[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back. Hey, it’s Mandy and he, he. Hey, Hey, and welcome to American heroes. But at what expense, he, he was just telling me a story and asked me, Hey Mandy, have you ever been called a hero as a nurse? You know, everyone’s called a superhero and I immediately made the gag sound. And if you can relate, I was so glad you’re here.

[00:00:27] We’re so glad you’re listening because we have a story and we. I want to talk about why people call healthcare workers and healthcare professionals, heroes, what it means and how we feel about it. So he, what was the article that you read that sparked this whole, whole podcast? 

[00:00:46] Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I was at scrolling on social media obviously, and I saw this person climbing out of a, a window of a crash car.

[00:00:54] So I naturally click on it. And the story goes on to tell that this nurse. Needed to get to her job at the hospital so badly that she got into a multiple car pile up and then ended up having to climb out her car window and didn’t feel like she was able to call out of work. And it posed her as an American hero.

[00:01:20] And my first thought was, yeah, but at what expense, geez, the woman didn’t even feel like she could have. Call into her coworkers and say, I’ve been in a car accident. I won’t be in to work today. Um, and so they just think this is a worthy discussion of how does it feel as a nurse, when, or as a provider of any sort when we call you heroes.

[00:01:44] So naturally I turned to research to see if. Had been any and there has been, um, and it’s not great. It totally does not support calling providers and nurses, heroes, but maybe why the gag sound. Why, what does that, you know, kind of bring up in you as a provider, as a nurse who is often called 

[00:02:05] the hero? Um, first that story, I saw it, it was like a red car with like the back opened up.

[00:02:11] She like got out of the hashtags and it was. It was an, a rack of like, I don’t know, like 30 vehicles and there were deaths like loss of life in this accident. It was a huge deal. So first I’m thinking, um, she walked through that. She walked through the fire and literally risked her life. Additionally, to get to a shift.

[00:02:35] And then I thought, oh my God, her car is going to be in the pile up. How is she going to leave her shift? Like the important part of clocking out and going home, she’s not going to have a vehicle. I know that stuck with me, obviously a burned, burned out nurse looking forward to that clocking out time. But when you said hero, it’s so common for society too.

[00:03:04] Say that, especially in 2021, right after 2020, where everyone cheered for Medicare medical staff and they clapped and they toasted and they sang and they had signs up that said superhero at work superheroes work here. I think it is a sick excuse for not providing healthcare professionals. The safety and mental health care that they require to do their jobs in a healthy long-term.

[00:03:43] Okay. So it’s really funny that you say that is your feeling as a nurse because, um, the research actually supports that the research does say that the language that we use around, uh, the persona of medical professionals actually acts as an excuse to provide safe and supportive environments for these people to work in.

[00:04:06] Um, and so. That’s really sad. I’m so sorry. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s really. Um, the responsibility that comes along with being a superhero is super unrealistic, right? Superhuman, um, super heroes are always in these dangerous situations in movies and in movies, they never have their car when they need it, or their, you know, their shield is cracked when they need it.

[00:04:34] The most. Or what age they need. 

[00:04:38] Look for those situations, right? Yes. They seek out the danger and they fly down to it because that’s what they want. That’s where they want to be. I just wanted to have a job where I could help people in their best and darkest days. I didn’t ask for a Cape insider tip, insider info nurses, don’t call each other heroes management.

[00:05:05] And administration calls, medical professionals, nurses, doctors, healthcare workers, all included. They call us heroes. I’ve never sent it superhero card to my friend who was like, had a baby, we’d go superhero. You had a baby, Andrew, your nurse never sent a superhero. My parents never send me superhero cards.

[00:05:26] They know, they know that is trash and that is harmful and hurtful. So when we’re painting, when he paints the picture of what a superhero is, they have this one way better costume than scrubs. Like they get to pick their colors. If I’m calling America, if I’m calling an American hero, I want a badge. I want a sword.

[00:05:51] I want some sort of shiny material cross my chest, whatever 

[00:05:55] security clearance I want to know about the aliens, all of it. If I’m a hero, I get to know everything. 

