Another Nervous Breakdown

It's never a good sign when the nurse you are relieving at change of shift is crying and trembling. This time, though, it was not a sign of things to come. It just meant that she was a registry nurse.

This nurse had an unusually low crying threshold, even for a registry nurse. She asked me to witness her waste half of a tranquilizer. She cut the pill in half and it didn't break equally. The nurse started crying again and didn't know what to do.

Since the patient needing the pill was screaming and driving everyone nuts, that seemed like a lucky break to me. Just give the patient the larger piece and everyone will be happy. We aren't afraid of being "generous" here. It must be stressful for registry never quite knowing what they can get away with.

So many registry nurses appear to be on the verge of a breakdown that it cause me to wonder about cause and effect. Does being a registry nurse cause otherwise stable nurses to lose their minds?