It's Time to Take the "Us" Out of "Uterus"

Now hear me out – I think it’s time to take the “us” out of “uterus”.

I know this sounds strange, but I think I understand now why there is all this confusion about who gets to manage what goes on inside the apparently troublesome organ currently known as the uterus.

I believe I have found the root of the problem. The problem is there is no “i” in uterus.

The Strength of the Letter “i”

The letter “i’ seems to help with the clarity of ownership related to anatomy. Think about it - there is an “i” in “penis” and “testicles”, and there seems to be no doubt about who gets to manage what happens to those.

During my career as an ED nurse, I have many times tried to tell patients with penises what to do with them with very little success. I have tried to help people with penises stop putting things up them that should not be there, remind them of the often infectious repercussions of placing their penises in holes without protection, and request them to stop touching their penises in front of myself and other ED staff at inopportune times (AKA all the time). Each time I make recommendations or assertions about a penis attached to another person, I have been reminded in strong, colorful language that the owner of the penis can and will do what they want with it. I can always ask, but ultimately, the person that penis is attached to is in charge of what happens to said body part (at least, in some cases, until the cops arrive).

And don’t get me started about trying to get someone with “testicles” to do anything with them. As soon as I ever mention an idea or procedure having to do with the testicles, a hand goes over them like a vice. It is often a moot point before it is can even be verbalized. 

Furthermore, there is an “i” in both “fallopian tubes” and “ovaries”. And while there has been comments from people without either with thoughts on how to manage biological processes that occur in and around fallopian tubes and ovaries, there does not seem to be as much fuss about these organs as with the “uterus”. I really think it has to do with the letter “i”.

The Problem with “us”

The biggest debates right now seem to be around two things with names that contain “us” – the uterus and the fetus.  It seems that certain parties feel entitled to telling humans with a uterus how to manage it and once a fetus is involved, to take ownership of said fetus even if – 1) it is not quite yet a fetus, 2) it is not housed in their bodies, and 3) they do not seem to quite understand how the process of pregnancy works. Their entitlement claims to have been founded in the name of numerous causes – religion, ethics, the law. I feel that the presence of “us” in the name “uterus” makes them feel as if they are a part of that organ, even when they are not. “Us” seems to imply a collective ownership of a uterus to others. And I really think people might be confused because of the “us”.

I cannot otherwise understand why someone else would feel the right to tell me, the person with the body that contains an organ, how to manage it. Organ trafficking is definitely illegal, at least the last time that I checked. Organ donation and procurement is HIGHLY regulated in the United States. Consent dealing with anything having to do with organs in the hospital is a complex system of legal paperwork with signatures and witnesses. And as the uterus is an organ, there must be some big misunderstanding about the ownership situation around it.

(And I want to take a moment to be very clear on a certain point – this is not just an issue for me because I identify as a “woman”. The issue of who gets to dictate what happens to the organ called the uterus will affect all kinds of humans who identify all kinds of ways. I know that this will be confusing for some people, but this is something that I want to emphasize. I am speaking out as a human with a uterus - not just as a woman.)

The Difficulty of Adding an “i" 

I really love languages, but English is a hard one. The letter “i” is often used, strangely to me, to make singular words plural. This is one challenge with my thought of taking away the “us” and adding a letter “i” to the word “uterus”.  “Uteri” does not work for this reason, talk about confusing.  And other variations are just plain bad. “Utire” is terrible as it will make every nurse (and most humans with a uterus) think of infection or a gross outfit. “Iteri” sounds like a snobby word for a place to get lunch (EW). These won’t work, but I have another idea.

The Power of “me”

I have come up with this solution: I think that we should now rename the “uterus” with the new moniker - “uterme”.

A “uterme” definitely makes ME feel that it is an organ in me and when I say “My uterme”, I feel it is doubly stated that the organ is inside of me and MINE. When I say “uterme”, the listener is reminded that me and myself are going to be navigating the events of what goes on inside my organ and most importantly, there is no implied group ownership of my uterme.

It even gets down to an almost primal level of communication that Tarzan enthusiasts might enjoy – “Me human. Me uterme.”

It definitely seems like everyone can understand that – even the most primitive humans.

And as a human with a uterme, I am going to go two steps further in declaring my ownership of this organ that resides inside me:

1. I am first going to say here, in plain words, that I and only I will ever make decisions about my body. No other person, law, or religion will ever dictate what I decide to do with it. And that should apply to ALL humans. Your body is YOUR body.