[00:06:01] What about Corona? We should have known. We were, we should have been told and we fly down and we save it. You know, cheers and looks up to the superheroes and that’s also doesn’t happen.

[00:06:14] Like I think people can say, well, I just think hero implies that people don’t need to be taken care of. So heroes aren’t super heroes and are fully human. They’re only partially human. Right. If I understand superheroes, right. I have a six-year-old. So I’m getting it. 

[00:06:31] Yeah, definitely. Spider-Man right. They all have double lives.

[00:06:34] You have your, your human persona and then your superhero persona. And I think that is what we expect a lot of times from, from providers and nurses. Right? It goes back to you saying like, how can I leave that at work? Well, that’s, that’s who you are, your superhero, or you leave it at work and then you go home and you be mom, wife, partner, you know, whatever.

[00:06:54] Maybe you have side businesses, best friend, dog, mom, like, whatever it is that you serve at home. You’re expected to have two different identities, just like your superheroes, but so call me a superhero, but don’t treat me like a superhero because you’re really just going to give me pizza. Right. You know, who opened my eyes to, this is Katie duke.

[00:07:13] Who’s a nurse who is really speaking out about. Kind of the shitty treatment of nurses in America. And she talks about like, you’re going to call us a superhero, but then when it’s time to actually give us PPE so that we can be these superheroes, you don’t got it. When it comes time to giving us raises you.

[00:07:30] Don’t got it. But we got pizza. We got pizza, everybody’s got pizza, right? There’s always a pizza party for nurses. Like your, your, your superheroes don’t want any more pizza. 

[00:07:42] Yeah. And it’s a, it’s a title that no one freaking asked for nurses, doctors. We don’t say, you know what? I want to go to medical school because I want people to call me a hero.

[00:07:54] Yeah. I want to go to medical school because I don’t want fair pay for years. I want toxic work environment. I don’t want health and healthy and safe work environment. I don’t want adequate PPE. You know, I really just want. To just donate my time, feel like I’m volunteering and help people that don’t understand how crappy it is.

[00:08:19] Or I am like, I didn’t go to nursing school to never work with a lunch break or in an environment of fear instead of support and community. It’s always like, We always think it’s like, oh, we’re going to be in this team. This unit we’re always going to feel supported and it’s community. And then management and administration is like, here’s some old pizza and some donuts, you should be grateful.

[00:08:44] I went to be a nurse for hazard pay. I went to be a nurse to pay off my student loans. And many nurses can’t do that right now. And not even including medical bill, like, um, medical school loans. Holy moly. I, no one asked for this hero title to replace safe PPE. We thought we would get the oxygen mask first and then we can support people confidently that we can all be safe in an unsafe environment.

[00:09:17] As we can all see, did not happen. And that was a choice that was a choice made by hospitals and the healthcare system. And I thought I would have support and treatment for my trauma because it was experienced at the workplace. It was like a workplace injury. But instead heroes are in touchable 

[00:09:38] and, and they never fail.

[00:09:40] Right. They never fail. And if they do fail in the middle of the movie, you know, at the end of the movie, they’re saving the day and there’s repentance and everything is right in the world again. And that’s not the human experience. Like you’re going to make mistakes because you’re a human and we cannot continue to.

[00:10:00] We need to hold doctors and providers to a higher standard of care, but we can’t hold them to a standard where they’re not allowed to make mistakes. They are human. Like no industry is going to have people that don’t make any mistakes. That’s an unrealistic expectation. And right now, That’s just not the way it 

[00:10:21] is.

[00:10:22] No, there’s so much fear and, and Benning admitting that you’re wrong or admitting that you don’t know, admitting that you’re consulting with a team. And, you know, I think in some ways that’s okay. And it’s seen, as it’s seen as like the thing to do when you’re talking to. A bigger care plan, but if you’re talking about mistakes like that, it just won’t be admitted and that’s just not realistic.

[00:10:49] And it bleeds into the patient experience. So if you’re acting from a place, if you’re giving care from a place of fear, your care is flawed. If you are so fearful to, you know, treat anything outside of the box, it totally hopefully stomps on any creative thinking and medicine is that fine dance of. Art and skill and education and knowledge and a little bit of experimentation because we’re humans, right.

