Yesterday, a colleague brought to work an article from the Washington Post. It was a list of made up words and their definitions made by members of Mensa, who took real words and corrupted them by changing a couple of letters, then created a double entendre meaning for each new word. Several of the definitions referred to proctology, which is always a funny subject among nurses and, evidently, Mensa members.
We needed a laugh. The free fall of our economy is affecting health care, like every other industry, and the normal, over the top day to day stress is compounded by our national anxiety.
The other day, this played out in my difficulty to obtain information from a medical office that I needed to provide care for a patient. I was frustrated and so were the employees of the office. I could handle that.
What I couldn’t handle was the mantra of the day which was “This isn’t my fault” prefacing each non-answer I received by phone from every person I spoke to in the department. I responded to each person in turn: “I’m not looking for whose fault it is, I just want to talk to someone who can get the information I need so I can take care of this patient.” Through perseverance and two packs of chewing gum, I finally prevailed, and all’s well that…yadayadayada.
At home, I sat on the couch next to my husband, and watched the evening news. Over and over again, I heard CEO’s, politicians, criminals, you name it, say over and over again, “This isn’t my fault”, and dodge the questions with non-answers… yadayadayada.
So, I’ve come up with my own new word and its definition to describe this rising epidemic:
disinsinerate (dis-in-sin-er-ate): to absolve oneself of any responsibility or accountability for one’s actions; to reverse or prevent the consequences of going down in flames.
JParadisi (Retired) RN Blog 