Reply to Here's Robby

- Marvin Ross

Most of us, when we think of mental health staff, think of nurse Mildred Rached. As you may remember, she was the mean nurse played by Louise Fletcher in the 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” starring Jack Nicholson. In that film, Nicholson played a brash rebel who rallied the patients together to take on the oppressive Nurse Ratched. She was  a woman more a dictator than a nurse and her character in that film has been named the fifth worst movie villain by the American Film Institute.  

Over thirty years later, many of us still think of psychiatric institutions as being like the one depicted in that film and having staff like nurse Ratched.  We forget that this was only a film. And while there are nasty, uncaring, and unsympathetic staff (as there are in all professions) many are quite caring and go that extra bit of distance for their patients. That was certainly the case in the story of Robbie.

As a family member, I've encountered my share of Nurse Rached's over the years but I've also encountered more of the caring staff than one would suspect exist. And while we may not realize it, staff that do care can and do make an enormous difference in the outcomes for their patients. A few, in particular, do stand out in my own case and I credit them with helping my son reach goals that he might not have reached without their help and without them having gone that extra little bit.

So, while I do criticize and I do fight with the system, it is mainly because I feel that all staff should go that extra mile. By doing so, they can accomplish a great deal. All of us should expect the very best from the staff who work with us and with our family members. If we hold them to higher standards, more of them will achieve that level.