I was wondering if as nurses, if you are aware of how you conduct yourself in public?
I run into prior patients and family members all of the time, of which I never say hi unless they say hi first due to HIPAA and I live in a pretty large city too.
We work very hard and deserve to go out and have a good time, but I think we need to be careful on how we conduct ourselves. Does anyone else agree?
Case in point:
A nurse who I will call E was out one night. E got totally drunk, knowing he had to work the next day at 7am-7pm. He was at a bar and almost got into a bar brawl with another group of individuals. When E showed up for work he was very hungover. E then went into his patients rooms and found out that one of them was a guy/girl that was involved in the "almost bar brawl" with appendicitis. The patient did not want E to care for him/her, not because of the brawl, but because he knew how drunk E got the night before. The patient went on to tell the story to the nurse that was taking over his/her care and was saying things like "how could E go out and get so drunk the night before he had to work?"
Putting this story aside....
Has anyone changed how they are in public?
Has anyone had a situation in where they ran into a former patient?
