I am struggling with patient families lately.

Nurses Relations

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I am fed up with patient families treating the hospital like a family reunion site. I am tired of the family members that insist on staying the night, why? In some cases I get it. But when your boyfriend has the flu or your nana needs her rest and she won't rest with a room full of visitors, please leave and go home. I am very capable of doing my job without you laying there with one eye opened making sure I do what you think I should. These are all things I wish I could say, but damn those customer satisfaction surveys.

Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

Yeah there's nothing like a family member stopping you to ask if their loved one can have something to drink, while you're responding to a code! (Gotta love the ER) I will say a lot of times it was amazing when families were there, they would help us clean up the pt, gave comfort and made my job easier, but on the flip side I had a pt extubate their loved one cause they were convinced they were choking, despite being told over and over again that coughing was normal and the pt was breathing fine. Yeah that pt didn't make it.

Specializes in Public Health, L&D, NICU.
It truly scares me to read the comments from some of these nurses. Bedside manner is dreadfully lacking these days by nurses and doctors. It's a critical component to the role of a healthcare provider. You deal with these situations everyday. The patients and familes do not. You're dealing with people at their most vulnerable moments. If you can't handle these situations with some sort of class and decorum, please leave the profession. I hear a lot of emotionally burnt-out nurses on this board. Get out of the profession. You chose this career and you choose to stay in it. Nobody forced you to become a nurse or to continue being one. Families can be a pain in the ass, but I truly don't think they're intentionally trying to make your life more difficult. I think they're scared and confused. And this might manifest itself as being obnoxious sometimes. I've seen the inner workings of healthcare and those that provide it- Some are the best people on earth. Some are truly evil incarnate.

What in the ever living heck gives you the right to declare burnout and the need for career changes for so many experienced nurses? I'm sorry, but you are as wrong as wrong can be. There are many families that thrive on making life difficult for nurses. They are wastes of oxygen, they have nothing better to do, and it entertains them. When a nurse walks in a patient room for the very first time, and the family whips out a cell phone and starts recording, muttering to each other about lawsuits, then they are absolutely trying to make life difficult for a nurse. When they lay, two and three at a time, all over the floor and flat out refuse to get up, causing an obstacle course for the nurse every time she needs to approach the bed, they are absolutely making life difficult for the nurse. When a labor nurse attempts to get a blue, limp baby to a warmer to start bagging and compressions, and the family physically blocks her in order to get a "first picture with granny!" then they are intentionally hindering care. None of these situations are hypotheticals, they all happened to me. I DO NOT CARE if it is the first exposure someone has had to hospitilzation and illness, people should still know how to act in public. I'm talking about basic human courtesy! Just because one is a nurse does not mean one has to, in the interest of professionalism, lay down and become a door mat.

Just recently in Birmingham, AL, a man shot 3 people because he was ticked off at a nurse. I'm sure you, in your infinite wisdom, would probably blame the nurse for being burned out and uncaring(poor, poor homicidal maniac, he didn't understand healthcare, was scared, and the nurses were sooo mean to him!), while the rest of the sane people in the world realize that this is the exact kind of family nurses get frustrated with all the time. The family that is threatening you one day because you won't bring them a snack is the the family that's actually acting on the threat when they see they can get away with all sorts of appalling behavior.

Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.

Ahh, monkeybug...a breath of air, as always. Go, girl!

Specializes in Med/Surg.

At the hospital where I work, our management doesnt have our back at all and its very frustrating. A couple of weeks ago we had a female patient who had cancer, was in her 50's, but was still alert and oriented. Her husband, who none of us had ever seen before, came to the nurse's station demanding to know the results of her labs. Our charge nurse asked him if he had the HIPAA password. He IMMEDIATELY tore his hat off and slammed it down on the nurse's station and said "I am her husband!! I dont need a d*mn password!" Our charge nurse gets up and says "Lets go down to the room and we will discuss it with your wife also." He comes around the nurse's station ranting and raving IN THE NURSE'S FACE that shes going to have a problem if she doesnt tell him what he wants to know NOW. She said "I'm sorry but due to confidentiality laws I can't give you that information unless it is ok'd by your wife." He was like "ok you're really gonna have a problem now!" By then someone had called our nursing supervisor (why they didnt just call security I will never know..) Our supervisor came out and just told the charge nurse to tell him whatever he wants to know. So she did. Its like REALLY?!? And he was allowed to stay.

Specializes in Med-Surg.

Wow, so your supervisor basically allowed HIPAA laws to be broken to bend over for this person? Is this was healthcare is coming to? Breaking laws all in the name of so-called customer service? Wow...

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Specializes in Neurovascular, Ortho, Community Health.

THIS is precisely why I left the bedside. We take the brunt of everything and everyone thinks its okay to abuse us and get away with it. Glorified med waitresses. Gotta keep those survey scores high!

