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In any patient interaction whether inpatient or outpatient the nurse will come across people of all backgrounds. No matter where you are the diversity of your city or town will have you meet a variety of people. I am not just talking about people of different nationalities and race, but education, age, history of incarceration, and mental health. Have you ever have a patient that during the duration of the shift devolved their entire life history. Some people feel more comfortable than others. You will not know your patient’s full history, and this is a factoid that you need to keep at the front of your head.
As human beings, we all have biases. Your experiences may have a predisposed attitude or idea of a person from either the little bit of history reported from the previous shift or their appearance. This is normal human behavior, but working as a nurse, you need to enter the room and not treat their religion or education, but the patient. The patient comes into contact with a nurse typically not on their best day. Whether you work at a clinic or a hospital, the majority of our patients are sick and not themselves.
The person is a compilation of their environment, their choices were based on the variables that everyone has to base decisions on. A homeless person could be the result of a good job and home life that lost their job due to downsizing and economy, they lost their house, their marriage, and their kids. Nowhere else to go, they survive on the streets. Or the homeless person was born with a mental illness; unfortunately, the patient was never able to get the diagnosis or the proper help needed to balance their illness, without the appropriate help they may be unable to keep a job, turn to drinking or drugs, and end up on the streets. These choices that may have dramatic outcomes have evolved from an individual difference.
When walking into a room remember that you are a professional, that the person in front of you no matter appearance or history is your patient. Practice walking into a room seeing a human being. Have you ever entered into a room with a predisposition of a person and they made you change your mind?
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