This appointment was my first experience with this facility. I was referred. I have come to sum up this experience in two (2) parts -- pleasant, based on my initial contact with a professional nurse, and unpleasant, based on my initial contact with a second nurse who presented herself as an impatient bully.
The nurse who escorted me from the lobby, who identified herself, was very warm, engaging, calming even. Her presentation put me at ease. She smiled and we engaged in banter about me spilling my coffee on the way to the appointment as she explained that part of the MRI process. Though she gave me her name, the next phase of the procedure overshadowed this initial phase.
The second nurse, who was in the procedure room where the MRI is performed has also left an impression that is contrastingly different. THe first nurse brought me into the room where another nurse stood. This second nurse never acknowledged me; she never identified herself. The first nurse prepared me for the scan, then left me with the unidentified personnel who administered the scan.
After the procedure was completed, less than an hour, feeling nauseous, imbalanced and a bit wobbly, I got up and stood in close proximity to the door where pre-procedure, I had placed my jewelry -- a necklace pendant, and pearl earrings.
Seeing that I was about to put my jewelry back on, she says, "You can go across the hall and put those back on." I retorted, "It'll only take a second to do it here," and had already put one 3mm sized pearl back on. I was simply not feeling stable enough thinking that I might drop something in process of picking up jewelry trying to move it to the restroom.
Based on the next set of events, in this medical imaging facility where this is my first time entering, my response offended her. This medical personnel aggressively came into the space where I was now standing still trying to put back on my jewelry while still trying to regain my equilibrium. She snatched open the bottom cabinet door to my right and slammed it shut, went around and behind me and slammed something on the counter to my left. She came back into my space and yanked open a drawer in front of me then slammed it shut. I was shocked and now even more unsettled by such inappropriate and bullying behavior. She felt so accomplished that she had made me feel so uncomfortable that she actually mustered the gall to wish me a good weekend as I started to leave.
This presentation of opportunistic intentionality, of impatience, of disrespect and ultimately veiled manipulation was to the degree that I walked out and had to turn back around as I had forgotten the jacket that I wore in to the facility.
My relationship to this facility is that it serves a medical purpose. If personnel are unable to control their private and personal biases and resentments such as what is indicative of behaviors shown by this woman, this nurse, and are memorialized here, I am suspicious of the quality of her work ethic overall and the climate of the facility that fosters such behavior.
LizG read more