Dear Ms. Behar,
I am a nurse. I have been a nurse for thirty years. Most of my career has been spent in Emergency Nursing. My career setting has ranged from busy Level 1 Trauma Centers to the unique challenges of rural emergency nursing. I have a Masters Degree and I am currently working on my PhD in Nursing. When I heard about the comments you made on television, I felt like I should sit right down and write you a letter.
I don’t watch commercial television. I saw a clip of your recent comments on YouTube. I certainly have never watched The View in the past. From what I understand from my limited recent exposure, The View is a TV show where middle-aged women with coffee sit around a table and make fun of other women. As captivating as that sounds, I have doubts that I will ever watch your TV show in the future.
With regularity, I wear a doctor’s stethoscope around my neck. I have also had occasion to use my doctor’s stethoscope when assessing emergency patients. I usually wear the doctor’s scrub costume to work and on occasion, I have been known to use other doctor tools like doctor masks, doctor gloves, doctor tongue blades and doctor needles. Occasionally, I will use a doctor otoscope or a doctor ophthalmoscope, but those are big words and I don’t want to confuse the issue.
Sometimes, when I am feeling especially daring – I will use a doctor defibrillator to save a patient’s life (I bet you have seen that on TV, Ms. Behar).
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 19.8 million nurses in the world (The doctor’s World Health Organization coordinates health matters and provides leadership within the doctor’s United Nations). Of those nearly 20 million nurses, 3 million are nurses in the United States. Three Million!
When you or one of your family members arrives at the Emergency Department, the first person you will see will be a nurse. The nurse, who is apt to be wearing a doctor’s stethoscope, will assess you and use that doctor’s stethoscope to listen to your heart and lungs and maybe to your abdomen and will take your blood pressure (with a doctor’s sphygmomanometer). The nurse will then use her independent judgment based on triage principles to decide if you should go to the waiting room or be sent immediately to an examination room. The nurse may decide you or your family member has a life-threatening emergency and the nurse may then immediately begin life-saving measures.
If you do have a life-threatening emergency, such as a possible myocardial infarction (that means heart attack, Ms. Behar), other nurses will huddle around you and begin to save your life. You might see even more nurses with doctor’s costumes on and wearing doctor’s stethoscopes. An intravenous line will be accessed, blood work drawn, electrocardiogram and cardiac monitor done and evaluated, oxygen placed, and a history of your current health and current medications will be gathered. All by those nurses in doctor costumes. The doctor will then arrive and the nurse will have a dialogue with him or her about your symptoms and history. Some of the nurses may give you medications or other interventions designed to save your life. During all of this, nearly all of those nurses will treat you with compassion, kindness and respect. We are known for this. They will keep your health information private and they will be with you, with your family and at your bedside through the entire crisis.
The three million professional men and women in this country you chose to make fun of on your TV show are probably never going to forget your ridiculous comments. However, if you show up in their ER, they are going to use their doctor’s stethoscopes and other doctor’s tools to save your life.
You can count on that, Ms. Behar.
Sincerely,
Karen Patterson Stevens MSN, RN, CEN
