Thus far in my career I have worked with a wide variety of personalities. Everyone has their own approach to their patients and their work, and for the most part I have no problem working with people whose approach is different from my own.
However, there is one thing that I absolutely cannot and will not tolerate: indifference. It is, in my opinion, the epitome of evil.
I have thankfully only met one therapist who truly embodied this, but it took all of my willpower not to scream at this woman.
She was an evening registry therapist at my first job and from the beginning I was baffled as to how she was able to leave so quickly. I thought surely I must just be incredibly inefficient with my time if she can see multiple patients and write notes that quickly.
Then I did a little digging. Turns out the trick was not only being lazy but flat out committing fraud. She wrote her notes BEFORE seeing the patients and almost every note was the same copied and pasted generic piece of crap.
For one man who had had a CVA (stroke), she wrote (as she did for everyone) that he did bilateral AROM exercises in all planes. As that man was hemiplegic- NO HE DID NOT. He was unable to lift his left arm out of his lap let along actively move it in full range!!
I also noticed that patients scheduled with her seemed to be complaining they didn’t receive therapy. In fairness, many patients had dementia and were not considered accurate historians, but I went even further and I began to quietly monitor who she went to see. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
The lying bitch (pardon my French) would go upstairs as if to see her last patient or two and instead walk straight out the door. Or when she did see a patient she had them perform arm exercises while she lazily sat in a chair on her phone!
I never confronted this woman because I didn’t want to make things miserable between us. However I came home many a night to my fiancé (now husband) and endlessly rant about the injustice.
I will never understand it. I cannot imagine making the conscious decision to deny another human being the care that they need, and not only that, but the care that they are paying to receive! I get the reality of being burned out, especially at a facility like that one, but shame on you for putting your lack of interest before the needs of your patients. Shame on you for abandoning them. Who do you think you are that you think you can leave someone waiting for you, knowing that without your help they may not recover? The level of indifference for those patients’ fate makes my blood boil.
The only positive that could be drawn from this was that her faults set me that much more on fire to make a difference while I was there. It quite honestly became a sort of crusade for me. Though without her I was the only OT and I had next to nothing for equipment, I knew that I could at least ensure that the patients knew that someone there cared about them.
First and foremost, ALWAYS CARE.
