Ask-For-Instructions-To-See-Your-Doctor
I'm a member of the ask_a_nurse community, here on LJ. People from all walks of life come to this site, posting descriptions (and sometimes, photos) that are not for the faint of heart, hoping for something that will end their ignorance, dispell their fears, and cure their ills.
I'll admit it. Sometimes I find it mentally invigorating to put my knowledge to the test. And sometimes, I respond with annoyance to finding these issues on my computer display, simply because I'm in a state where I don't want to have anything more to do with nursing for a few days.
Sometimes I wonder if there is some element of morbid intellectual voyeurism involved in the psychology of such a community, when we aren't present to obtain a full assessment, or give any sufficient kind of care ourselves.
More than anything else, I find myself perpetually amused/irritated that the most common reply to any given situation, be it a hangnail or aortic aneurysm, is: "You probably ought to go speak with your doctor."
That's never BAD advice to give. But I find myself wondering if we do any good, by ourselves.
Perhaps the reality is that such a community exists to give people permission to spend hundreds of dollars to have their condition properly diagnosed. Why? Because most people tend to ignore an issue until it gets so bad, that it can't be ignored anymore. Perhaps our purpose is to invite them into the light, give some initial advice ("Go see your doctor"), and then get them hooked so that the healthcare system can begin poking and prodding them. Hopefully, they'll come out the other end with some improvement made to their quality of life. You really do hope. And you rarely hear about the outcomes of these situations. I imagine that this is a slower analogue to being a 911 Dispatcher.
I'm really not as pessimistic as this entry may make me appear, you know. My sense of humor just tends to be more "dark" and dry than anything else. It's 65% amusement, tainted with 20% "realism", with assorted trace-emotions making up the remaining 15%. Being in the medical field (AND the military) tends to push you in that direction. The upside? You can find amusement in even the blackest of situations.
It's how you survive the pain and experiences which push the limits of human tolerance, even when they are being witnessed and not directly experienced. There are some things which the mind was not designed to process in an easy fashion. And ultimately, you have to keep functioning when anywhere up to a few dozen suffering people lay their burdens, their lives and their futures on your lap.
Maybe this community does some good after all? Maybe all of us, and not just those making the privacy-shedding pilgrimage to ask_a_nurse, come here to share our joys, our burdens, and seek that perspective which helps us to better understand our situations.
Funny thing... most often, some of the most common, frequent (and most valuable) advice I get from my truest friends here on LiveJournal is: "You probably ought to go speak with your God."
;-)
I'll admit it. Sometimes I find it mentally invigorating to put my knowledge to the test. And sometimes, I respond with annoyance to finding these issues on my computer display, simply because I'm in a state where I don't want to have anything more to do with nursing for a few days.
Sometimes I wonder if there is some element of morbid intellectual voyeurism involved in the psychology of such a community, when we aren't present to obtain a full assessment, or give any sufficient kind of care ourselves.
More than anything else, I find myself perpetually amused/irritated that the most common reply to any given situation, be it a hangnail or aortic aneurysm, is: "You probably ought to go speak with your doctor."
That's never BAD advice to give. But I find myself wondering if we do any good, by ourselves.
Perhaps the reality is that such a community exists to give people permission to spend hundreds of dollars to have their condition properly diagnosed. Why? Because most people tend to ignore an issue until it gets so bad, that it can't be ignored anymore. Perhaps our purpose is to invite them into the light, give some initial advice ("Go see your doctor"), and then get them hooked so that the healthcare system can begin poking and prodding them. Hopefully, they'll come out the other end with some improvement made to their quality of life. You really do hope. And you rarely hear about the outcomes of these situations. I imagine that this is a slower analogue to being a 911 Dispatcher.
I'm really not as pessimistic as this entry may make me appear, you know. My sense of humor just tends to be more "dark" and dry than anything else. It's 65% amusement, tainted with 20% "realism", with assorted trace-emotions making up the remaining 15%. Being in the medical field (AND the military) tends to push you in that direction. The upside? You can find amusement in even the blackest of situations.
It's how you survive the pain and experiences which push the limits of human tolerance, even when they are being witnessed and not directly experienced. There are some things which the mind was not designed to process in an easy fashion. And ultimately, you have to keep functioning when anywhere up to a few dozen suffering people lay their burdens, their lives and their futures on your lap.
Maybe this community does some good after all? Maybe all of us, and not just those making the privacy-shedding pilgrimage to ask_a_nurse, come here to share our joys, our burdens, and seek that perspective which helps us to better understand our situations.
Funny thing... most often, some of the most common, frequent (and most valuable) advice I get from my truest friends here on LiveJournal is: "You probably ought to go speak with your God."
;-)