Advice(Fair Shot)

 Giving People a Fair Shot

A nursing friend of mine asked me to bring up a touchy subject: not treating nursing home staff like they’re dumb.

That’s a hard one for me.

I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve seen some truly head-scratching things come out of nursing facilities. The kind of stuff that makes you stop mid-sentence and just stare. The classic “they were just fine a few minutes ago.” I’ve heard it. Lived it. Replayed it in my head later, wondering how that sentence even made it out of someone’s mouth.

I’ve also heard, more times than I can count:
“I’ve been on vacation.”
“This isn’t my area.”
“They’ve only been here a couple of weeks. I don’t know anything about them.”

After enough of that, something changes. You stop asking questions. You stop expecting answers. You walk in and mentally treat the patient like they were found on the street with no history, no baseline, and no one who knows them. It’s not personal — it’s self-preservation.

But here’s the other side of that coin.

I’ve met some absolute rock-solid people working in nursing homes. Nurses, CNAs, techs — people who know their patients, care deeply, and want to do the right thing. Unfortunately, those folks don’t seem to last long. They burn out, get tired of fighting the system, and move on. When they leave, what’s left behind often isn’t better.

That doesn’t mean we get to write everyone off on arrival.

This same idea applies to fire department first responders on our scenes. When firefighters arrive before us, they’ve already put their hands on the patient. They’ve already seen things, heard things, and made decisions before we ever stepped off the truck. They deserve our respect and to be heard when they give us a report. Dismissing that information just because it didn’t come from another medic is a mistake.

Whether it’s a nursing facility, a fire department already on scene, or any situation where someone got to the patient before you did, everyone deserves a fair shake at first contact. Listen to what they have to say. They may have noticed something you didn’t. They may have context you don’t yet see.

Now, let’s be clear — listening doesn’t mean blindly trusting.

Take what you’re told with a grain of salt. Re-do the assessment. Re-check the vital signs unless you know, without question, that the person who took them knows what they’re doing. Verify everything yourself. That’s not disrespect — that’s good medicine.

Disrespect is walking in, assuming incompetence, talking down to people, or treating them like obstacles instead of part of the picture. You can be polite and still be thorough. You can be professional and still be skeptical. The patient benefits from that balance — not from sarcasm or eye-rolling.

At the end of the day, this job is hard enough without making enemies out of the people who are there before us — and long after we leave.

Listen first, verify everything — you don’t have to trust the report, but you should respect the person giving it.