News flash! There’s a ton of hatred and division in America right now. Sorry to break that to you so abruptly, but it’s time you knew. Especially with an election looming like a Category 5 hurricane just off the coast.
So aren’t you glad you work in a profession that offers some respite from all that ugliness?
Maybe that sounds naïve, and you’re already thinking of exceptions. But that’s my point — they are exceptions. I have yet to hear someone say, “Isn’t it sad that long-term care is so polarized these days?”
I’ve yet to see an inflammatory flag flying off a med cart, a political yard sign in the parking lot or a blood pressure-raising slogan painted on a facility wall. Compared to the deluge of toxic political sludge that bombards you outside the work day, passing through the front doors of a nursing home at the start of your shift must feel a little like entering a peaceful mountain spa.
That’s because you work in an environment that never changes in one important way: People need care, and you provide it. Always have, and always will.
The higher levels of trust, patience and compassion that are frequently touted as the antidote to the nation’s divisions are already the baseline in long-term care. I’m unaware of a left-leaning nurse who chooses not to respond to a Trump supporter’s call light, or a trending-right CNA who makes a Harris-loving patient wait for their lunch.
To test my hypothesis (that long-term care represents a microcosm of the kind of tolerance and acceptance that could bridge the nation’s divides) I interrogated three unsuspecting nurses who happened to be passing my office door. How do their personal beliefs affect the care they provide?
“When you’re in nursing school, you’re trained that you can’t have judgment for anybody,” one long-time facility nurse told me, seeming amazed I’d even ask such a thing.
“I simply see a patient in need,” said another. “My own opinion is completely separate from the care I give.”
“I treat the person, not their belief system or background — as a human being,” said the third.
Face-to-face with another person who desperately needs help, love tends to overwhelm all differences. Long-term care people experience this every day — the revelation and recognition of humanity in someone they might have strongly despised in a less vulnerable predicament.
One of the nurses I talked to described how the experience of caring for patients, who often arrive helpless and at a lifetime low point, has mellowed her own opinions, fostered nuances in her beliefs, and left more room to give others the benefit of the doubt — even outside of work.
“Because I’m providing care all day long, it gives me a lot more patience when I go home,” she said. “It’s become a natural part of me.”
“A nurse is a nurse 24 hours a day, for the rest of their life,” echoed another.
So here’s a thought: If spending time caring for others is the secret solution that can bring greater tolerance to our society at large, perhaps every American voter should volunteer for a long-term care shift each week between now and the election — then continue in perpetuity.
Maybe the hatred and division would melt, at least a little bit — and we’d also solve the staffing crisis.
Things I Think is written by Gary Tetz, a two-time national Silver Medalist and three-time regional Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Association of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) awards program, as well as an Award of Excellence honoree in the APEX Awards. He’s been amusing, inspiring, informing and sometimes befuddling long-term care readers since the end of a previous century. He is a writer and video producer for Consonus Healthcare in Portland, OR.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
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