Labor Day has become ubiquitous with the end of summer, the start of the school year, and day off for celebrating. But this national holiday also compels us to remember those who died due to poor working conditions and in the fight to improve working conditions for the rest of us.
This week’s show focuses on two storytellers who work in health care and the ways – both humorous and serious – that the people they care for have impacted their work.
Some shifts as an emergency room nurse are more memorable than others, as our first teller, Karen Nelson, shared at the Work StorySlam in November 2017. She and another nurse pulled an elderly man from a car driven to the door of the hospital; he appeared to be deceased but when he was put on a cart, he gasped for air. Rounds of CPR followed – and Karen still wonders if confusion over the location of her chewing gum during mouth-to-mouth contributed to an official change in CPR guidelines.
Our second teller, Weston Maier, was featured in the same StorySlam. His story focuses on his time in medical school when he began clinical training and had a rotation in surgery – the one specialty he knew he was not interested in. But after eight weeks at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, he began to see surgery in a different light. In fact, an encounter with a sweet seven-year-old girl admitted for appendicitis had the power to completely sway his decision about the line of work he’d pursue.
Listen to both Karen and Weston's stories here:
Ex Fabula’s Season 10 kicks off soon! You can find a schedule of events here.
