You may think that people in hospitals are doing grandiose things on a daily basis to save lives. Thanks for thinking that. If you have been a patient you may have a much more boring view of what nurses and aides do in hospitals. Yes, we do occasionally do CPR, but more often it's stopping things before they get that far. It's noticing small changes that may lead to bigger ones and stopping them before they do. We don't usually think of these small acts as heroic, but left undone they could have meant serious harm or even death to an individual.
When I was a medic on a med-surg unit I once offered to help a very busy nurse (ok, I may have helped more than once). She gratefully handed me a pill, told me what it was and asked me to go and give it to a specific patient. I pulled out my report sheet and verified that the patient was allergic to the medicine she had just handed me. She thanked me and the patient did not get the medicine. That patient may not have died from that medicine, but it probably would not have had a good affect on him either.
When I was a medic on a med-surg unit I once offered to help a very busy nurse (ok, I may have helped more than once). She gratefully handed me a pill, told me what it was and asked me to go and give it to a specific patient. I pulled out my report sheet and verified that the patient was allergic to the medicine she had just handed me. She thanked me and the patient did not get the medicine. That patient may not have died from that medicine, but it probably would not have had a good affect on him either.
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