The Fall Protocol

August 18th, 2015 Tags: author Kate Loving Shenk, The Prayer Prescription Series
Posted in Prayer Prescription Series

Many potential blog topics are always occurring to me but are either too controversial or entirely too ridiculous for me to write about. When my buttons get pushed, I always consider writing about that exact button pushing idea, and either write about it or not.

But I have a real knee jerk reaction to what I have always called “The Medical Gestapo.” I wish I could say that Medicine has become more of a healing environment. The Post 911 years seems to have unleashed a whole new era of punitive suffocation. People in the medical workplace seem to think they are in the law enforcement profession or the military instead of what could or should be healing and transformation, or at the least emotionally intelligent.

A startling example of this is a “Falls Protocol” that has recently come to haunt all the nurses at every hospital across the US. Every patient has to sign a “Falls Safety Agreement” which amounts to a consent form asking the patient to call her nurse if she feels dizzy or if she needs help. If the patient falls, and if she did not sign the agreement, a Falls Investigation Team comes to the hospital and investigates the fall like it’s a crime scene.

If the patient falls on your shift, you are written up, with a great punitive flourish. If anything else ever happens again to question your good standing as a nurse, you are automatically fired.

I am thankful to be freed from these work environments. My furry friends helped to make this transition without me consciously knowing it was happening. 

Blessings abound.