I just have to vent. Today I was called into my manager's office regarding a
complaint about me back in DECEMBER 2002. The mother JUST NOW decided to
rant and rave, two pages typed, about me being insensitive, rude, and
unprofessional. First of all, I will resit my boards in 2005 so I have been an IBCLC for
8 1/2 years and have tried to help women with breastfeeding at this hospital
for 11 years. The patient is a Jamaican woman who had twins. She said she
has been angry for 9 months at the way I treated her in the hospital. Mind you
I have not had any patient complaints pointing fingers at me ever, let alone
never had something put in my employment record that was negative. This woman
stated when I came into her room the day after her C/S (mind you a nurse or
the mom must have asked for me to go there because we are so busy we do not just
go into the rooms of every mom) I made the following comment, after she told
me she was in too much pain to nurse her twins. My comment (which might have
been similar to this but without the undertones she implied) supposedly was,
"Well, all C-Section moms have pain and they still nurse their babies. I can
help you without you doing much of anything." Now I am sure that I said, "Yes,
C-Section Surgery is painful for most moms but we can make you more
comfortable and I can do most of the work right now for you." I probably went on to
explain why it would be good to start nursing since it was the day after her
C-Section. I am not an insensitive boob like she implied (no pun
intended...well, maybe not). She went on to complain that when she had to have bowel
obstruction surgery 2 days later I hunted her down (like I have time for this!!) and
brought a pump to her room with a kit, left it there and said call me when you
are ready and I will help you. (I am SURE that someone paged me to come and
do this....I can't keep up with patients who development complications unless
a nurse notifies me) She felt I was rude and unprofessional in my mannerisms.
I asked my manager if I should have taken the pump out of the room since she
wasn't ready, would that have made her happy? I don't think so. That would
have been rude and unprofessional as that would have taken away her choice to
start pumping. Since my manager told me "remember Pam breastfeeding is a
choice, not everyone is going to choose to breastfeed." I,of course, went on to
talk about educated choices, increasing risks vs. lowering risks, etc. Then I
asked when has any patient ever commented like this about me? She said, "oh,
when we managers go in the rooms we hear lots of comments that you "girls"
come on really strong". I felt like I was at boiling point by this time. I
said, well, we do give them research based information. NOT opinions. She said
that she felt we were being opinionated in how we approach the patients. I
went on to explain the difference between opinions (using some of the nurses and
their comments about pacifiers and formula as examples...against our policy
BTW) and evidence based info. I said opinions confuse patients, the LC's do not
confuse patients, we just may not say what they always want to hear. But we
are very gentle and diplomatic in our approach. What is workable for that mom
and hopefully might help her keep working at the nursing, etc. I worked with
a mom today who flat out told me she hears all that I say but she knows
because of the crazy night feeds she is going to give up. I sat with her and said,
since you are expressing to me you wish you were stronger willed about the
nursing what do you think we could do to help you not totally throw in the
towel? (She threw in the towel after 4 days with her first) We talked about
pumping a little, very little, to have EBM for Dad when she felt overwhelmed. I
didn't ridicule her, I tried to see what I could do to help this mom help herself
and her baby. I don't have a good feeling about it but I KNOW this mom won't
complain about me.
I know I have helped so, so many moms. They sing our praise all of the time.
But not in the writing this mom did. Oh, I did have one mom write about how
I helped to save her from PPD (post partum depression) and 3 months of
nursing problems. That email went to our CEO and my Director. The CEO sent me a
lovely email thank you but I heard NOTHING from our Director. I shared this
with my manager. I couldn't believe I have to have this two page letter in my
file and NOT a ton of good things in there to counter it. I am going recruiting
at my support groups!
Wishing I could just win the lotto and do my own thing.
Pam Hendrix, BA, RN, IBCLC
Hospital Based in S. Fla.
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