Do You Ever Hold Your Patient’s Hand?

At work the other day, I witnessed something small that has taken up a big part of my thoughts since.

Some point in the shift, the phone rang, and I answered to a voice asking for the dialysis nurse. Common occurrence, as nurses come to the unit to dialyze patients regularly, and often nephrologists or other dialysis nurses call to give them orders or requests.

The dialysis nurse in request was one I’d observed before, though never worked directly with. I had already painted her in my mind as old, union-centric, and jaded. Once, I listened quietly as she talked loudly to another nurse about contract negotiations and the unfairness of nursing. To be short, I expected little from her; a burnt deadbeat.

But when I went to the room where she dialyzed a patient, I saw something that shamed my quickly-laced assumptions right out of me. There she sat, in…