(First off – if you like this post, why not get some more effortlessly? Like the GRC FB page: https://www.facebook.com/GRCNursing )
Imagine: I approach you holding a full, capped bottle of soda.
I shake this bottle vigorously a while, then I offer it to you: “Open this for me, OK?”
Are you happy? Feeling good about this scenario? Of course not: I’m clearly and quite inconsiderately setting you up for disaster, or at the least some tedious work to prevent disaster. Why would I do such a thing?
In the talks I use to introduce GRC ideas to people for the first time, I start with this bottle. As I walk among the audience, shaking the bottle, I talk about patients in hospitals today:
Patients are typically under SERIOUS PRESSURE: symptoms, fears about the hospital experience, rules, noise, waiting, powerlessness, vulnerability, humiliation, embarrassment, you name it. Such pressure builds, and unless we address it effectively, eventually it all comes out, it’s nearly inevitable. Depending on circumstances, personality, and how staff members approach this situation, the release can be controlled or explosive. It can staff members much extra work and unpleasantness, and often does.
After I offer the bottle to someone in the audience and ask them to open it, I let them refuse, and ask them how they felt about my request, ask the audience as well. I take back the bottle (which contains plain old water, just in case) , and explain the metaphor: bottle stands for patient, and I, doing the shaking and building the pressure, stand for the health care system.
Using this metaphor, I explain that no one wants to open that bottle, but that’s just what happens, every day, in hospitals across America: bottles shaken, then opened, often by poor souls who have no idea what they’re in for, as they’re unaware of all the shaking that’s been going on before they arrived – not fun for anyone. A Nurse walks into a new shift, meets a patient and KABOOM – a disaster. Pressure built then released.
Then I ask: Who here finds their work PERFECT? – Anyone?
What could be better?
Help me out? I write down some ideas as they come in on a dry-erase board.
I explain: “THIS [the list of problems we wrote down] is why you’re all HEROES: we keep up the good fight, do the right thing over and over despite SO many obstacles.”
“THESE [Circle GRC-relevant items] ITEMS are where I have focused for years now: Researching, Testing, and Refining a collection of clinical tools I now call GOLDEN RULE CARE: GRC for short. All used successfully by countless others long before I ever gathered them, TOOLS to get more done, with more confidence and less effort: ANYONE can learn to use them well – NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. Personally, I’ve been studying and using these tools regularly for years now – wouldn’t work without them.”
GRC, at its core, is about learning to view patients accurately as people, learn better how people think, learn, and relate, and learn how to use this knowledge to build rapport, trust, and cooperation more efficiently. In this way Nurses learn how to better satisfy patients’ needs and cut hostility, distrust, and resistance or refusal of care. Work becomes more efficient and pleasant, generally saving more time and energy than the use of GRC tools costs.
Having focused on other issues for a time, I’ve decided a focus on GRC core ideas is long overdue. This is the first of a series of posts based on my introductory talk. I am very much eager for your feedback and thoughts: GRC tools are only useful if Nurses accept and apply them.
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Every Like makes at least one poor soul very happy, I guarantee it!
