Evil People

Specialties Emergency

Published

I think from the get-go patients and their families need to be informed of what is appropriate behavior towards staff. If a family member becomes abusive, they should be removed by security.

I also think there needs to be mass education that the purpose of a nurse is not to be a doormat or someone to abuse.

Specializes in pediatrics.
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After 14 years of pediatrics, I welcome you to the overbearing mother and babied child. I have met them many times over my years in pediatrics. Almost always the same profile: let me guess - white, upper middle class, many family members, child shows little or no respect for her parent, patronizung tone and attitude. Sorry about the racism but I can see them in my head. I have discovered the best technique is (1) don't take it personally, I guarantee any nurse would have recieved that treatment, (2) look her straght in the eye and be kind but matter of fact and say "I will start your child's IV, It may take more than one attempt but they will need to be still and I will have another staff member hold and you can comfort her (do not let them hold) and (3) if you fail, state you can have another staff member try - if they said no, they can talk to the doctor. The key is to be calm and matter of fact. Do not allow them to dictate how you perform the procedure -- you are the professional.

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Specializes in Inpatient Acute Rehab.
Oh no, she WANTED the police called, she demanded it. She wanted everyone in the world to come see her and her huge overdramatic situation and what a good mom she is for bringing her drunk child to the ER. She brought a teddy bear for the girl. Yes, she is 16 years old.

Man, you were right!!! She wants her own attitude and behavior to be noticed, yet she rewards her daughter for behavior that should be punished!!!

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You did great in just walking away. I'm sure I would have said something (as I left to find another nurse) that bordered on "totally inappropriate" such as "it might be a good idea if I call Social Services regarding a "minor" getting so drunk that they need to be hospitalized". And then just smile. I know, I know...not a good idea but OMG, it would have felt sooooooo good.

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I have given up so much and worked so hard to get where I am, I spend 12 hours a night trying to help people just to be treated like crap by ungreatful worthless scum sucking people. The thing that gets to me is that there is nothing I can do about it, and I am forced to tolerate something I have no tolerance for.

Maybe the answer to our nursing shortage has nothing to do with recruiting nurses, maybe it has to do with finding some way of either teaching people how to be humane to each other, or simply killing off those who can't be decent.

This is so true (except maybe for the killing off part :chuckle).

:yelclap:

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My condolances in this regard. I have had my share of people like this. I am extremely patient person and have dealt with my share of very hostile , violent, crazy, sacastic people, how I have have coped has varied from year to year and patient to patient. when I was 20 I dealt with a very violent and prejudice patient in a way I might not have done now but at that time was effective. This was a pt who came into the ER with elevated alcohol level. From the time he arrived on the ER he was nasty, obnoxious, violent. I was a phlebotomist on call worked in the ED and helped out a lot with the nurses and doctors. I was on break and my partner came down to the ER to cover me but soon paged me to come back. She was being abused by this patient cause she was not of his race. He did not want his blood taken by her cause of this and she did not know what to do. She was very upset. I do not know what possessed me but I got so upset with his behavior that I was not going to comply with him and she was going to get his blood. I was not going to let him turn her away cause of his hatefulness. I was of the mans same race but I told him very straight faced that because of his feeling I could not draw his blood because even though he thought I looked like his race I was not that he was seeing things. I told him very straight faced that I would not mind complying with him but actually the person he was turning away was the only person of his race on the floor and that the fact that she appeared in another color was a sign that his alcohol was extremely high and that I was glad he told me so I could notify his doctor that he was hallucinating which not a good sign and seeing people of the opposite color than they was truely a sign of extremely high alcohol levels making the need for his blood drawn even more urgent. I wanted to respect his wishes so the person he thought was not his race is actually his race and based on his feeling the only person who could draw blood from him this night if we respected his wishes. I was afraid to do it cause if his hallunating went away and he saw my true color I would not want him upset with me. He looked at me and at the other girl working that night then at me and then at her and stayed quiet the whole night. She had to draw blood from him several times that night and had no problems with him for the rest of the night. The doctors and nurses all wanted to know what I did to get him to shut up and be guiet. I just looked at my partner and laughed and said I gave him a dose of his own medicine and said nothing more

However I think as I got older I realize I can not do stuff like that but messing with that horrible patient that night remains a very satisfying memory for me.

However people like you had that night , if we can call them people......I have met and the samething happens to me I am so infuriate at the injustice of there accusation that I go over it over and over again in my mind wishing I had said this or that. Nursing ingrains in us all these policies and standards of care into our head plus our own upbringing ..........you resist your instinct of telling them something they may understand better if you know what I mean. However since we cannot we remain frustrated.

I am thankful I work with a good group of nurses and when I get one of these A ....holes well I quickly ask for help from someone else and change hands ............if my partner suffers abuse too then call the ADN or get security.....before I end up having it out with them. In general though I do well with nasty patients. But your right an incident like that would have had me fuming . Definitely would have gotten security or another nurse to keep me from saying something I would regret.

