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Unsolicited Letters With
News, Notes, and Comments From Our
Readers Always Welcomed
L E T T E R S
All letters must be typed doubleQspaced and should be sent
on disk to Annie Kelly, 77 Rolling Ridge Rd, Amherst,MA 01002 or via EQmail to: [email protected]You Can’t Have It Both Ways
More on ‘‘The Magic Cloak’’
J Emerg Nurs 2005;31:336-7.
0099-1767/$30.00
Copyright n 2005 by the Emergency Nurses Association.
336
You can’t have it both ways
Dear Editor:
It is 2:12 pm, and you are the triage nurse. A mother
has brought her 22-month-old active but fussy daughter
in for a ‘‘very high fever’’ for the past 2 days. Her fever
is highZshe has a rectal temperature of 103.38F, but
when you ask the mother if she has given the baby any
medication, she says, ‘‘No.’’ You just shake your head
and sigh.
As it is getting closer to the end of your shift, at
6:33 pm, another mother holding a spunky, chattering
1-year-old boy reports that he needs to see a doctor for
a ‘‘very high fever’’ he has had for 3 days. The happy
lad’s rectal temperature is 98.98F (she has been alternat-
ing ibuprofen and acetaminophen for the past 2 days).
You shake your head again and sigh.
Now, I’m a self-confessed softie where babies are
concerned, and maybe it is just me, but it looks like those
poor moms just can’t win. They are wrong if they do (give
antipyretics) and wrong if they don’t. After attending a
pedi course in which several subtle but disparaging com-
ments were made about parents, I’m writing this letter to
suggest that we can’t have it both ways. Frustrated with
both types of parents? Perhaps our real aggravation lies
with our stretched health care system. Still, it seems silly
to become so annoyed at parents, when instead we could
just educate them.ZWendy Weisz, RN, BSN, CEN, Medical
Center of Plano, Plano, Tex; Email: [email protected]: 10.1016/j.jen.2005.05.010
JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY NURSING 31:4 August 2005
