I'm seeing a lot of unprofessional posting here related to venting about patients

Nurses Relations

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Hi,

I'm just a newbie here but I have to comment on what I'm seeing here. Specifically nurses sharing their stories of their interactions with difficult patients.

Surely it is unprofessional to be sharing patient details? Even with the names changed, enough specific details are being provided by certain nurses that could identify a patient.

Anyone can access this website. Any patient can check out this website. I admit, the chances are not great that this will happen, but it could happen.

I don't think it is appropriate or professional to post here and ***** about patients, difficult or not.

Usually the unprofessional offenders mention that they just gotta vent. I don't think as nurses / nurse students collectively we should be initiating some of the threads here; or participating in them. I think nurses who have to ***** about a patient should find a more appropriate outlet to do so.

Just my two cents.

Specializes in Med-Surg.

Actually, there are probably a lot more nurses who think venting on here is more professional than venting other ways. IE venting at home, at work, etc.

And I would take the opinion of nurses, who have lived and breathed it, over students with rose-colored glasses concerning the profession, ANY DAY!

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Hi all...wow this post has gotten wild! lol. Im going to add. OP, well it's just like any forum or post. People can say whatever they want on here as long as HIPPA is not violated. I do see a lot of mean stuff and also see a lot of nice stuff that's very helpful. OP, if you don't like what your reading....don't read it. Thats what i do. Not one person on here is forcing you to read it. It's that simple. But I promise you'll read a lot of stuff on here that's sooo helpful. :) So dont be hasty and look the forums. youll start enjoying the posts more when your working as a nurse :) And as for the nurses venting...it's a must in the healthcare industry! We have no one else to vent too. Nobody wants to talk about the "weird colored poop" and the " miss know it all gossiping *****." Lol. Sometimes ive gotten so frustrated at work i had to repeat in my head..."im a fantastic nurse and im here to do a job...help pts get better!" I do this like 10 times. Lol. It's a life saver ;) anyways, Ive tried venting to my boyfriend and he just gets freaked out.He said I work in crazyville. Lol. But if we didn't vent we'd ALL end up as patients. Haha. So dont worry about...every little thing will be alright :0)

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Oh one more thing to OP....please familiarize yourself with HIPPA. If you don't understand everything about the rules, then you can't make claims about it. Gotta know ur stuff if ya wanna debate it. :)

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

First everyone it's HIPAA! Second, OP of course your fellow nursing students laughed, you guys have NO idea what the real world is like. And you know what? During nursing school I was able to vent to my fellow students so I had no need of AN. Now, in the real world, you aren't with your little cohort anymore. You go to work, come home and go back to work. There isn't time to meet up with nursing friends to vent about things. And honestly unless you're venting at someone's home, you are more at risk of people knowing who you are talking about than ANYONE online is. Unless you can show us some proof of these HIPAA viloating posts, you really need to just shut up and learn your place. I can come on here and complain about the pt who's husband was mean and rude and practically violent to the staff about her being SOB and not getting back from triage fast enough. Except she was SOB for three days....and already on oxygen.....and both continue to smoke a pack a day. Pts like that are unbelievably frustrating because they take out their anger on the staff for what they are continuing to do to themselves. Just like the frequent flier who comes in with chest pain every 2 weeks, well it's meth related CP and he just wants drugs. I'm allowed, even ecouraged to vent about them here so I can treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve in real life.

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Wow. Lol.

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Specializes in geriatrics.

Should you decide that something or someone is unprofessional, that's fine....and opinions vary. It is not anyone's place to inform nurses on a discussion site that they are unprofessional for venting. We all need an outlet, and you are not the ethics police. AN is moderated regularly, and the moderators will decide accordingly. You the user has the ability to choose the content you wish to view and respond to. It's very simple.

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Everyone needs an outlet. That is a part of life. It depends on where that outlet is done. Here on All nurses, this should be a place where nurses and students can learn from each other and be able to vent without being pulled up for it by those who think they know everything. We are lucky to have places like this where we can get together and feel "safe" that we can vent. When I have been on clinical placement, I have sat with nurses on lunch break where they have talked about patients outside where anyone can hear. I kept my mouth shut as I am just student who has nothing to offer as some nurses are saying. (you would think someone who is 40 would have something to offer) Those places are just wrong as anyone can hear. Here should be safe as not everyone would be just general public. Not all of us students are dumb and should be ignored and tainted with the same brush as others. And we do not wear rose colored glasses either. Just love to know where there is a place where students can vent about nurses that leave bruises on patients are or the ones who are so rough in front of family and students, that patients are scared or they cringe when a nurse comes near. Sorry not trying to be disrespectful to all nurses. There are some out there that nursing is just a job and nothing else. Where has the passion gone???????

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.....would deprive them of what is a great pleasure in their lives, unprofessional or not.
On reflection, that should be....what is a fixture in their lives.....
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One of the reasons that I think people greatly object to what I originally wrote is that for them to consider stopping venting about patients online, would deprive them of what is a great pleasure in their lives, unprofessional or not.

Whether it's "pleasure" or "fixture", I believe the reality is more likely that people object strongly to a student who believes he has the right to declare the professionals unprofessional.

Tell me, what other outlets for venting about patients would you have us use? Just for curiosity's sake. What method do you feel would be a professional choice for venting? This is meant as a serious, honest question.

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Oh one more thing to OP....please familiarize yourself with HIPPA. If you don't understand everything about the rules, then you can't make claims about it. Gotta know ur stuff if ya wanna debate it. :)

Well actually, I don't think OP needs to learn about HIPAA, since it's a U.S. law.

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Well actually, I don't think OP needs to learn about HIPAA, since it's a U.S. law.

Looking at what the HIPAA is, we don't have that here in New Zealand either. We have privacy acts that govern that use of patient information but not written in the same way that the HIPAA is written

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Not everyone has HIPAA, per se, however I know in Canada we take confidentiality seriously and have our own laws, under different names. I expect this is the same for other countries.

Whether HIPAA or other, I have yet to see anything posted here that would be a true violation. We are sharing stories and frustrations, but not identifying the persons involved.

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