[43RN20]

Quick question:
Were these patient's bi-lingual and trying to describe their symptoms in English?
That can be hard enough to do in any language. It sure adds a bit of a challenge to the nurses' duties!

[Magda_PatagoniaNurse]

Originally Posted by 43RN20

Quick question:
Were these patient's bi-lingual and trying to describe their symptoms in English?
That can be hard enough to do in any language. It sure adds a bit of a challenge to the nurses' duties!

No...i translated, word by word, the patients complaints....The patients spoke spanish because we're chilean...
And the hidden message is that the patients haven't physiology or anathomy classes and the folk ways to speak about their complaints is, at least, very funny sometimes.

[santhony44]

The "I-don't-have-a-clue-what-meds-I-take" syndrome is universal, apparently. We get that here in the US, all the time!!

I'd love to know just exactly how many little white pills there are out there.

[canoehead]

"What medicines do you take?"

"It's all in the chart."

Do you have any health problems?

"They're all in my chart"

What's your date of birth?

"March, 4th or 5th, I don't know, it's in the chart."

OK, how do you spell your last name

"Can't you just look at my chart, it's all in there...or call Dr Bugs, he has it in his record!"

His office is closed, it's 2am, I really need to get your name and date of birth to find out anything about you.

"Well call him, he knows me, I'm sure he won't mind"

[frenchfroggyRN]

This happened to me about six months ago. a lol was not doing well the family wanted us to medicate her with 2 of morphine q 2 hours, I gave the first at 0700- she was grimacing resp 20. when I went back at 0900 resp 8 with eyes closed, resp even unlabored, I refused to give the morphine, called the oncall and explained my assessment and holding the meds, he agreed. Family member called me at 1000-(an LPN) yelling at me for "not doing what you are *&^% well told to do in your &^^%$ orders), explained to her about resp and order from oncall to hold it. She said "Ill call Dr. and tell him you are not doing what you are told" I told her go ahead I was covered. A little later in the day I was called to pts room by family, "the oxygen is not making any noise" walked by this LPN in hall , she FOLLOWED ME INTO THE ROOM, found the O2 turned off. Turned the O2 back on and she gave me a go to he** took. This is her grandmother . Explained to the family that I trusted to watch the O2 after that. Called my oncall and let him know what had happened, stated "just chart it and go ahead and call Dr. and let him know what was going on" I called him and he dc'd the morphine q2 order. Her IV infiltrated , so i had to resite her, the family asked me not to stick her so i said tell LPN that the family refused the resite. Her own mother stated "she will be told what she needs to know" . She lived for another 3 days. She was a very nice lady, most of the family was too. Just the LPN was a witch. One good thing came out of this, the family sent a card to the hospital and thanked several nurses and doctors for the care their mom received, I was one of them.