In the ICU, there was an experienced nurse. She was full of information and knew the policies and procedures inside and out. She was proficient in her role as an ICU nurse.
But she was flawed. Something was wrong.
Each day, she came to work wearing a gold bracelet, which she made sure everyone knew was valued at $15,000. She wore two-carat diamond rings. She would arrive, showing off her fancy pocketbook along with her designer scrubs. She would inappropriately barge into closed meetings of NPs and physicians, begging for forgiveness for interrupting, though it seemed intentional.
Behind the gold and glitter, we wondered why she felt the need to show off her earthly possessions—especially in the land of GI contents and bowel movements, sputum plugs, blood, and all the other drainage from every orifice encountered in the ICU.
Her narcissism and pretentious behavior were a big red flag to the rest of us. What was she hiding? A narcissist covering up low self-esteem, perhaps. But why?
She acted as if she was the queen of the ICU. But at home, she was nothing.
Then came her habit of clocking in late, wearing long sleeves under her scrubs, miscounting narcotics, and bruises appearing on her cheeks. Eventually, people lose their cover; they get sloppy. I suppose she thought the glittering gold bracelets and large diamond rings would hide the truth.
Patients screamed in excruciating pain, only to have narcotics documented as given—over and over again. What we didn’t know was that she was under surveillance. Pharmacists were tracking her, and managers were aware. We knew something was wrong.
Security guards came into the ICU and escorted Jennifer out of the building. They found morphine and fentanyl vials in her pockets—narcotics meant for the patients on ventilators, those in pain post-surgery, and the patients who never received them.
Jennifer was being mentally and physically abused at home by her husband. She was stealing and using narcotics at work. She thought she could hide behind the glitter. But as J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “All that is gold does not glitter.”
She refused rehabilitation through the state board of nursing and lost her nursing license. Her parents claimed custody of her two little girls.
And then, one day, our eyes met at a grocery store as she worked the cash register.
The “luggage” was the lesson.
Debbie Moore-Black is a nurse who blogs at Do Not Resuscitate.