Specializes in Geriatric/Sub Acute, Home Care.

its all called an elitist attitude.....being we are in a society that caters to our every need, (and its getting worse) people just want what they want and they want it NOW. No one wants to wait anymore, people think they are being brushed off and the nurse gets the crappy end of the stick. I have encountered many many upset families when I just got onto the floor. And being I was part time, I depended on my shift report to give me all the necessary info on patients and whatnot before I started to work. However it was wishful thinking and never happened. I kept my own notes and made sure I followed up with anything from 2 days ago that may or may not have been done. I tried to make things simpler on my shift. But once I left for 2 days, I had to start all over again, everyone had their own way of working. I managed for years with my own little notebook and followed up in my own way. It worked.

Its the communication problems in nursing and amongst ancillary personnel, tremendous workload, understaffing, some managers who just leave everything to the floor nurse to do and a host of things. The whole machine needs oil and when you come in, you are the one holding the oil can at that moment. You are considered a miracle worker and can make things just happen right then and there(or so this is what some people believe) its a mindset that people are in now, its highly annoying, humanely impossible and dangerous in some cases. I always stepped back when someone attacked me verbally, I first say to myself in my head......this may have nothing to do with me, just relax and listen to them, then work from there.....If there is no way you can calm people down, then I would excuse myself and tell them I will go get the Nurse Manager, Assisted director or Director to see if they can offer any solutions. If that doesnt help, the administrator usually winds up being involved. But I have never gotten to where I needed the Administrator to talk with the family unless they personally requested and insisted upon it. If you keep your cool, if you listen to the problem at hand, you can do only your best to solve it at that particular moment. But of course there are the little trivial things that families/patients demand that we may put on the back burner....because WE THINK its not that important right now. But there are really some ridiculous requests out there that cannot be done.

Specializes in ICU.

I especially like it when they park in front of the sharps container...

What in the ever living heck gives you the right to declare burnout and the need for career changes for so many experienced nurses? I'm sorry, but you are as wrong as wrong can be. There are many families that thrive on making life difficult for nurses. They are wastes of oxygen, they have nothing better to do, and it entertains them. When a nurse walks in a patient room for the very first time, and the family whips out a cell phone and starts recording, muttering to each other about lawsuits, then they are absolutely trying to make life difficult for a nurse. When they lay, two and three at a time, all over the floor and flat out refuse to get up, causing an obstacle course for the nurse every time she needs to approach the bed, they are absolutely making life difficult for the nurse. When a labor nurse attempts to get a blue, limp baby to a warmer to start bagging and compressions, and the family physically blocks her in order to get a "first picture with granny!" then they are intentionally hindering care. None of these situations are hypotheticals, they all happened to me. I DO NOT CARE if it is the first exposure someone has had to hospitilzation and illness, people should still know how to act in public. I'm talking about basic human courtesy! Just because one is a nurse does not mean one has to, in the interest of professionalism, lay down and become a door mat.

Just recently in Birmingham, AL, a man shot 3 people because he was ticked off at a nurse. I'm sure you, in your infinite wisdom, would probably blame the nurse for being burned out and uncaring(poor, poor homicidal maniac, he didn't understand healthcare, was scared, and the nurses were sooo mean to him!), while the rest of the sane people in the world realize that this is the exact kind of family nurses get frustrated with all the time. The family that is threatening you one day because you won't bring them a snack is the the family that's actually acting on the threat when they see they can get away with all sorts of appalling behavior.

Love this post!

Specializes in ICU, Geriatrics, Float Pool.

Yes, I recently had the pleasure of having a family member hover outside the room and harass me to come give a water flush to her dear mom through her peg tube while I was giving qhour pain meds to a patient who was actively dying. Now mind you, her mom was perfectly fine and needed nothing else. She just wanted me to leave the dying gentleman and do that task immediately. Even after explanation that this patient needed me RIGHT NOW.

People are obnoxious and do not care about others.

Can someone tell me WHY we can't speak back to patients or families when they make our day so difficult or scream at us ? I also don't see why a nurse can't defend herself when a patient starts choking or beating her up. Where is it a written law that we cannot defend ourselves physically and verbally when attacked? Seriously does anyone know if there's a law?

Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
Can someone tell me WHY we can't speak back to patients or families when they make our day so difficult or scream at us ? I also don't see why a nurse can't defend herself when a patient starts choking or beating her up. Where is it a written law that we cannot defend ourselves physically and verbally when attacked? Seriously does anyone know if there's a law?

Here are the known laws which make it a felony to assault nurses: http://www.ena.org/IENR/Documents/State%20Survey%20-%20Criminal%20Laws%20-%20Misdemeanor%20and%20Felony.pdf

If families, pts are unruly, use assertive desecalation techniques, get charge. If escalating, you can always let them know the laws and give then the choice to calm down or go out in handcuffs...it is really that simple, especially if you learn how to verbally descalate pts, you really don't have to go that far.

I can recall stopping a demented pt's blow of hitting my chest...I told her that she could go to jail be side of assault. Was a ***** at the rest if her stay and got off 1:1...somewhere was the rationale part of her mind still functioning.

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