2. I am personally renaming my own uterus/uterme – my “utermine”.  Other humans should feel free to use this nomenclature if they so wish.  #uterminesunite

For more information on how to support humans with a uterus, uterme, or utermine:

Planned Parenthood

Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, & Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN)

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Source: https://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/News-Room/Statements/2019/ACOG-Statement-on-Abortion-Bans?IsMobileSet=false

These opinions are my own and do not reflect those of my employer or other affiliates

---

About the Author - Sarah K. Wells, MSN, RN, CEN, CNL is an educator, speaker, blogger and owner of New Thing Nurse, a professional and academic coaching company for the nursing world. New Thing Nurse is organized to provide support and guidance to aspiring nurses, newly graduated nurses, and veteran RNs looking to make a change in their life.

Whether it’s a new school, new job or new idea,

New Thing Nurse wants to help with your new thing!

---

---

---

The Violence Nurses Face

When I tell people that I am a nurse, their response is almost always positive.

They will either say, “That is so wonderful! You get to help people!” or thank me for my work and tell me a story about a kind nurse that made a difference in their life or that of their loved ones. I can see them picturing me in white scrubs, holding patients’ hands, and offering comfort to those that need it most.

But that isn’t really my reality.

I mean, yes, I get to help people. And yes, I often offer comfort for those that are experiencing unimaginable tragedy. But I also am required to take annual Workplace Violence training where I learn to protect myself and escape in the case that I am choked, grabbed, or beaten by someone during my shift. Almost every day that I work, I experience some sort of verbal abuse, intimidation, harassment, or physical threat.

You know, just another day at the office.

If you’re a nurse or other healthcare worker, this isn’t news. But I bet you aren’t surprised if you experience these things during your regular work day. Sadly, many healthcare workers have grown to accept the abuse that we face almost every hour that we are in the clinical environment.

Violence in the workplace has become a massive problem facing healthcare workers across the United States.

In a 2014 study, nearly 80% of nurses surveyed reported being attacked while on the job in the last year. That is nearly 8-0 PERCENT. When I asked my non-healthcare worker husband when he was last attacked at work, he paused, looked at me funny and said, “I can’t recall.” This is not a standard concern for those outside of our industry.

In the eight years that I have been an emergency department nurse, I have been spat on, had my hair pulled, grabbed at, swung on, inappropriately touched, present during an attempted machete-assault, part of more team efforts to restrain violent patients than I can count, had my life threatened, and had the pleasure of once telling my husband that if I go missing to look for a certain person because they will know where my body will be. And all of that does not include the countless verbal abuse, intimidation, and threats that I’ve experienced almost every shift that I have ever  worked. #thisismytruth

And I consider myself lucky.

I have never really been hurt on the job. Luckily, none of the threats have been acted on. I have seen more nurses and healthcare staff than I would care to think about seriously injured on the job or who have had to leave the medical field all together due to the effects of being a victim of violence in the workplace.

The public does sometimes hear about the violence. However, these usually are the most extreme cases, and only the ones that make it to the mass media. You may remember the viral video showing a patient beating on a group of nurses with a pipe pulled off his bed. Or possibly you saw the photo of the ED nurse who was stabbed repeatedly by a patient that she was caring for in the emergency department. Then there is the absolutely tragic story of Carlie Beaudin, a nurse practitioner at the Medical College of Wisconsin, who was violently murdered in the parking garage by the hospital where she worked in January of this year.

Only one word comes to mind when I hear about these kind of events – STOP. This has to stop.  

Nurses are rated one of the most honest and ethical professions in the country almost every year in Gallup Polls.

That’s great. Now it’s time to be the most respected.  

It is time to use our voices to advocate for safer work environments and to share our stories.

There are many groups who have already started these efforts. It is time to organize and unify to get workplace protections in place. I have heard stories about hospitals who do not encourage their staff to report incidents of violence or abuse, about nurses being told not call the police when assaulted, and about cultures of “patient satisfaction first” coming before staff safety. Just writing these words makes my eye start to twitch with rage.

So, what can we do about it? How do I work to make the violence stop?

Below are a list of organizations who have started the work. They are groups that advocate for workplace safety for healthcare workers, provide trainings, support legislation to increase penalties for assailants, gather data to analyze and publish, and provide all sorts of resources from legal to mental health support. Check them out and see which might be helpful for you to get started in your journey to stop the violence against healthcare workers.

I also want to make a plug for a new campaign that I am working with – the Raise Your Hand (RYH) Campaign. This campaign was started by nurses and is being led by emergency department nurses to raise awareness, collect data, and provide insight into solutions regarding violence against healthcare workers that occurs in hospitals. We have a brand new website – CHECK IT OUT – where we are gathering stories from nurses and other healthcare workers who have experienced violence in the workplace so that our Research Committee can start to extract data to help us find evidence-based practices to help us combat this epidemic of violence.

