What is the worst thing a patient has ever said to you?

sorry, I hit reply and couldn't add the quote before I was locked out. It was a pretentious response to a nursing home comment:

"You poor dear it sounds like you had a horrible shift. I have been cussed out and called all kinds of names things like that do not usually upset me anymore. What does get under my skin is when residents or family members treat me like I do not know anything because I work in a nursing home. I have worked in hospitals in the past and I came to work at a nursing home of my own free will (what was I thinking, right) not because I did not know enough to work in the hospital."


Sorry if I reused a train of thought and converted it to a response; didn't mean to confuse by not directly adding the comment...didn't mean to cause issue

Some patients do not know appreciation. You did all to care for your patient. By the looks of it, this person and his family are all difficult.

You did your best to educate them, but they wwere unwilling to learn. I feel your pain. Some people are never satisfied. It is unfortunate that people like them exist.

A lazy nurse would not even waste time catering to them. So they sould be grateful for your service!!!

For the most part, I don't have to deal with the pt's making awful comments (in SICU), but a couple of weeks ago I had a family member who truly upset me. My pt pulled her A line out- radial, she bled a bit. I was in the room and was able to handle the situation quickly. She was upset and the husband jumped all over me. He was yelling so loudly that another nurse heard and came in to help me. I can't remember everything that he said, but the one thing that sticks out was, "I ovbiously can't step out of the room for a minute and leave her alone with you!". He held to it. I actually had to ask him to step out further in to the shift and he refused to leave (open visitation). Then as I was about to leave he commented to his wife, "We know when we have a good nurse and today we weren't that lucky". Devastated me!

I can honestly say out of all of the crzy things patients have said to me or called me only 2 times come to mind that made me want to pop my top and they both came from family members. The first time was a woman who was in for osteo due to a cat bite. This woman was a sweetheart, however her daughter called me later that day in hysterics asking if her mother was receiving nerve pills in the hospital. I said she was not and she told me I had to get them for her immediately. I informed her that her mother was cool as a cucumber and has not expressed desire for anything so I would not call the doctor for such an order. She then with indignity says "Do you know that my husband is a vet!" I replied really, then he can check the cat that bit her for rabies, but as for your mother we use people doctors here.
Then the other time I received a post-op who due to a mastectomy had only one arm available for bp's, so I hooked her up for her post op vitals, began assessing her as her daughter-in law whisked into the room and is looking around and tells me the cuff hurts mothers arm you need to take it off and do it manually. I told her I would feel better to keep that cuff on her because we need to ensure that b/p, pulse ox etc. is being monitored at regular intervals. (I had 8 pt's that night no way I could do manuals as often as she required bp's). DIL says well I am not asking you I am telling you to do it in that fashion I ended up having a spell of verbal diarrehea and I told her I am telling her that I will not be doing it that way and her mother is not complaining of any discomfort. Then she says mother needs morphine and I said well mother cant have morphine (she had duramorph) I explained this to her through gritted teeth and said toradol was probably orderd. she went off about how mother needs narcotics for her horrible pain! (mother was lying there sleeping at this point). I probably crossed the line but I told her that as I said before she can not have narcotics because breathing takes priority over pain and if I start giving her narcs mother might not have pain but she probably will stop breathing, and if she could please stop telling me how to do my job I would appreciate it because I do not go to her work and tell her how to do hers. I seriously thought I was being punked because this woman was so over the top. However after our confrontation she was fine with me and even thanked me for taking great care of "mother".

Just last night I was in a pt's room, bent over to pick something off the floor and put it in the trash and he said "Wow, they must not pay you PCT's much- when's the last time you got your roots done?" LOL.

My worst encounters are with family members it seems, not so much the pt. IDK why. I've concentrated on being more mindful of family needs along with pt needs since I've seen the trend.

Worst thing was as much what the family member did as what they said:

The family member had just completed a 3 week training course at a nursing home facility to assist people who have to care for loved ones at home. Apparently, they tried to teach these people about C-diff in the class. She had taken over much of the ADL care for her mother since the classes. D/C plan was for the pt. to go home with this daughter with homecare.

She took her mother off the bedpan after a very large BM. Stuck the bedpan in my face.........directly under my nose, the one would do with a rose on a romantic date, and asked me "Do you think this is C-diff".

I started to lose my temper actually. My plan was to take the bedpan out of her hands and smash it into her face like a pie. Luckily, a friend was near me, stayed my hand and played interference while I left the room. They did not see me the rest of the night.

Working in med/surg for the past five years, I can think of quite a few memorable moments but there is one incident that really sticks with me: it was almost the end of my shift (I work nights 7p-7a) and one of my patients asked me to get her a cup of coffee. On my way to the pantry, an alarm sounded- one of my other patients was crashing! We coded her and she ended up being rushed to ICU (she made it!) When I got back to my floor, I remembered my other patient's coffee request and brought it in to her:

patient "what's this"
me "it's the coffee you asked for"
patient "I wanted it 45 minutes ago, I don't want it now."
me "I'm sorry, we had an emergency and I wasn't able to come back right away."
patient "you mean in this entire hospital NOBODY has the time to get an expletive cup of coffee for me when I want one!?"
me (starting to get a little annoyed) "Did you hear the alarm sound earlier? One of my other patients was dying. I'm sorry you had to wait, but that takes priority over a cup of coffee."
patient "if they had to look at your ugly lazy mug all night then they would be better off dead! I needed my coffee THEN you expletive. How dare you make me go without my caffeine, expletive. People like you shouldn't be nurses."

At this point I just turned and walked out of her room because I didn't trust myself not to say something I shouldn't

patient "Yeah, that's it. Go away. Just waddle your fat butt out of my room when I'm talking to you!"

As I was walking away, miss rude patient proceeded to throw the full cup coffee at me, getting it all over the back of my scrub top. Sheesh. Talk about a sense of entitlement. I was a bad nurse because I didn't get her coffee on time. The worst part was, she was an alert and oriented x3 40-ish year old with no psych history.

The most demeaning and condescending thing a patient ever said to me was, "I should hire you to come and clean my house" as I was clearing up her crap so that I could do a procedure on her. My response was that if she needed a maid I could certainly recommend MY housekeeper to her if she would like the number. It shut her mouth down instantly.

Not as terrible as some of the things other posters have reported, but this one just got under my skin. Her whole attitude was one of superiority and I just loved the fact that I had an opportunity to smack her 'tude down a little.

My patient told me to "Get the f* out."

I don't know why he was so mad. I told him "Okay but after you take your medication." Took me off guard because I've never had anyone say anything like that to me before. I'm super nice to all of my patients and in turn they are nice to me too. *shrugs* He was probably mad morning shift forgot to turn on his tube feeding. He told me they turned it on late and he has been hungry.

*** In that case I would have immediately called the non emergency number of our local police and had her charged with assault and or battery. That is what we are instructed to do by our nurse managers in cases where A&O x3 patients hit, kick, throw things at us etc.
I am a large and strong man and don't mind doing battle with brain injury patients or patients who for other reasons are not in control of their faculties but I am not a punching bag for mean & rude patients.