I'm tired of it!

[sunnyskies9]

I'm tired of the verbal and emotional abuse thrown at me from patients and especially their families. I'm tired of the condescending and rude comments. I'm tired of those patients and their families who believe that they are better than all the other patients on the unit and deserve VIP treatment. I'm tired of management and their "out to get us" mindset. Shouldn't we be able to look up to them as mentors and go to them when we need encouragement and help? Instead, they look for ways to get us in trouble and write us up. I'm tired of doctors and their "holier than thou" attitudes... that they can't even pause a beeping IV pump but instead go and complain to the charge nurse that their patient is not receiving appropriate attention. Who the hell am I, superwoman?! Get me out of acute care ASAP!!

[Jenni811, RN]

For all of the above mentioned reasons every night I have to work I tell myself just 3 more years until I have my DNP......I am like the little engine that could chugging up the mountain away from the HELL that is bedside nursing:cheers:

if i can offer you one word of advice- please never ever forget how awful bedside nursing is, and how demanding it is.

[Jenni811, RN]

I once heard one of our ICU nurses say, "the best patient is a paralysed, sedated orphan". These days I truly agree a great deal of the time.

My favorite :). i would take that patient anyday!!!

[Zookeeper3]

I will happily work short and take three vented and sedated patients in the ICU any day. versus two step down patients who have worn out the call buzzer and have forgotten how to take basic care of themselves.

My favorite question is "how did you wipe your bottom at home?", oh, you did it yesterday... guess what, you are doing it today!

And no I am not feeding the five family members visiting you with manicured nails, cell phones and designer wear. This is not a full service restaurant.

If you show up as a DKA, for the umteeth time, you WILL do your own accuchecks, you will not get any additional food above your diet and you will NOT get dilaudid as your pain is from YOUR choice of your body eating itself for nutrition.

[sapphire18]

All totally appropriate things to vent about. But, doctors shouldn't be silencing/messing with alarms/IV pumps/TFs. Imagine what a can of worms that would create!

[wooh, BSN, RN]

Yes, I hate when physicians touch my pumps, monitors, side rails, bathroom lights...

[Kittypower123, BSN, RN]

I once heard one of our ICU nurses say, "the best patient is a paralysed, sedated orphan". These days I truly agree a great deal of the time.

With no siblings, spouse or children!

[kids]

I'm probably in the minority but I really don't want anyone messing with my beeping anything. If it's beeing there is a reason for it.

Someone wandering in doesn't know that the feeding pump is beeping simply because I forgot to hit 'run' after doing meds or that it was paused because I intended to stop it due to a displaced or clogged tube.

Or that a beeping IV pump was a dose titration that now needs adjusted.

[Jenni811, RN]

I'm probably in the minority but I really don't want anyone messing with my beeping anything. If it's beeing there is a reason for it.

Someone wandering in doesn't know that the feeding pump is beeping simply because I forgot to hit 'run' after doing meds or that it was paused because I intended to stop it due to a displaced or clogged tube.

Or that a beeping IV pump was a dose titration that now needs adjusted.

I don't want people messing with my beeping anything either. i don't care if they silence things because EVERYTHING at our facility that makes a "beeping noise" has a safety that if the silence is hit, it will only silence for 1 minute. So i could care less about that...just tell me you hit the silence button. But he was FRANTIC...like panicking.

I think the doctor thought it was the ventilator beeping and not the TF. Even if it was the ventilator, and he couldn't find me...he should have grabbed another nurse, because the ventilator beeping is more important than the TF.

But all that is besides the point...everyone just drop it on what you would or wouldn't do with something "beeping" because its going to cause a ruckus. End of discussion!. Move on.

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

I read through all of the replies, and it brings back memories of when I worked on med/surg. While it was good experience, I often felt like nothing but a waitress wearing a steth. Of course, there were the kind and appreciative patients, there were patients that truly wanted to learn and accepted teaching, there were kind family members, kind co-workers...

