Things you'd LOVE to be able to tell patients, and get away with it.

Just curious as to what you would say. Mine goes something like this: Nurses Relations Video Nurse Life

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Hi, my name is AngelfireRN, I'll be your nurse tonight.

I am not a waitress, nor am I your slave.

Yelling and hurling obscenities at me will not get you your pain meds any sooner than they are ordered. Nor will having your family member or entourage do the same.

Threatening lawsuits and having umpteen family members camp out in the halls or hold up the nurse's station will not get you preferential treatment.

Physically grabbing me as I go down the hall is NOT a good idea.

I do not give the orders, but I do have to follow/enforce them. This is something that you should take up with your doctor.

No, I will not call him again to ask him for more pain medicine. He has been called twice and has said no both times.

No, I will not give you his number so you can "straighten him out".

No, you are not my only patient, and I highly doubt that you are single-handedly paying my salary. On the off chance that you are, let's talk about a raise.

NO, NO, NO, I most empahatically will NOT come get you when it is time for your next pain shot while you are having a smoke break. I also will not bring it to you in the smoking room. (Have actually said that, I am allergic to cigarettes. I did it once, had an asthma attack, desatted to 83, and turned blue, according to the patient and my charge nurse, after the patient had to help me back to the floor).

No, I don't really care if your family has not eaten all day, they drove here by themselves, they are not sick, and no, I will not call for 6 guest trays. (This of course, is if the patient in question does not need all 6 family members present, and is not at death's door).

No, you may not have 3 six-packs of soda from the kitchen, there are other people that would like a snack, too.

No, they will not open up the kitchen up just for you, at 1 in the morning, because you don't like the snacks we have on the floor.

I could think of hundreds, but those will do for a start. I know it sounds mean, but this is why I got out of bedside nursing. When a hospital becomes the Hilton, I'm gone!

Have fun!

Specializes in Med Surg, Hospice.
AuntieNursey said:
Why? You provide professional, caring, empathic nursing care in any environment. You assist them with as much of the medical care and emotional support as you can. LTC folks are so much more than their diagnosis and condition(s) and if you can make an impact in their lives, no matter how small or (seemingly) insignificant it does make a difference in their quality of life. Yes, I agree folks who only visit 1 or 2 x's a year can make life difficult, both in loudly c/o issues they know nothing about (due to their lack in involvement at other times of the year) and in upsetting some of the residents when they suddenly appear and then disappear again. It's kind of a "walk a mile in my shoes" deal as well, guilt can be a killer and I can only imagine that these folks feel guilty about putting a parent in a home and can't face them. Lots of reasons/excuses/procratinations but it all boils down to helping when and where you can and not being any more judgemental than your karma can handle. :balloons:

I'm not being judgemental. I know that people are in LTC because they can't care for themselves. I did a rotation in a nursing home and I'll do one after the Med/Surg rotation. I have a hard time with this. I love older people because I listen to the stories they tell of their childhood, when they were first married, what the wives did when their husbands went to fight the war, etc. It breaks my heart that they can't care for themselves and that most of the time nobody comes to visit them. It's almost like they're the forgotten people. And nobody deserves to be forgotten.

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I must say this.... when my little boy (who is 4 and has leukemia) was hospitalized my husband asked for the bedside commode. My little man went poo and my husband asked for the call bell to tell the nurse to empty it. :angryfire I schooled him on that real quick. "Why would you have the nurse empty that when you have perfectly capable hands?" She appreciated that and me sooo much. It just goes to show that even though others intentions may not be bad, they think a hospital is equivalent to a hotel... live and learn and he did that night.

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CPI61 said:
Patient: "I need to be changed"

Me: "True change comes from within"

And you need to truly want to change :trout:

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SoulShine75 said:
I must say this.... when my little boy (who is 4 and has leukemia) was hospitalized my husband asked for the bedside commode. My little man went poo and my husband asked for the call bell to tell the nurse to empty it. :angryfire I schooled him on that real quick. "Why would you have the nurse empty that when you have perfectly capable hands?" She appreciated that and me sooo much. It just goes to show that even though others intentions may not be bad, they think a hospital is equivalent to a hotel... live and learn and he did that night.

I work in health care but am not a nurse, and to be perfectly honest, if it were my child, I would probably have done the same thing.

And I'm female.

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Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

What part of "Emergency" do you not understand??

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SoulShine75 said:
I must say this.... when my little boy (who is 4 and has leukemia) was hospitalized my husband asked for the bedside commode. My little man went poo and my husband asked for the call bell to tell the nurse to empty it. :angryfire I schooled him on that real quick. "Why would you have the nurse empty that when you have perfectly capable hands?" She appreciated that and me sooo much. It just goes to show that even though others intentions may not be bad, they think a hospital is equivalent to a hotel... live and learn and he did that night.

but what if they wanted to keep a record of how much he went. they do that with me, they tell me not to flush and to call them.

