS, like near the Chow Hall, dfac, not DFAS, not payment food, but near the DFAC. And one of the guys that we both knew was coming out of one of the buildings and the concussion threw him back in. He landed back on the couch and guess what we did? We had a good laugh. We're like, oh God, ha, ha, ha, like because that's the risk you're taking when you deploy.

Speaker 1: 50:35

That's the risk you take when you deploy.

Speaker 2: 50:38

I'm like, is he OK?

Speaker 1: 50:40

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 50:42

So for us that's our new job?

Speaker 1: 50:45

Right, exactly. But as a nurse, as a doctor, as a nursing assistant, you don't go into work going. Ok, let me go grab my M9. And let me put on my bulletproof vest. You don't go in there going.

Speaker 2: 51:00

I'm ready for you, I'm you know Right, not on the civilian side.

Speaker 1: 51:03

That shouldn't be the Not on the civilian side exactly Now, maybe Chicago, maybe those nurses?

Speaker 2: 51:09

do. Maybe you're in fact in or something right Even down here in.

Speaker 1: 51:13

Texas, we don't do that.

Speaker 2: 51:14

Right, yeah, and we like guns down here. Yeah, and we do.

Speaker 1: 51:19

Right, and this exercise I was just part of, there was a lot of notional, lots of notional. And these two Brits walked in and they were so nice and they were bringing us our notional CCAP patient and we were talking and I said, do you all have any guns? Or you know, because I don't know anything about guns, I only know when I'm told I have to carry one Right, and he goes, well, we have a notional rifle right here and of course he opens his hands up, like you're, you know, my fish was this big and he goes can't you see it? I said, yes, and on my chest there's a notional M9. And he's like it's not bang bang. And I said, no, in Texas we go. So you know, I saw him in the DFAC and he came back when he walked up to me. He goes, just so. You know, I'm going back to England and we have notional noises. Now Our new notional gun noise is going to be Pew, pew, pew. Yeah, it was funny, it was just funny. Oh my God.

Speaker 2: 52:15

Well, I think we've explored a lot of arenas to workplace violence. I think that places like Oklahoma who would have thought? Shout out to OKLA that they're actually taking a measure. You know, for all the other states I'm sure there's something going on. We would love to hear what's going on. I would love to know what other hospitals are putting things in place to support their people. You know personally, I mean, if there was time and money, maybe everybody should be, you know, trained in hand to hand combat at this point. You know how to quickly subdue a person Right. We could bring, we could get a collaboration between special forces and hospitals and do some training. That's right. Or we'll get the troopers in there and do some hand to hand combat or something. But I mean, you know, something has to start changing and I agree, we don't have to go through all this massive red tape to get. Oh, now it's the law. For God's sakes, just be smart enough to know if one of your people get hurt, you just lost a lot of money in time.

Speaker 2: 53:23

Protect them now, yeah, so if you're a health administrator, get your head out of your ass and do something about it. And when people are reporting, there has to be a culture of protection that somebody reports something, that it's not going to be reprisal, they're not going to lose their job, they are, you know, going to hopefully step forward and do the right thing and people are dealt with. And maybe, just maybe, you know the person that's getting reported. Maybe, before we slap them with discipline, we find out what's going on, you know. And maybe somebody says, yeah, they're not acting. Their norm, if it's a peer on peer type thing, right. Unfortunately, I don't know what the answer is for people that are walking in the door shooting up clinics. It's mental health care right. We're short in that also and there's not enough of that to go around. And what do we do? I don't have that answer. We need more people to get in that mental health arena and start helping, you know, start getting into the therapy world.

Speaker 1: 54:33

Well, I'm not going to, I'm going to avoid and I'm just going to run by it and just tap on that door. You know we have tons of money that we're given to countries countries that are not our friends or countries that we're not going to change outcomes and we don't have money for mental health facilities. And you know we're keeping patients days and days like caged animals in emergency rooms because, there just are no places to put them.

Speaker 2: 54:58

And that's what happened to your autistic patient, right, that person was there. That's exactly Right. And and there's, like you said, there's, there's money, there's sloppery room everywhere, and we got to find it right. There is and I agree, I mean there's money going out places that maybe we can cut it down a little and get it back into mental health. Maybe we need to restructure things within the health care community. I don't know that. Maybe we should need the damn printer to go a lot faster and just spit out some more bills. I don't know that answer, but what I do know is that we are in a shortage and we need a new way of doing things, and it is a huge challenge to leadership in the health care world right now, and so hopefully they're jumping on board and and they're trying to figure out how to get out of this big ass ugly ball that's rolling down a hill pretty damn quickly.

Speaker 1: 55:54

Yeah, it's a black eye. It's a black eye on healthcare?

Speaker 2: 55:57

Yeah, it is, I agree. So all right, any last thoughts?

Speaker 1: 56:03

No, not at all there's, you know. There's just so much to think about and chew on right now.

Speaker 2: 56:08

I know we can probably do series on this, absolutely All right. So everybody out there in the health care community, we want to hear from you guys, like we want your thoughts. And you know, when I did that little poll that I got in trouble with or got removed because I wasn't funny, I did reach out to a couple people to see, amazingly, to see like hey, you want to talk about this and interestingly, I got no bites. You know they they were willing to talk their story but they didn't want to come talk about it. And that's okay, I'm not judging it, it's fine. But if you have a story you don't have to give us your name. We won't put names up here, but we would love to hear it.

Speaker 2: 56:49

I will happily do a whole podcast on the various stories and make awareness, you know, and and just if we keep talking about it, maybe something will grow and eventually change. So, from all of us over here and all of you, thanks for listening to Bullis and Bedpans. If you guys can like share, spread the word. The more we're listening, the more we're talking, the better it'll be. Peace out everybody.