If you have experienced abuse in the workplace, know that you are not alone, and it is NOT acceptable.

We have to work together to create a new nursing reality, really a new healthcare reality, where we can ask each other, “When was the last time that you were attacked at work?” and all respond, “I can’t recall” with a funny look on our face.

Raise Your Hand Campaign - https://www.raiseyourhandcampaign.com/

Silent No More Foundation - https://silentnomorefoundation.com/

Stop Healthcare Violence - https://stophealthcareviolence.org/

American Nurses Association “End Nurse Abuse” Campaign -

https://www.americannursetoday.com/take-pledge-end-nurse-abuse/

 Emergency Nurses Association Workplace Violence Resources -

https://www.ena.org/practice-resources/workplace-violence

---

About the Author - Sarah K. Wells, MSN, RN, CEN, CNL is an educator, speaker, blogger and owner of New Thing Nurse, a professional and academic coaching company for the nursing world. New Thing Nurse is organized to provide support and guidance to aspiring nurses, newly graduated nurses, and veteran RNs looking to make a change in their life.

Whether it’s a new school, new job or new idea,

New Thing Nurse wants to help with your new thing!

---

---

---

A Vacation from Nursing: I took one & you should too.

I love my job, but it was about to break me.

I have been an ER nurse for almost seven years. For some of you, that may seem like no time at all. I have met many a veteran nurse who has been grinding at the bedside for 20, 30 and 40+ years. I applaud you. You deserve to be knighted. Our healthcare system survives because of your perseverance and expertise. #careergoals

The rest of you might be thinking – “Dang! She’s been an ER nurse for SEVEN YEARS.” Seven years probably seems like a lifetime to those of you still in school or recently starting your nursing career. The truth is that seven years is kind of a long time to be an ER nurse. Emergency department nurses have one of the highest rates of turnover within all of the the nursing specialties – an impressive 21.1%.  Per a study completed by NSI Nursing Solutions, many emergency departments will turnover their ENTIRE RN staff within 5 years.

Why are nurses leaving so quickly?

• Low Salaries - Nurse salaries vary widely across the United States. However I started in rural Georgia at a whopping $20.13 per hour in 2011. Even after a whole lot of overtime, there was no way that I was going to pay off my student loans from nursing school in less than 10 years. While I loved my hospital and my job, I left and moved to California where I found myself making a much more competitive wage. This allowed me to pay off my student loans in less than 3 years and has already set me up better for retirement. While my story is just one example, it is one of many similar stories that I have heard where nurses cannot support their families on their full-time job's earnings. And the situation for LVN- & ADN-prepared nurses is even more difficult in many states. Lives literally depend on our work. It costs a lot to get our education. Nurses should get compensated accordingly.
• Staffing Issues - Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that there is a national shortage of nurses. Many facilities are trying to get creative with staffing, which sometimes leads to unsafe nurse-patient ratios. This increases stress on staff and increases potential for unsafe patient care. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that "Hospitals with low nurse staffing levels tend to have higher rates of poor patient outcomes..". Good staffing is good for nurses and patients alike.
• Stress - Healthcare is becoming more and more concerned with time. Nurses now have to do everything faster, while still ensuring perfection with every task. Medicine does not look favorably on errors. The essence of nursing is fast, efficient care that people's lives depend on. If that's not stressful, what is?
• Abuse - Nurses experience all kinds of abuse. Period. Verbal, emotional and physical, there are few days on-shift where I personally don't get the joy of one of these. This has to stop to keep nurses. The American Nurses Association (ANA) has a campaign called #EndNurseAbuse that is working to decrease the amount of abuse that nurses encounter in the workplace. In addition to the loss of nurses, the ANA cites that the financial cost of workplace abuse of nurses is $4.3 billion annually or about $250,000 per incident. Healthcare has to address this problem if they want to end the nursing shortage and improve patient outcomes.
• Nurse Burnout - Burnout is physical, mental and emotional exhaustion caused by stress, often being suffered by "helping professions", such as nurses.  With all the abuse and stress that nurses are facing in the workplace, is it any wonder that they are experiencing burnout and leaving the bedside?

How my job almost broke me.

Like I said earlier, I love my job. Sometimes, I love it too much. I am a fixer – a person that wants to get in there and find a solution to all the problems. I want to fix my patients. I want to fix my colleagues' problems. I want to fix all the issues in our department. I want to fix all the challenges in healthcare. I want to take it all on and solve the problems, so that everyone can be happy and healthy.

