I want to start off by saying that I am not a doctor or anyone who is in the position to give any medical advice. Once again I am not a doctor, I am posting this to shine a light on one of the least known jobs in our health system.
The job I am talking about is Patient Safety Attendant or better known as Patient Sitter. This is job is very under appreciated job in the hospital. The job entails a person who has CPR training at the least to keep visuals on a patient or patients( 2 is the max to watch for one sitter) for a minimal of eight hours. The hard part is being ripped from our socialist world for that long with no access to the outside world. You are not allow to have cellphones, iPod,iPad, or heavy reading materials. You must keep your eye on the patient and take mental notes of the patients' activities and the activities of the visitors.
The reason I think this is a hard job is because the human mind wonders and you are force to stop your body from doing something natural for a small amount of money. Some health systems will give you a hour break like to unwind from the stress cause by the patients where some will only give you 30 minutes. I can say for me in this job it is hard to work in that position for more than six month. I notice I started to form panic attacks and the feeling of "the walls caving in on me" even when I was at home.
I feel that more medical professionals should respect Sitters more because we are doing a job you do not want to do. We do more than just sit on our butts. We have a more mental job and means that our job is 90% mental in which just because you can not see our work like nurses and doctors do not mean our job is less important. Please be more conceited to us and our needs cause this is a hard job too.
