Things You'd Like To Tell Visitors . . . . and get away with it

Pushing your wife's call light and then standing at the nurse's station and staring at us while drumming your fingers on the counter ONE MINUTE later is not going to help you to get what YOU want. In fact, you are so outrageous I'm going to ignore you and hope you go away.

Umm...excuse me but why are you eating off your mother's tray? It's freakin' blended food for crying out loud! Gross and gross some more!!!You're supposed to be feeding her since you volunteered. Geeze, louise!!!!!!

Umm...yes, there IS a doctor in the house...but being 8:00 on a weekend night, it is a resident covering his/her department for the whole hospital. We won't hesitate to call the doc for your family member requiring urgent/ emergent care as soon as we get vital signs, basic assessment of the pt, the lab values the doc is going to ask us to read over the phone and do whatever we can immediately (O2, PRN meds, etc). But no, I'm NOT going to page the MD because you would rather have a doctor change Mom's dressing than a nurse.
Or to report the nurse that you say Dad thought was mean yesterday to wake him up to take his heart medicine.
Or because he just now mentioned to you that he has a post-nasal drip that he has had for 2 days but hasn't mentioned to the MD's when they have seen him.
Or to challenge yet again why they don't want to give Mom more morphine (which they explain to your sister every day is because Mom is too lethargic for it to be safe to increase the dose any more).
Or to spend 30 min discussing in detail with you the long-range plans for Auntie's discharge; that's for you to talk to their Attending/ Case Manager/ Social Worker about when they're here (and yes, we know you work days but it might be necessary to arrange a time for a phone call to speak to the team who can give you the specifics)
Yep, I could go on. And on. But you get the picture.

I'd love to have said this the other day ... "your wife came to see me to discuss her cholesterol results and CVD risk, I dont give a damn about yours and what statin you're on, SHUT THE F*CK UP so your wife can a word in edgewise and tell me HER story"

You are obnoxious and unhelpful. We've taken a vote and will not be unlocking the door for you when you come back from your cigarette break. Goodbye!


(oh, how I wish we could get away with this sometimes)

Are you here to visit your relative or are you really here to find out the status of the other patients?

I know, I know, I know. I know all about everything that you're telling me. It's very, very basic stuff. You know how I know? I WORK HERE. So you didn't need to explain to me what it means to reposition someone, or that I need to record what she ate off her dinner tray, or any of that other stuff that I do with every single other patient in the place! You are insane!

As I've already explained several times, your mother's had a stroke, is semi-conscious, has no gag, and is nil orally. An NG is not only uncomfortable, inserting one is contraindicated this soon after a patient's had tPA.

Yes, I know what the medication your mother's on does. Yes, I know how important it is she take it. No, I'm not going to give it to her. Missing a dose of statin won't kill her. Aspiration pneumonia and/or GI bleeding from an NG could. Go home now. It's not just that you're annoying me - incessantly tapping her face and mewling "Ma? Ma? Say something!" isn't helping her, either.

Love this thread.

When we say no loitering in the halls we mean it, there is a family waiting room and the regular waiting room, you may not wait in the hallway so you can look into other patient rooms.
1 visitor means 1 visitor, I understand that you are the patients cousin bestfirend stepbrother twice removed, but there are too many people in the room already....who do you ask.....oh the MD, multiple nurses, RT just trying to work on your cousins bestfriend stepbrother

Our doctors do not normally call a family member to ask their opinions on medication. yes, i realize you have the POA for your mother but that still does NOT make you a doctor and therefore you are quite unqualified to give an opinion on what medicines your mother needs.