Confessions of a Male Nurse. Michael Alexander

a general nurse on the new graduate programme. I expected to be offered a ‘normal’ nursing job in a surgical or medical ward. But I couldn’t turn down the offer of a full-time job. They didn’t even interview me for the position. Maybe the personnel manager was too embarrassed to admit that she had made a mistake. Maybe this was the reason no one seemed to like me, especially Sharon.

      ‘Stop daydreaming: pull your finger out your arse and do some work.’

      The calm way in which Sharon said this left me speechless.

      ‘And close your mouth, you look stupid.’

      Sharon seemed satisfied that she had made me look the fool and moved on down the corridor in search of her next victim. Only four weeks into my nursing career and I was learning to avoid my charge nurse at all costs. I looked over at Cherie.

      ‘I have to tell you something you won’t like’ – Cherie was never afraid to speak her mind – ‘Sharon doesn’t like you . . . a lot.’

      With my self-esteem at an all-time low, I began to go about my rounds.

      I knew that I knew nothing. It was a good thing really, as too much confidence can be harmful.

      It won’t come as a surprise that I struggled with some parts of the job already. Things were unfamiliar, and it was usually vitally important that I got them right. The latest problem in front of me was called erythromycin. It’s an antibiotic, and in this case it needed to be injected straight into a vein.

      ‘What are you waiting for?’ Sharon asked me, as she entered the treatment room and saw me standing with a syringe full of intravenous antibiotic.

      ‘I’m waiting for Cherie,’ I replied cautiously.

      Hospital policy stated that all intravenous medicines needed to be checked by a second person, but I felt a bit useless standing there doing nothing because mine had already been checked.

      ‘Let’s have a look. I’ll check them for you.’ Sharon began to look at the drug chart.

      ‘It’s already been checked,’ I replied. ‘I’m just waiting for Cherie, because she has to watch me administer it.’ Again this was hospital policy.

      Sharon rolled her eyes and quietly cursed. I’d said the wrong thing.

      There was an awkward silence; a silence which I hoped would last, because I knew when Sharon spoke it wouldn’t be to say how conscientious I was.

      Sharon finally broke it with a calm voice, though I could sense the anger building:

      ‘Are you a registered nurse?’

      I wasn’t sure whether to answer. Was it a rhetorical question? I knew there was more to come, so I just nodded my head.

      ‘Well, start acting like one,’ she added, her voice rising up an octave. ‘You can’t have someone holding your hand all the time. Take some initiative.’

      I left the treatment room in a hurry and approached my patient.

      Here I was standing at the patient’s bedside, with a syringe full of antibiotic that I’d never given before. Policy stated that I needed three months’ supervision before I could give these medicines on my own, and I was just nearing the end of my first month.

      My mind was chaos turning over silly thoughts, crazy thoughts, even suspicious thoughts. Was Sharon trying to set me up to fail? What if something went wrong? I wasn’t even aware of all that could go wrong. If something did happen, no one would back me. Sharon would deny everything. What could I do? I knew what I should do . . . but I couldn’t risk facing the wrath of Sharon.

      I slowly opened the intravenous valve and began to insert the syringe. In my nervousness I fumbled the syringe and it fell on to the bed. Was it still okay to use? I didn’t know, but Sharon would kill me if she saw me drawing up another antibiotic. I inserted the syringe and gave the antibiotic, because it was easier to do this than create a scene. I watched the patient’s chest to monitor her breathing. I felt her pulse . . . did it skip a beat? No, I was imagining things.

      I waited anxiously those first few minutes, silently praying that nothing went wrong. Thank goodness my patient didn’t know how nervous I was, but even more importantly, thank goodness she didn’t have a clue that I wasn’t supposed to be doing this yet, even if my charge nurse had ordered me to. After five minutes, I figured that if anything was going to happen, it already would have. The one thing that even new nurses know is that with intravenous medicine when something goes wrong, it tends to happen pretty instantaneously.

      I’d got away with it, this time, but would I always be so fortunate? One month in and life as a male nurse was already proving to be a minefield.

       The scapegoat

      The words looked all the same. The handwriting was horrendous: this could only be the writing of a doctor.

      ‘Can you make this out?’ I asked fellow nurse Jen, handing her the medical notes.

      ‘You’re hopeless,’ she responded in a tone of voice that seemed only half-joking. ‘You need to take some initiative. There won’t always be someone around to cover for you.’

      Jen was yet to help me even once, and I would never ask her for help if there was anyone else around to ask.

      ‘I’m not asking for much,’ I replied, ’just some help interpreting the writing.’

      As Jen tried to decipher the notes, I could see a frown forming. She was having as much trouble as I had been.

      ‘It says colonoscopy. You do know what that is, don’t you?’ she asked, with more than a hint of condescension in her voice.

      ‘If it’s the long, flexible tubey thing, with a bright light that goes a foot or two up your butt, then I guess I do.’

      I was just as surprised as Jen that those words had come out of my mouth. I was just a graduate, while Jen had at least 20 years’ nursing experience behind her.

      As I took the notes back, I avoided Jen’s gaze, worried that I had gone too far.

      I took another look at the writing. I wasn’t 100 per cent convinced that it said colonoscopy. I knew she’d be pissed off if I asked her again, but I had to be certain.

      ‘Are you sure about that, Jen?’ I asked, increasingly regretting my earlier cheeky remark.

      ‘I’ve been doing this job since before you were born,’ she replied. I could see the veins begin to stand out on her forehead as she tried to control her anger. ‘You need to listen to your betters, or you’re going to mess up really bad one day.’

      Now that I felt so positively reassured, I went ahead and got the patient ready for her colonoscopy.

      ‘Are you sure I need to drink all this?’ Mrs Knight asked me, after I had prepared the medicine for her to drink. At 79 years of age, Mrs Knight was quite a surprisingly sprightly little lady – a dedicated member of the local women’s walking club. Unfortunately she was having some women’s problems and had needed to be checked out.

      ‘I’m quite confident,’ I replied – trying not to put too much emphasis on the ‘quite’.

      But Mrs Knight was still unsure about drinking two litres of salty water, and her hesitation was making me doubt my instructions as well.

      After I poured the first glass, I stayed to watch as Mrs Knight took a mouthful of liquid.

      ‘Urrrgh.’

      She almost choked. When her coughing fit passed, she looked me straight in the eye: ‘I can’t drink that stuff; there has to be another way. Besides, why do they want me to have an empty bowel? It’s not my bowel that’s causing the problem.’

      She had a point and as I couldn’t come up with any answer other than the nurse in charge told me to, I thought I had better check again.