Hope you feel better and that you go out see a movie get a good hug from some one yu care about and start out refreshed the next time you go to work.

With affection Angela

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Specializes in ER.

This reminds me so much of a patient of mine that I have to reply. I had a 17 year old come in with her mother. Pt had recently run away and been shooting up. Mom brings her in. Per protocol, OD's get at least an 18 g. Obviously, her veins were not in the greatest shape, but I put the IV in her AC no problem. When I put pressure on it so I can attach the tubing, she starts screaming obscenities at me and proceeds to tell me that I am hurting her vein. Never mind the drugs she's been injecting. Her and her mother complained to the doctor and the supervisor that I was very rough with her, but my staff backed me up

The things people come up with will never cease to amaze me. Three hours later, she was still lamenting that "That mean nurse damaged my vein!"

You just have to laugh. And sometimes scream:bugeyes:

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when I worked peds I would encounter these people occassionally. I tried to treat them as mental cases who had no control over their actions, words and thoughts. Somehow that got me through. I guess it lowered my expectations and then I did not react to them because I expected nothing sane to occur.

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Specializes in Emergency.

I feel your pain--I work in the ED and met the most evil lady and her son Lucifer the other night. We were ungodly busy that night and she came in for a cough--well we had a limp baby barely breathing rushed in by his father so the lady with the cough was sent into the hallway on the stretcher so this baby could have her room--well she wasn't happy at all, she claimed she'd been a nurse for 30 years and had never been treated as bad as we were treating her--even after I tried to explain why she was moved in the hall she looked me straight in the eye and said in the meanest voice "I seen why I was moved here"--it was a freakin' baby and this lady DID NOT care.

Soon after we got her a room--she jumped me for not helping her move her belongings to the new room which she was able to carry on her own, she's there for a cough--not broken arms! She was just the rudest person I have ever come across--I stayed away from her and her room and she kept sending her crazy son out--the kid was at least 10 and he was just as mean, he would look at people's nametags and report back to his mom, he would wonder around the dept and report back to her. I sent a tech in to get her vitals and she argued with the tech about her pulse--saying she got a different number than her. She then told the tech that I was holding on to her chart so the doctor couldn't come in and see her.

The lady was just plain nasty! After the doctor seen her he had ordered a duoneb--I went in to tell her I had paged RT--she refused the neb tx and said she wanted to leave, I said after all of this you're just going to leave without tx?? She ended up leaving without the tx and I managed to get her some Rx's before she left. She ended up apologizing profusely for the way she was acting, I know she must have felt like a louse. The apology was hardly worth it for the terror she and her son put me and the other staff through. It's not like we drug her by the arm and made her come into our ED. I had to stay away from her--each time I would go in there she would say the meanest things--I could feel myself getting pushed to my limit, so I just stayed away from her and her room.

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For me, since I can only take so much crap and if I feel that way about a family member, I ask them to leave since they are preventing me from doing my job. Like you said, there were other family members there & I have no problem if the family really doesn't like me. You'll have that once in awhile....

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Specializes in CCU,ICU,ER retired.

Man, that women has sisters here. In our ED we have the say so,period. I have called security and had sweet mother escorted to the waiting area because the chairs are so much more comfortable. And the only person they can go to is the Docs who mandate the security escort. They are given the consent to treat to read for their reading pleasure and are always told that if they can chill they can come back

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Specializes in NICU.

I deal with parents like that sometimes. It's all about control, I think. They have no control over their child's medical condition, so they try and obtain control wherever they can. Add anger, fear, denial, and frustration to that, and you have a very unhappy parent. I can't really blame them, though. But when they start acting like that - dramatic, controlling, critical - I just try and stay level-headed. I am very firm with them and while sometimes it just upsets them more, most of the time it works well.

I remember a set of parents who were so upset that their baby was in our NICU. They didn't like our hospital and their baby got progressively worse upon arrival, so they blamed us for everything. I laid down the law, explained everything that was going on, and when they got dramatically upset, I'd calmly tell that we were doing whatever we had to do to help their baby. I felt like I was talking down a suicidal jumper at times, keeping my voice level and soothing, yet strong in my words. After that first shift, I ended up being assigned that baby's primary, because by that point I was the only one they wanted to deal with. Now, this was an extreme situation, but it just goes to show that when you stand your ground, show them who's boss, and remind them that you are dedicated to caring for their child...it works pretty well.

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I went in to draw blood on a pt recently and her husband was standing over her like a hawk. He proceeds to tell me "there was only 3 nurses in the entire hospital that could stick her" (I am in a rehab/nursing home). I had had it! I told him" ya know, when you tell a nurse something like that, it has the tendency to make her very nervous...I havent even stuck her yet" (of course I got it on the first try too and looked at him and said Make that 4 nurses)

and yesterday...I enter a room to draw a lab and the womans son doesnt even let me but my lab tray down before saying "you must use a small needle, her veins roll, dont hurt her, you only get one chance" I smiled as sweetly as I could and said "would you like to do it?"

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