It never fails to amaze me how healthcare workers often
pay no heed to what they know to be true.
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Operating room nurse Pauline Taylor knows her refusal to get a flu shot is based on faulty logic. But ever since she got sick after getting a shot a few years ago, she's sworn off the vaccine.
"I rarely get sick. The only thing I could narrow it down to is that I had gotten this shot," said Taylor, who works at University Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. "I know that it's not a live virus. It just seemed pretty coincidental."
Such stories frustrate Dr. William Schaffner.
As chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, he hears that kind of talk frequently and knows it's in part to blame for a surprising statistic - nearly 60 percent of health care workers fail to get a flu shot.
Uh-huh. And at any given time, check out how many workers at healthcare facilities are standing outside smoking.
1 comment:
I wonder why her employer doesn't require the flu shot as protection for the patients - like washing hands. Either way, I'm not really surprised after what I overheard about two weeks ago. I was having lunch at a local restaurant where some of the tables are quite close together. Initially, I didn't pay the two ladies at the table next to ours much heed except to note that the one had what appeared to be a nurse's outfit on. About halfway through lunch, I couldn't help but overhear the nurse say to the other lady, "I really hate some of my patients." Whoa. At that point, I looked over and committed her face to memory. Just in case.
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