IF NOT for the overarching philosophy of compassion in scientific practice pushed by Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern professional nursing, humanity wouldn’t have found its best allies beside its sickbed.
Nightingale’s lamp shed light on the importance of the nurse as an advocate for persons in their most vulnerable state. In her life, she became a tireless advocate for human rights and policy changes, especially in seeing every human being as worthy of medical care regardless of belief, gender or values.
Nursing students in their sophomore year goes through that solemn ceremony of putting to heart Nightingale’s pledge, and that pledge bears the line “will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping.” The modern version, containing 135 words, has the following lines: “I will not do anything evil or malicious and I will not knowingly give any harmful drug or assist in malpractice. I will not reveal any confidential information that may come to my knowledge in the course of my work.” The rite is performed just right before a nursing student immerses further into his/her education because its message must dwell in the core of the profession. But take serious note on the pledge’s emphasis on “privacy.”
Last week, a video of the late 23-year-old Gembe Casas circulated on social media. Bathed in blood on a hospital gurney, he was an emergency case bearing gunshots to his cheek, left arm, shoulder and leg. He was a drug suspect who reportedly fought back during apprehension. While he inefficiently gasped for scant air, we didn’t see palpable efforts by the hospital staff to immobilize him, remove the risk of Casas slipping off the stretcher. Instead, we heard voices, one of them saying the battered man wouldn’t survive anyway; another concerned herself with domestic laundry, as though hinting that the dirt that Casas was to her wasn’t worth professional time.
For one moment, it was like looking over the shoulder of a cheerful crowd during a public execution. Reports said a hospital staff took the video and circulated it among colleagues, and it was another colleague who uploaded it on social media. Obviously, there was zealous interest to expand audience.
Just what were these bunch of medical practitioners thinking? Better yet, just what were these bunch of persons doing in that profession? The whole act—from apparently not giving the vulnerable Casas the due immediate care, to the taking of the video, to the blatant display of a mindset lacking in compassion and sensitivity, to the uploading of the video on social media—shows an obvious displacement of values. We see nothing but ruthlessness in a supposedly humane profession.
The aspect on video taking and uploading can be punishable in legal terms. But the whole act, from A to Z, shows an outright disregard of professional ethics. The profession should quit them.