Patients who stay on the phone when you come...

Nurses General Nursing

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in their room to provide some form of care. Who else has an issue with this? It's as if they are in the hospital for us to take care of them, but we are on their personal time. :down:

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Give them privacy the first, second time. Set a time limit when you would return( or better still, ask them to give you a time to return). Third time, smile and go ahead and interrupt, perform your care, smile and leave the room.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Staying on the phone is rude but.........they are there for you to take care of!

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Specializes in PCU/Telemetry.

Grrrrr... That is a big pet peeve of mine. I try to be pretty patient with them, but it's tough sometimes. You have 4 or 5 other patients and are trying to pass your meds or do dressing changes. You go in the room and they are on the phone, so you scan your meds and stand there patiently, thinking surely they will get off of the phone to speak with you and take their meds. Then they either give you an annoyed look (like you are inconveniencing THEM), or pretend you're not even there.....

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Specializes in home health, dialysis, others.

It's okay, in my opinion, to interrupt to tell them that you have their meds, or need to do whatever. Ask if they can call back in a few minutes because you have other pts to tend, and may not be able to get back for a while.

It is not rude to ask for their attention while they are in the hospital. All medical offices have signs asking for phones to be turned off. Their medical needs outweigh socializing.

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Grrrrr... That is a big pet peeve of mine. I try to be pretty patient with them, but it's tough sometimes. You have 4 or 5 other patients and are trying to pass your meds or do dressing changes. You go in the room and they are on the phone, so you scan your meds and stand there patiently, thinking surely they will get off of the phone to speak with you and take their meds. Then they either give you an annoyed look (like you are inconveniencing THEM), or pretend you're not even there.....

Those are tho ones that disturb me the most. They have the nerve to give you attitude as if you are bothering them. They are in the hospital to get well but our presence is bothering them, how ridiculous is that. One thing I've learned from being in this profession and being exposed people from all walks of life, is that there really are some interesting characters in this world. :rolleyes:

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Specializes in ER, Trauma.

In the ER there's no single answer. I consider why they are there and why I'm there. If they're in the fast track clinic and I'm discharging them I'll interrupt them if they aren't quickly trying to get off the phone for me. For a cardiac patient I'm preparing to helicopter out to a cath lab on the phone with out of state family, I'll work around the pone call as much as possible.

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Specializes in chemical dependency detox/psych.

I ignore any attitude and go about my business. If I need to give them their meds and they're on the phone, I put a smile on my face and say, "Time for your meds," and hand them the med cup. If they try to put me off, I just keep smiling and and tell them, "Sorry, but I need you to take your meds." I'm nothing, if not persistent. If I let patients or their families set my schedule, I would never get my work done.

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Specializes in med surg nursing.

If a patient is on the phone when I enter the room, most of the time they hang up. If they don't, I will stand politely at the foot of their bed with a smile. They usually get the message.

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Specializes in MED/SURG STROKE UNIT, LTC SUPER., IMU.

I got this last night as well. Just admitting the patient and trying to get the assessments completed (rehab pt and we have a ton of assessments and consents) when the phone rings while we are trying to do the actual physical assessment. You guessed it, the patient took the call!! I was just asking her to turn over so that I could assess her back, so that was out the window at that point. Instead I took the dressing off of her incision to assess that, but she still stayed on the phone the WHOLE time! I couldn't believe it. Of course, this is also the patient that had to have everything just so and review everything with a fine tooth comb, even the general consent for treatment for the facility, but I have to wait for her to get off the phone to the person she was just talking to 15 minutes before! Over all that particular admission took about 2 hours!!! :mad:

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Patients who summons you to the room to answer questions. When their phone rings they tell you to leave and come back later to finish discussion.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Transplant, Education.

Oh this drives me crazy. Most of my patients will say "oh the nurse is here, I'll call you back" but the select few that don't I stand there for a few minutes with a smile on my face. If they ignore me and keep right on talking, I leave and come back in a few minutes after doing something else. If they are still on the phone I tell them I have X,Y,Z to do and they need to hang up.

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