No, you’re not, “sorry,” except for yourselves. And it’s terminal. If nurses and other caregivers in hospitals cannot help but take out their frustration and unhappiness on the patients, they need to find another career, because their own negative attitudes only make them appear to be heartless, vindictive and mean. Period.

I tend not to have a negative attitude until I have to listen to the entitlement crowd. It’s amusing how whiny people like you get all up in arms because health care professionals treat everyone like drug seekers, then, in the next breath you criticize all health care professionals for being mean to you.
It’s bad when health care workers allegedly paint the patients with a broad brush, but it’s OK when whiny patients who think they’re entitled to a room with a TV, a warm blanket, and a mint on their pillow paint all health care workers as “heartless, vindictive, and mean.” Get over yourself.
If you don’t like the way that organized medicine treats you, next time you are sick, click here, follow the directions, and save yourself, the doctors, and the nurses all a bunch of aggravation.

Through an interesting set of circumstances, I’ve spent the past three years working in a few different capacities in the ER. Even the most mundane day at work produces far more fodder for my various and sundry writing projects than anything else I could have imagined.

I’m looking forward to reading more, and I’ll be linking to you in my blogroll.

Cheers!

I disagree that “they are merciless.” People don’t get into this line of work to be merciless. See my response to the post above.
That being said, having a “patient advocate” is a good idea. Not only can that person help you to get the care you need, but that person can also witness the causes of some delays.

I’m sorry for your bad experience.
But I encourage you to look at your situation from the caregiver’s point of view. You know how to care for people in pain in distress, but could you care for 12 people in pain and distress? Twelve people who need medications at varying times, who need IVs, who need meals, who need the TV turned off, who have multiple family members calling about their progress, who need help to the bathroom, who need transport to physical therapy and radiology and cardiology, etc. The list goes on. Oops … charting! Let’s not forget all the charting that nurses have to do. Oh, and do the nurses get time to eat and urinate sometime during their shift?
I don’t know what happened in your case. Consider the possibility that perhaps your caregivers weren’t “disinterested” but were instead “overwhelmed.” It doesn’t justify what happened to you, but maybe it will give you a little insight into the cause of such problems.
Take a look at ER Nursey’s blog sometime.

I also understand his praise of the nurse who did come to aide, and what a different that makes.

I ounce found myself in a hospital with a 105 degree temperature. Was put on an IV, given antibiotics and $20 worth of Tylenol. And given a bunch of blood test.

Finally, a doctor comes in to inform me with a smile on her face that the diagnosis looks like I have Hepatitus C. I was shocked…”how” i asked?

She replies with a smug expression. “Well, have you been sleeping around or using drugs.”

I replied “No, never done either…” (at the time I was a 20 yr old virgin and I have never used narcotics) to which I she replied “Well, you must have been doing something.”

Later tests showed that I did not have Hep-C. What I had was a third friggin kidney.

But yeah…bad bedside manner, lack of courtesy, rudeness…sadly, it can be way too common in the medical field. All that aside, there are some stellar doctors and nurses. In fact, most are…and more would be if they weren’t working four 14 hour shifts.