Michigan

I spent 6 miserable months as the head nurse of the pediatric unit of Francis A. Bell Memorial Hospital there. This was in 1982, right after my husband and I got married.

I had just finished my master's degree, using my GI Bill benefits that I earned by my 4 years of active duty in the Air Force nurse corps as a peds nurse practitioner. There were no NP jobs to be had anywhere in the area. It was like stepping into a time tunnel. The nurses on the adult units were still wearing caps, and were expected to stand up and relinquish their chairs if a doctor came in to the charting area.

The pediatric unit had 3 doctors who admitted patients. One was from either Pakistan or India, and had such a heavy accent that most of the parents could not understand him. His favorite admitting diagnosis was ear infections needing IV antibiotics because a child had vomited a single time and was "not tolerating oral medication" - a complete BS diagnosis after vomiting only once. He viewed my job as that of following him from bed to bed when he made his rounds and hand him the otoscope kit. I would carry the kit, but then place it on the bed and take a couple of steps back and put my hands behind my back. No way I was going to put it in to his hands like a servant.

The second doc, a known alcoholic, mostly did OB-GYN, but dabbled, if you will, in a little pediatrics on the side. His most common reason for admission was "tumultuous home situation" - he'd gin up some obscure nonsense about a family being under stress and admit a child on a Friday so the parents could have a weekend off. I kid you not.

The third guy was a semi-retired internist who also did a little peds on the side. He spent 6 months a year in Florida, and then would come back to the UP and see patients for 6 months. He would call in admitting orders over the phone, change orders by phone during the child's hospital stay, and call in discharge orders by phone, all without ever coming in to the hospital to see the child.

After 6 months, I couldn't take it anymore, so gave 6 weeks notice of my departure. At 12 noon on my last day, with only 3 hours left in my shift, the director of nursing sent someone over from one of the 2 adult units for me to orient to being the head nurse on the peds unit. Screw it, I thought. I didn't even try. I had been going to keep my name tag with Head Nurse on it as a souvenir, but was informed that if I did not return it, I would have pay $2.00. F-it, I said to myself, and gave it back.

I tried really hard not to come across as a big shot from the big city while I was there, but there are some things that are just wrong no matter how remote and rural you are.

When we were newly in the UP, I was driving somewhere, and heard the radio weather guy talking about the weather in The Twin Cities. I thought he meant Minneapolis and St. Paul, and wondered why the weather in MInnesota would be a topic of discussion in the UP. Little did I know that Ishpeming (pop 7000) and Negaunee (pop 5000) were referred to as the Twin Cities.