utmost compliment?

as i was taking care of a patient, i had to step out of the room to grab something quickly. as i came back to the room...

patient's daughter: my mom had just paid you the utmost compliment.
me: huh? (smiles at her and her mom)
patient's daughter: she said that you are most kind, you must be Jewish!
me: oh... (smiles and attends to patient) thank you, but i am not Jewish.

Family Affair

as nurses, we tend to be so nosy. we try (or tend) to find out patient's family affairs, even without trying. sure, there is that routine question "who is your support system?" "who do you live with?" "who takes care of you?" but it's interesting when a patient has been in the hospital for quite sometime, it seems like that's all that it takes to uncover the skeletons in their closets.

but, it's not only patients that we tend to know their personal lives, as nurses working with other nurses, seeing how they care and/or react to certain patient's familial care decisions shows who they are and what they truly believe in.

just one of the experiences that i had in the unit, as i was giving my report to the oncoming nurse.

nurse 1: (after hearing patient's name) she's still here? wow...
me: yep, awaiting placement.
nurse 1: really?? what's taking them so long?
me: well, patient has *these things* that i guess is making it harder for her to be placed.
nurse 1: did you know that she has five kids? and none of them would/could take her in.
me: five kids?? really?
nurse 1: yep, they even offered 24/7 home care, but they still refused. can you believe that?
me: yeah.. that's a shame...
nurse 2: (butts in) but you guys don't know who she was in the past. she might not have treated her kids right in the beginning.
nurse 1: true..
me: i guess so.. but is that reason enough?
nurse 2: well, my mother always told me that it is not my responsibility to take care of her. she always say that people have kids because they want them not because they need someone to take care of them when they grow old.
nurse 1: interesting..
nurse 2: it's true. you don't owe them anything. you don't have to take care of them. they are self-sufficient. they brought you up to be self-sufficient.

... just remembering this dialogue upsets me... it's a whole lot of wrong in what nurse 2 had voiced. i remember just thinking to myself "God bless you." that was all i could say. it was just all wrong. then maybe, i was just brought up differently, believes and cares a whole lot differently.