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rph3664 said:
p.s. I'm sorry about offending people with my earlier post about "American poverty, 2007." My point was that many people create their own problems, and this includes modifying their bodies in ways that render them unemployable.

Guess I stepped over the line.

You are right, and there are too many folks standing around 'enabling' them to do so.

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Specializes in psychiatry,geropsych,LTC/SNF, hospice.

To an 82 year old demented gentleman:

No, I will not give you your cane back; no matter how many nasty names you call me. You hit a CNA causing her to receive 10 stitches on her head. You also tripped another resident at your nursing home resulting in a fractured hip for said resident. This is what won you a visit to my wonderful world of geropsych. We will gladly help you ambulate or provide you with a wheelchair (at least until you start running people over :nono:), but forget about the cane.

To a patient's family:

Taking your father off all psych meds will not "bring him back" to raking the leaves "just like he was 2 weeks ago". What will happen is that he will continue to beat the crap out of the nursing staff and no nursing home will ever accept him. I'm sorry, but the father you knew is gone and is never coming back.

1 Votes
AngelfireRN said:
Just curious as to what you would say. Mine goes something like this:

Hi, my name is AngelfireRN, I'll be your nurse tonight.

I am not a waitress, nor am I your slave.

Yelling and hurling obscenities at me will not get you your pain meds any sooner than they are ordered. Nor will having your family member or entourage do the same.

Threatening lawsuits and having umpteen family members camp out in the halls or hold up the nurse's station will not get you preferential treatment.

Physically grabbing me as I go down the hall is NOT a good idea.

I do not give the orders, but I do have to follow/enforce them. This is something that you should take up with your doctor.

No, I will not call him again to ask him for more pain medicine. He has been called twice and has said no both times.

No, I will not give you his number so you can "straighten him out".

No, you are not my only patient, and I highly doubt that you are single-handedly paying my salary. On the off chance that you are, let's talk about a raise.

NO, NO, NO, I most empahatically will NOT come get you when it is time for your next pain shot while you are having a smoke break. I also will not bring it to you in the smoking room. (Have actually said that, I am allergic to cigarettes. I did it once, had an asthma attack, desatted to 83, and turned blue, according to the patient and my charge nurse, after the patient had to help me back to the floor).

No, I don't really care if your family has not eaten all day, they drove here by themselves, they are not sick, and no, I will not call for 6 guest trays. (This of course, is if the patient in question does not need all 6 family members present, and is not at death's door).

No, you may not have 3 six-packs of soda from the kitchen, there are other people that would like a snack, too.

No, they will not open up the kitchen up just for you, at 1 in the morning, because you don't like the snacks we have on the floor.

I could think of hundreds, but those will do for a start. I know it sounds mean, but this is why I got out of bedside nursing. When a hospital becomes the Hilton, I'm gone!

Have fun!

AMEN SISTER! I only wish that we could get away with saying these things. I am like you, I could think of a million more things. Sometimes I feel like I'm wearing shackles instead of a stethoscope!!

Merry Christmas!

1 Votes

One of my patients had the gonads to say to me one night that the reason I didn't answer his call light quick enough was because I didn't want to take care of black people. and called me a racist! PULEEZE! Let me tell you, I shut the door and I laid him out like a parking lot!! I proceded to tell him, in case he hadn't noticied that the patient in the bed next to him had arrested and we were attempting to save his life and WE did not think that getting him a glass of water in the middle of a code blue was on the priority list. :trout:

1 Votes

Please add:

I'm not the nanny.

We don't change the sheets 20 times a day.

Can't tell the kitchen what to cook and we don't have take out service.

There will be an additional $10.00 fee to your bill for each time you use the call light unnecessarily.

1 Votes
Dental Hygienist said:
For the dental side of things:

"It's just saliva. Don't you swallow your own saliva all day at home?" to the patient who requests suction every 5 seconds

"Oh, this hurts so much that you need nitrous oxide and valium to complete your cleaning? Tell me about all those tattoos and piercings? How did you manage to suffer through that?"

to the patient who says they don't understand why they keep getting so many cavities. "Do you floss? No? Oh, that's why."

to the overprotective parent who insists on accompanying their child into the treatment room and then hovers over the child repeating: "Don't worry, it won't hurt" I just want to say: "How do YOU know?";) or I want to say: "It probably won't hurt, but you're sure giving little johnny plenty of reason to be freaked out about it"

To the patient who adamantly states they don't want x-rays: "Great. because I don't want to take them. This sounds like a win/win situation."

To the patient that says: "I hate the dentist" as soon as I meet them for the first time: "Well, good thing I'm not the dentist! I hate whiny patients...you're not one of those are you?"

To the patient who doesn't want me to lay them back in the dental chair: "Do you sleep sitting up? No? OK, here we go hold on...."

To the parent who doesn't want their child to have fluoride because insurance doesn't cover it: "Does insurance cover your coach purse and iPhone?"

Ooohhh....that felt good, a little too good!:devil:

Too funny!

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