Come! Take another walk with me today! Even though the path today is filled with bright sunshine, there is a subject that causes me distress, and I must address it as we walk.
Today I visited the dermatologist, for a check-up and refills on two facial medications. It was a good visit with a good report from the doctor, even one where he commented that I had done a very good job of keeping pre-cancerous lesions at bay. He congratulated me on the use of daily sunscreen over the years, and he added that aging had been kind to my skin. As you might imagine, I approached the young clerk at the check-out feeling mighty fine with that compliment from my doctor. I glanced in the mirror in that area and for a brief moment experienced an exceptional feeling of recaptured youth!
Unfortunately, this was quickly dispelled as soon as the young clerk addressed me as, "Sweetie". At that moment I could feel all my muscles tightening as I desperately held back the urge to correct her as to my NAME! Just as I was taking a deep breath to prevent my saying something I would regret, she did it again! Thank-you "Sweetie"!.
How condescending is that!? Sweetie! In that brief encounter I became insignificant as a person! A person without a name! Invisible, unworthy, ignorant, uneducated, and she cared only for the procedure she was attending to. I had become inorganic, nothing more than a fixture in her small area. Most of all, I had been reminded that I was old!
What happened to me today has allowed me to recall a similar situation that occurred many years ago during my first year of teaching at the community college. I had been hired as an instructor for a vocational, surgical technology program. It was a one-year diploma program, and the students spent the first six- months in the classroom and the last six-months in an intern program in the operating room. It was during the hospital rotation when I was approached by one of the surgeons who asked to speak to the instructor for those surgical techs at his operating room.
After inviting me to join him in the lounge, he expressed concern that one of my students had been addressing his elderly patients as "Sweetie". He asked me to please make all my students aware that all patients should be addressed by their proper name and never by a pet name selected by the caregiver. He pointed out that it was a cruel and condescending manner of address to any patient, particularly to the elderly who were already experiencing abundant losses as they aged. He went on to add that the least we could do was show respect by allowing them the dignity of being recognized by their given name.
How grateful I have been over the years for this kind and caring surgeon. Because of him, I was able to share with all my students over the course of twenty-years the importance of respect for all patients, especially the elderly and the infirmed. We would see them as a person of importance and remember that they had once held an important position in life, and had made enormous contributions to the society we enjoyed today. I implemented this simple method of greeting as part of our curriculum and one that became an accepted fixture on each syllabus, Students learned how the use of a simple proper name could restore the infirmed, sick and elderly to their former life status, no matter how brief the encounter.
I would like to believe that those graduates during my tenure will remember that story. I can only hope that if I have occasion to meet them on the other side of that operating room table they will respectfully acknowledge my proper name!
And so it is, that I have decided I will not accept those pet names of "Sweetie", "Honey", "Baby-Doll" any longer. I will regain my self-respect and teach others along the way. I will remember the James Bond clarification," Bond, James Bond." I will say," Kanipe, Brenda Kanipe!"
Enjoyed the walk, see you next time.................................................................
Brenda
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