[00:11:19] Or we’re dealing with biology, we’re dealing with the live things we’re dealing with nature. Like sometimes you have to be a little creative in the way that you think about things and you just totally diminished any sort of out of the box thinking when you only allow people to operate from a place of fear.

[00:11:42] And the expectation that they always have the right answer, right. Superheroes. They don’t always second guess, but they get, just keep trying the next right answer. Yep. They’re like, we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that. So it’s going to work. Even if it doesn’t work, it eventually something, you know, something has to work and that’s kind of how it feels and that hierarchy of who’s in charge.

[00:12:05] You know, and that like backseat that patients and consumers sometimes take in their healthcare, this feeling that is totally supported inside of healthcare, like take, take a back seat. Like we went to school for this. 

[00:12:18] Yeah. No one ever challenges a superhero, right. Except their arch nemesis. So who’s the arch nemesis in the hospital system.

[00:12:25] Who is 

[00:12:26] it? Oh, that’s right. That is a very much. Oh, we could just like, take this metaphor forever. You’re you are attacking the superhero if you and this totally how it feels sometimes it’s totally how it feels. And then in a community, in a team, that’s really not a team. It’s a hierarchy and it’s not a community and it’s not safe to bring up ideas and to bring up, you know, shared.

[00:12:54] Shit shared decision-making, it’s actually an attack. It’s like, how dare you think that? I don’t know what’s best for you. 

[00:13:05] That’s a mindset. We’ve got to get providers out of because you know, those, those providers, that mindset, that thinking is the problem. You know, it’s part of the problem. Like it is one of those broken pieces.

[00:13:17] It can’t be an attack on you as a provider. Um, you as a provider, You got to understand that people have free will and there are a lot of choose what is best for them. And they deserve to dig into the information and ask questions. Right? So in medical schools, I wonder if we could start teaching a different mindset, like start from the very beginning, the ground up, stop breeding.

[00:13:40] This idea that, you know, best because of your white coat or the letters after your name. You 

[00:13:48] know, that that spiral happens in nursing too. Policies and procedures are put in place to keep everyone safe is what is truly, we believe, you know, it’s, what’s told over and over. And so if you want to be the safest, then you follow the policy and then everyone should, and that’s just, that’s just the way it is.

[00:14:11] That’s yeah, that’s the way it is. And it’s, it’s hard to get out of that mindset and it’s hard to get out of that practice. Um, it’s my brain. Kind of exploding a little bit, a little bit spinny because this whole superhero thing, it doesn’t go all the way though. Like, like one, we don’t have the outfits stuck on the outfit and the pizza.

[00:14:36] So like, that’s just a small part of like, here’s an example of how it’s really not a superhero. We don’t ask for it. It’s hard on us. Like it puts this pressure to always be on and always be right and always be healing. And we bought up against this red tape and we bought up against, so here’s a story.

[00:14:59] The here, how the hero narrative unnecessarily separates consumers from healthcare workers and contributes to the silencing of their stories. So. So I have two examples. So one example is even when I would try to speak out and we talked about this, if you haven’t heard are like, welcome here. We are podcast episode.

[00:15:22] We talked about kind of our pillars of this podcast and silencing as well. It’s a theme. That’s going to come up a lot. And it’s a theme that I think a lot of people can relate to feeling shame if they speak out, but even in the community, I think consumers, the S our culture really, really wants to believe this superhero narrative, because even when I would talk to family and friends and try to just unravel what was going on or how I felt stuck, or, you know, how I felt mistreated, I would get, but you help so many.

[00:15:57] Which should be in place of respect, respectful work environment. I’m not sure. Oh, but your job is so important. That shit didn’t even make any sense to me. Of course it’s important, but also I feel this way and it’s because of the. You know, it’s set up like this. It’s set up to be hard. It’s set up to, you know, not be able to give ideas when I have these ideas, not, not to be heard, um, be resistant to change and they would say you change lives on the daily.

