Internal Strife

Today 2 events occured which had made the shift one I would like to forget.
1- I had my first takedown injcetion tonight.
2- I did not own up to something I did wrong.

1- Mental health units are probably the only place (bar ED) which have staff pin down patients and inject them with needles full of medication. TOnight I was unfortunate enough to have a patient who was refusing oral medications and was acting in a manner which could harm other patients. This was a 70 year old man who was obviously very disorientated and confused. We had 6 nurses drag him from the common areas to his room and pulled his pants down forcefully, where I was set to innject a 21mm needle into his back. It sounds very exciting and fun when you hear about it, but when you become the one witnessing it and giving the needle, you feel somewhat as if you are nothing more than a custodian prison guard. I still feel a bit uncomfortable, not because I feel sorry for the man, but due to the shock value of the actions that we had to undergo to give him the needle.

2- Tonight a distressed mother called in to the unit and asked for her daughter. I answered it and I assumed she was in another department. She was stil ltalking but I did not bother to hear her out and I just transferred her call to the other department. A few minutes later, the other department caleld and was upset at the way the call was dealt with, as that daughter was not there also and caused both the department and the mother preventable pain. The in-charge asked who it was that transferred the call. Normally I would stand up to my wrongdoings and admit I did it. For some reason cowardice took the better of me and I sat there not saying a word. In the end nobody took the blame, but deep inside me, I felt like I had suffered punishment worse than what couldve been if I had admitted. I felt as if my integrity had just been grinded into dust. I feel so dirty now.


It's been a horrible night.