A few years ago, all of that almost crushed me.

All of the things that I was trying to fix led to increased stress and major burnout. I didn't have wa healthy work-life balance. It was all work. All I could think about was work problems at home, when out with friends and family, or laying awake in bed at night. I wasn’t sleeping. My health was poor. Things were not going well for me.

I decided to take a vacation from nursing.

There was a point when my husband and I decided that I needed to take a break from bedside nursing. I needed to be away from patient care. I didn’t need to be going to any meetings. I needed to not be at the hospital. I had to take a big step away.

I made some changes. I started working on that vacation.

Over the course of a few months, I started slowly taking steps to get away from work. Every time the Charge Nurse asked if someone wanted to go home early, I volunteered. I started asking the PRN/Per Diem staff if they wanted to pick up my shifts. I took some personal days. I started looking for a part-time or Per Diem position. When a Per Diem spot finally posted at our other campus, I applied and took it. I started in a new emergency department, not on any councils or committees. Just as a bedside, Per Diem RN.

And then, I took some time off.

I traveled. I hung out with my friends. I took time to explore the world of nursing. I gained some perspective and a new appreciation for my profession. The idea for New Thing Nurse started to cook in my brain. I grew as a person and as a nurse. 

I got my nursing groove back.

This plan won’t work for everyone.

I know that it is not possible for everyone to say BUMP IT to your full-time job and suddenly go rogue as a Per Diem nurse. However if you are feeling the symptoms of burnout, you need to make a change. Untreated stress and burnout will lead to the end of not just your nursing career, but also can manifest as physical and mental health issues. I have talked about my mental health journey before. It is no joke. You should do regular self-assessments of how you are feeling. Take the time to take care of yourself if you want to be successful in all things.

Things that you can do to combat nurse burnout –

• Take a vacation. - This can be anything from a few days off to a several week adventure. The main thing is that you GET AWAY from the clinical environment. Don't check your email. Block the short-staffed text messages. Give your brain some time to forget about patient care and focus on self-care.
• Find some quiet. - Do you dream of alarms going off? Pumps beeping? Your zone phone ringing to deliver another critical lab? You need to get out of that mindset. Find some quiet. Engage in silence. Breathe. Meditate. Take a nap. Just find a place where there is no beeping or buzzing going on that will take your mind back to the bedside.
• Exercise. - The mind-body connection is real. Your brain needs to be well for your body to be well and vice-versa. Exercise helps you manage stress. It helps you feel physically better. It is good for you. I am not saying to jump into an Iron Man, just encouraging gentle exercise. Try to move a little, and see how it makes you feel.
• Eat well. - You body needs to good calories to have the energy to do all the things. Try to avoid processed foods and soda. One of my favorite dietary tips is - "If it wasn't in the kitchen when your great grandmother was cooking dinner, don't eat it." Try to stick to fresh things that look like real food.
• Get enough sleep. - Sleep is foundational to everything. If you are not getting enough, you will be testy and experience increased stress. Everyone has their own sufficient, minimal amount of sleep, but always try to get that amount every night. If things are getting in the way, triage your tasks and find time for rest. It is essential.
• Appreciate yourself and others. - It is time to remember how amazing you and your team are. Take a moment to appreciate yourself and others. My department recently started a Shining Star Award and are picking one person a quarter to give it to. The winner gets a pack of Starbursts and their picture up on the staff fridge. It's not a big deal, but everyone so far has thoroughly enjoyed knowing that their work is appreciated.  

My Current Vacation from Nursing

I am currently on another vacation from nursing. I have been calling it my August sabbatical. While I am still working on New Thing Nurse projects, I am only working three shifts in the ED this month to give myself some time to take care of the projects and myself. I continue to LOVE my job and think that I am a pretty awesome nurse. 

But - I have come to recognize that time away from the hospital is just as important as time at the bedside to ensure that I continue to be the best nurse that I can be.

- Sarah @ New Thing Nurse

---

About the Author - Sarah K. Wells, MSN, RN, CEN, CNL is an educator, speaker, blogger and owner of New Thing Nurse, a professional and academic coaching company for the nursing world. New Thing Nurse is organized to provide support and guidance to aspiring nurses, newly graduated nurses, and veteran RNs looking to make a change in their life.

Whether it’s a new school, new job or new idea,

New Thing Nurse wants to help with your new thing!

---

---

FOLLOW NEW THING NURSE ON INSTAGRAM - @NEWTHINGNURSE