And then I had the kind of pt's that y'all describe-the non-compliant diabetics, the drama queens who magically forgot how to wipe their own bums, the hovering family members who accused me of being cruel (I can't believe you are making her WALK! That's INSANE! She just had hernia surgery yesterday!), the family members who asked me when I will be delivering dinner to them (Sweetheart, can I have a Diet Coke with lots of ice? And do y'all serve fries? I like mine extra crispy! Thanks, sugar.), the docs who wrote for meds that the pt was allergic to, and when I paged them to change the order, they acted all mad that I disturbed them. Oh, and the complete lack of working equipment, like pumps that didn't alarm constantly, SCD machines that seemed scarce as hen's teeth, pulse ox machines that disappeared routinely, and let's not even go into the supply Pyxis breaking down and not being able to get the most basic supplies, like an ABD pad.

And managers wonder why we can't get everything done on time. If we didn't have to constantly put out fires, like waiting on a return page, getting the correct meds from pharmacy, calling pt equipment to exchange a broken/missing piece of equipment, figuring out how to fix the broken printer so we can have pt labels, calling Central Sterile to come re-stock items, trying to call report for the 3th time because the receiving nurse was too busy at the time, calling pt transportation AGAIN after you notice that the pt going down for surgery is STILL on the unit an hour later, calling housekeeping to clean a room that should have been cleaned during the last shift, and calling the linen service to re-stock the cabinet-which is empty-we would have completed our required tasks in a timely manner, AND would have time to spend with our patients. Oh, and that extra pillow that your COPD pt asked for when you took early AM vitals? Good luck finding that.

All of these memories make me glad that I switched to the OR. Interview the pt in pre-op, meet the family, pt goes back to the OR, pt is intubated, pt has surgery, pt wakes up. Sure, there's drama from the surgeons, but I have only met one or two in my OR career who truly represent the backside of a horse.

In this day and age, I honestly don't see how med/surg nurses do it. With Press Ganey dictating the actions of management, increased pt ratios along with increased pt acuity, administrators plying nurses with more flowcharts/documentation, extra duties implemented that "will only take a second to do", no plan for coverage when several nurses call out sick (prn nurses are expensive, says management.), old/outdated equipment, and having to bear the brunt of the hospital/facility being in the red by not receiving a raise every year...it's mind boggling.

I have said it before and I will say it again-MY HAT IS OFF TO FLOOR NURSES!!! You guys ARE saints in my eyes.

[Morainey, BSN, RN]

I'm getting tired and frustrated from our manager. I know she means well, but she is very focused on improving those patient satisfaction scores. My old manager, who wasn't a saint by any means, wanted the very best care to be taken of that patient, but understood what it was like to be a nurse on the floor. Our new manager sends out emails like, "we did GREAT on patient satisfaction except for one patient who complained that she waited thirty minutes for a glass of ginger ale, so let's ALL try to answer call bells!" I'm not even kidding. The ONE person who complained. About a frickin' glass of ginger ale. My snappy response (to my computer screen, or maybe the interior of my car) was, maybe it was that night where we had 3 nurses for 20 patients and our aide got floated. Or maybe it was during a shift change. Or maybe, I don't know, that nurse's OTHER four patients needing bathroom, units of blood hung, pain meds, and low temps and BPs. Just a thought.

The new thing is barcode scanning. We are now personally being tracked for compliance with barcode scanning. I'm pretty good about scanning, BUT, if a patient is sound asleep and news a new bag of oh, say, lactated ringers, I won't wake them up and scan their bracelet. That being said, I don't understand how it became so nitpicky. Yes it prevents med errors and blah blah blah. But, can't you just believe your employees that they gave the meds that they said they did? It is an RN administering those medications, not a strange person off the street. That RN is clicking, Administer, and documenting in a legal record that yes they gave Percocet at 2AM. Is it all of a sudden suspicious if they don't barcode scan it? I feel the same way that I did when I had to start scanning my hand to punch in, rather than punching a time card. I feel like it doesn't show trust in your employees. Like, we're gonna believe that you gave this med when you said you did, or you punched in on time... but just to make sure let's barcode everything with a timestamp, or fingerprint you so we know it's YOU at the time clock.

Sorry, rambling vent. Fewf.

[SandraCVRN]

Some of the same reasons I just told my manager I'm going back to the OR. I've had enough of pts cussing all day about..when is my dr coming, etc....

[danarooo, BSN, RN]

With no siblings, spouse or children!

Ok I laughed really hard at the "paralysed, sedated orphan" thing. I am going to remember that for years!