Worst/silliest/are you serious pt complaint you've received?

[odaat]

I don't know if this has been done before but I was thinking today about the one and only time I have ever been pulled into the office to be read the riot act by a manager....my patient complained that the hot water I brought her for her tea at 3am wasn't hot enough. Mind you this is after spending a lengthy amount of time straightening out legit medical issues pt had including 3am phone calls to the doctor. I'm still flabbergasted over that one, more that my manager saw fit to pull me into the office over it!

The worst one I remember is that I talk with my hands a lot, like majorly, and I was communicating a deaf patients concerns to the ER doc within visual sight of the patient. Pt thought I was making fun of him, I ended up being banned from the room and the pt advocate had to get involved 😕

[ScrappytheCoco]

Once I got called into the office and told I was being written up due to a patient complaining I had "ripped her off of a bedpan and told her I wasn't waiting any longer for her to finish" and supposedly after that left her sitting in waste. Of course I would never do this and I was shocked that I was being accused. I remembered the pt as I had cared for her many times in the Emergency Department. I asked the manager if he had pulled the chart, and he said no. Turned out, this patient came in unresponsive on that particular visit and was quickly intubated. I also put in a rectal tube for elevated ammonia/post lactulose enema. It became pretty obvious there was no truth to this accusation as far as it involving me. She had a nurse on the med/surg floor later in the admission with the same name as me, which was where this incident actually occured. Thanks a lot, Nurse Manager, for actually checking into that before throwing me under the bus...

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Not me personally, but the department: The patient whose elective surgery was cancelled because he injected heroin in the parking garage before going to preop. Not a happy camper.

[Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN]

A patient wrote a letter (after discharge) stating that I grabbed her NG tube and "ripped it out of her face". I was stunned ...not only because of the false accusation, but because she took the time and made the effort to write a letter. Luckily, she made outrageous accusations about almost everyone she encountered during her stay, so she didn't come across as credible. I still had to meet with managers and make a statement, though.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

Being in the USA illegally and "stealing the job from the good American workers".

Doing too much assessments, much more than any other nurse.

Being "just so different that our family can't tolerate it".

Being excellent nurse except for being white.

[Karou]

I, along with 5 other coworkers, was accused of neglect by a patient. On a day they I hadn't worked. The complaint was obviously untrue, but still had to be investigated and taken seriously. Everyone was cleared of any wrongdoing, but we were all banned from this patients room. The patient was very manipulative and would ask my coworkers what happened to me and why wasn't I taking care of her? She did to just to remind them that she had that almighty power to "get us fired".

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

ScrappytheCoco,

such things happen often, because of some meds. Versed, ketamine, clonidine and quite a few more can cause memory shifts and false memories.

I once got ketamine plus versed plus horse-size dose of IV steroids for severe allergic reaction and intubation. When I woke up in a couple of hours already in ICU, I was 110% sure that I was massively violated by a group of men. Remembered the faces, names, etc., all in totally wrong context. Luckily, I had enough brains left to realize that it must be ER admission with Foley, femoral line, moving, etc. But the impression was so strong that it took me weeks to kind of force myself to think about it the right way. I am afraid to think what a less educated and less experienced person might do after such an event, and in some hospitals ketamine and versed are still used together.

[ScrappytheCoco]

Katie,

Unfortunately in my case, the event involving my patient did happen, it just did not involve me. The patient told her family member what happened who complained to the hospital administrator about a nurse named (my first name, they didn't know the last) who instigated this event while she was admitted. Administrator investigated and of course my name is at the top of the chart from Triage-12 hours of care until she was admitted. The informed my manager of the alleged event. When I said there's no way I would do this, further investigation found that the patient was alert and oriented on the med/surg floor with the nurse of the same name who actually committed the offense. It was a heck of a two days for me though until they finished digging through the chart and sorted it out.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

ScrappytheCoco,

So sorry you went through this, and happy it is just an ugly past now (hugs))

[MunoRN, RN]

ScrappytheCoco,

such things happen often, because of some meds. Versed, ketamine, clonidine and quite a few more can cause memory shifts and false memories.

I once got ketamine plus versed plus horse-size dose of IV steroids for severe allergic reaction and intubation. When I woke up in a couple of hours already in ICU, I was 110% sure that I was massively violated by a group of men. Remembered the faces, names, etc., all in totally wrong context. Luckily, I had enough brains left to realize that it must be ER admission with Foley, femoral line, moving, etc. But the impression was so strong that it took me weeks to kind of force myself to think about it the right way. I am afraid to think what a less educated and less experienced person might do after such an event, and in some hospitals ketamine and versed are still used together.

What you experienced is called recovery agitation (among other things) and giving versed along with ketamine has actually been shown to reduce the psychological distress that ketamine can cause (which is why the versed is given). So the problem probably wasn't the versed but more likely that you didn't get enough versed.

Ketamine with and without midazolam for emergency department sedation in adults: a randomized controlled trial. - PubMed - NCBI

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

MunoRN,

I knew it all when the time it happened as well as that the EMTs did excellent job. It is not an easy thing to knock down for a moment a struggling patient with BP like 50/30 while quickly losing airway. The range of possible anesthetics which could be used with relative safety is rather limited in this situation, especially on some shopping mall's parking lot. But the whole experience was terrifying anyway, and it took all my education, experience of living with and surviving anaphylaxis and just sheer will power to sort of overthink it.

The article made me wondering what would happen if I got more Versed during those two or three hours from ER to ICU. Might try it with my post-procedural patients, so thank you for the idea!

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

The worst complaint that I have had is that after taking a patient to CT in the middle of the night, the patient and his daughter reported my coworker and myself for being drunk on the job. My coworker was one of those loud hypertalkative disorganized people with poorly controlled ADHD so they thought she was on something and in their minds I was guilty by association. Management came in early to question us separately. It is funny now but it wasn't at the time.

The most ridiculous complaint was : "the fish was dry and the nurse didn't care." when in fact I had politely listened to her griping, offered to order another entree and provided ketchup and tartar sauce. Yes, I had to provide a written statement and hear her complain about the dry fish yet again the following night. Awesome.