[00:16:31] I would love that job. That must feel so good. When you get to do that, you get to help people. I felt so backward. I never felt like, oh, I get to help people. No, I worked really, really hard and I have to on my own juggle my healthcare, my mental health, to be able to do this, I have unique skillset, you know, to like kind of battle all of the obstacles to be able to do this.

[00:17:03] And I was always told, oh, you’re so lucky to get that job. It didn’t feel like. Like, I like luck. You’re so lucky to be called, to be a superhero. I don’t remember the stories of how a Spider-Man became a superhero, 

[00:17:21] but he’s thinking of how he got didn’t. He didn’t ask for it either. 

[00:17:25] Nope. Not lucky when everyone’s like,

[00:17:31] ah, Nope. Now it’s like this. And even so here’s the mind bend. Even when I left my hospital bedside job, when I left and I was leaving and I was staying in my goodbyes, an upper level administrator said to me that I’d known for the whole time I was there over 10 years. She was shocked when I told her I was like, I’m like, if you know me, why would you be shocked?

[00:17:58] I’ve been speaking out about this three years. What are you talking about? And she looked me dead in the eye. It was so serious and said, but what about your patients? What will they do without you? 

[00:18:11] The manipulation is unreal right there. That is total manipulation. You don’t get to put that weight on somebody when they’re trying to set boundaries for themselves.

[00:18:24] So if I were a superhero, my superpower would be to combat the red tape and moral injury. This is what I wanted to say to her. You know, you go back and you’re like, oh, I should’ve said, you know what, you know what you are putting that superhero narrative onto me right now in this manipulative tactic. If I had superpowers, I would combat the red tape of moral injury.

[00:18:45] That was really keeping me from really, truly supporting birthing people because that’s where I worked. And. The way they were asking to be supported in a trauma informed patient centered way, but I don’t have that super power. So I have to go. I wish I could tell her that. 

[00:19:04] That was a really bad ass come back right there.

[00:19:09] My chest is out a little bit. That’s my friend. That’s my friend. 

[00:19:14] And I fly my ass out of there. That’s what I should have done. I got bit by a spider and I don’t wanna have to deal with this. He’s out blowing this Popsicle stand. We love it. That’s right. That nurse in her hatchback car, she should’ve been like, you know, She 

[00:19:33] should have been, like I got in a car accident.

[00:19:35] I’m not coming to work today. Like any other human, like literally I was just, I guess it was so telling for me that my very first thought was not like, wow, she’s a hero. Or even like, wow. I hope she’s okay. It was like, wow. At what expense. Is this, this is so terrible that she doesn’t even feel like she has the chance to call out when she’s been in a multiple car acts, multiple car pile up with debts and very serious injuries.

[00:20:13] And her priority right now is getting to work. 

[00:20:16] It’s kind of like that unhealthy relationship, you know, that like domestic relationship where you hear something. So. And you’re like, you don’t think like, oh my gosh, like they love each other. You think what is going on underneath that is so deep and so harmful that she’s afraid of that pulls her into work to her shift.

[00:20:41] When, I mean, literally there are so many examples of you being disposable. I mean, I’ve had managers say we just need a warm body. Like we don’t care who it is. We just need someone here. It’s for numbers. It’s. Like, what is that fear? That deep seated fear, that’s pulling her through a multiple car pile up to get to work.

[00:21:02] And it, it, it also goes back to that superhero narrative that like at a drop of a hat, there’s an emergency. And the superhero has to. Drop their clothes 

[00:21:13] literally literally get out of their hat back of their car, 

[00:21:19] run to the scene and save the day. There is no one else that can do it yet. There are plenty of people that can do it.

[00:21:28] We’re reminded all the time that we’re disposable. We need a warm body. It’s it’s not a nursing shortage 

[00:21:37] and there’s gotta be better ways to get this done. I think. It’s got kind of the overall consensus. Yeah. And 

[00:21:44] it’s everyone’s responsibility. It is everyone. It’s the consumer’s responsibility to know, to know what’s going on under the hood to know really what’s going on.

