Black nurse sues Michigan hospital for honoring patient's racist request

[moriah]

40. I'm not a nurse, let alone a head nurse, but...

... some nurses are better at IVs than others. Doesn't mean they're *bad* at other parts of their job. They might just need more experience.

If a pt requested no black/brown/(fe)male/whatever staff treat them, and I was head nurse on a shift and knew accommodating their request would mean their IV wasn't painless, I would not regret if they were choosing to eliminate the best nurse I had that night on staff insofar as their ability to get an IV going without pain. IVs aren't always painless even in the best of circumstances. Also, the pt apparently has such a mental issue with the class they want excluded from their care that they might really rather a bruised arm even if I'd ordinarily have our best IV person take them because it looked difficult.

If a nurse is so "substandard" that they shouldn't be treating pts, they shouldn't be employed at all. That doesn't mean every nurse, qualified or not, is the same in their particular skills.

Edit to add: this opinion comes from having unfortunately terrible veins and multiple hospitalizations at my age, but fortunately having great nurses of every race, gender, sexual orientation, and (if known) religion treating myself and family members over the years. Often times when a pt is a "hard stick" that pt's nurse will get the best IV person on at that time to help. Many times that nurse has been a highly experienced woman or man of color. Should a pt have such issues with skin color, well, sucks to be them that night, and that's just how it is.