And I'm a Nurse. . .Outline / Notes Toward a Chapter Julie asked, "Why don't we just take the circle freeway to that new bridge?" Aaron said, "Because it's not finished yet." They had known each other for years, but since she had become a nurse, on a certain level he now only was a patient to her. They were deciding which way to to go. They knew the community well, but there was a new bridge being put in. "I thought I saw a sign the other day saying that it was finished." "I was on the river yesterday in a boat. I passed underneath it. It's not finished." "I think I saw a sign saying that it was." And that is how much use people in medicine have for the experience of patients. Aaron said, "There is a hundred yards of daylight between the north span and the south span. I was under it yesterday. There isn't even a piece of string strung across that river yet." She repeated that she thought she had seen a sign that said that you could drive across. One more time he said that he himself had been at the site of that bridge yesterday and there was no connection between the north and south spans yet. It looked like another year of construction would be necessary before it would be completed. He had been there himself and seen it with his own eyes yesterday. The bridge was not finished. She said she thought she saw a sign. Some get information from experience and some get it from authorities. People in medicine do not regard patients as authorities on anything, not even their own experience. To her a sign that she thinks she might have seen is a more believable source of information than the personal experience of the friend/patient she had known for so many years. A document, a memo, a rumor from a colleague, an email, a sign, anything at all is a more valid source of information in her eyes than the experience of a patient. So they drove to the construction project that someday would be a bridge, but that was not spanning the river yet, and all she could say was that she thought she had seen a sign. A point came in the future when he reminded her of that when he was in desperate need of her help after a nurse committed a horrible sin against him in a hospital. She said no nurse would do that. Places, events, and situations in this story are purely
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