If they had shoes...

I'll try to keep the melodrama for my private conversations, but I needed to share something so those of you who talk to me on a regular basis can remind me of this next time I'm bitching and moaning about some patient related aspect of my work. No matter how awful the shift of a given health care worker is, with only a few exceptions, one thing needs to be kept in mind by all of us who have the good fortune to work with sick people & their families in the way we do. When our time that day is done, we go home; the patients stay for another round. If they are lucky they'll even get a team that isn't understaffed, pissed off, tired, hungry, in a hurry and self entitled. Oh yeah, and as a rule we are getting paid to be there, and they are paying. Well someone is...
That all being said, I'd love to educate people on what it means to work as part of the team to further the efficiency with which we deliver their care. Despite common public misconception a hospital runs with as much good luck and ingenuity as it does with regimented & controlled care. It would probably terrify people to know the minutia that goes in to ensuring that they are survive the day.
All in all we're lucky to work in the field we do; and we would do well to remember it while we sip our cappuccino's and bitch to one another.