[00:21:54] It’s the society’s responsibility to stop being fed these superhero lines and understanding no, one’s a superhero, we’re all humans. And we should be supporting the people that are going to be caring for us. And. Most in our time of most need in our dire time and our birth and our death and in our family members, dire times, these are the people that we should be lifting up and, uh, society should be putting the pressure on that you should not be doing.

[00:22:21] If you have a choice, you can’t be doing business. The hospitals that treat their nurses and doctors and staff like this, you have to dig in, you have to find out, you have to listen to the people that are telling the stories, the podcast that you’re listening to share far and wide, because this is the stuff that society needs to hear, to be able to change their behavior and put pressure on the businesses that are mistreating their staff and their teams, because.

[00:22:53] It’s not going to make money and it doesn’t work for the bottom line. You know, they’re probably not going to just, oh, we just heard you. Don’t like to be calling heroes. Why don’t we just give you more money? Thank you. Thank you. We’ve been saying that. So it has to come from everyone for this change to happen in the culture cannot be that your nurses are untouchable, that your doctors aren’t real people that they, that you can’t have open candid conversation.

[00:23:21] With ideas and, you know, like back and forth discussion about things like you do not have superheroes taking care of you. You have humans, which is way. 

[00:23:31] And do you have humans around you that can support you? If we can give you the proper environment to make this nice warm, cohesive environment that providers and nurses can lean on one another, it will start from the inside and bleed out.

[00:23:46] Our patients will start to feel it. Other healthcare systems will start to catch on, and then we’re going to see this kind of across the nation ripple. I think of hospitals starting to learn like, wow, we should be. Actually breeding a culture of warm positivity and, you know, nurturing and soft landings when you have a hard day, 

[00:24:07] right?

[00:24:08] Because it’s podcasts and social media like this that are going to be pushing healthcare professionals to be, you know, standing in and leaning into this. That they’re valuable and they should be respected and they do have superpowers, but it’s not because they’re superheroes it’s because they’re really special people that care a lot and have a lot of empathy and compassion and science minded, and they put it all together to take care of humans and they can leave and they can go shopping and they can go find places that make them feel safe and comfortable, and they can be part of a bigger team.

[00:24:48] Improve that team with the hospital, not swimming upstream and always feeling like it’s hard and always having to recover after every shift. So it’s places like this. We’re so glad you’re here listening, because this is part of it. I really feel like we’re part of it. 

[00:25:03] He, he definitely, I think this is going to be a really good global change and I truly do believe deep down in my soul that, um, the benefits are going to be.

[00:25:15] For everyone. Um, once we start to kind of change the culture of medicine, everybody is going to reap the benefits of that. So, 

[00:25:24] so much more to come. I can’t wait for this. 

[00:25:27] Me too. Oh my goodness. This was such a good episode. The Indy, anything on your mind that you want to wrap us up with? Maybe what can you do for your fellow healthcare professionals?

[00:25:42] To let them know that you’re a safe space that they can land when things get hard. Is there anything that is like a telltale sign? You know, kind of like the Scarlet letter, but in a good way to say, like, I’m one of you and you’re safe to talk to me and we can figure this out. 

[00:26:01] Yes. I think that, I know that I’m talking to someone safe when they don’t try to fix what.

[00:26:11] Sharing with them and nurses and doctors and therapists, OT, PT, respiratory, we were all fixers. Right. We want to fix. And so when I can talk, when I talk with someone in the system and they say, wow, that sounds really hard. Or like you said today at the beginning of this episode, I’m so sorry. That feels so.

[00:26:35] To not say, oh my gosh, I didn’t even know. I didn’t mean that. I I’m sure they mean the best. No, none of that. If, if, if a healthcare professional comes to you and you just sit with them with their stuff that is meaningful and that is safe and we need more of that, 

[00:26:53] we need more of that. Very you guys, if you are ready for more of that tune in next time to the pulse check podcast and otherwise we’ll see you later.

[00:27:04] Bye. Bye.

[00:27:05] If you or anyone, you know, has a story to share, please contact us on Instagram at pulse check dot podcast.

[00:27:12] We’d love to share your story.