What are some of the most ridiculous things patients have asked of you?

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what are some of the most ridiculous or outrageous things patients have asked of you? i am nurse one of two nurses with 4 patients the other night in delivery. place was hopping. i answered the light of one of the other nurses patients, who was a very immature primip (married), whom we were certain, at some point, due to her clinical picture, was going to be a c/s. she wanted to make certain i knew how to detach her from the monitor and help her to the bathroom. no problem. however, not two minutes after i had left the room, she rang again and began yelling. her nurse was busy (did i mention we had 3 other patients in active labor?) so i went in, expecting some sort of major problem. she asked me to scratch her ass...in those words, exactly...i was taken aback and she had to have noticed my facial expression as she quickly countered that she couldn't reach and her husband, who was wide awake next to her, didn't want to do it....i am ashamed to say that i did put on some gloves and not too willingly scratched it, but when she insisted we start wiping her after trips to the bathroom, i just had to ask how she had managed to reach herself all the months leading up to her current admission. she was also ruptured so there was no way....she was a real trip....i have also had patients ask that we pop zits and in my cardiac unit days, some of the requests from patients are just too risque to repeat, but never had i had such wacky requests on a regular basis, until i transferred to ob...how about all of you?

Specializes in ICU, ER, EP,.

on that same tune, after explaining to the family that the patient's condition was 'grave" and feared she would die throughout the night.... they looked at me, and their watches and one asked "do you know what time that would be? we were thinkin of heading home for a bit".

(sure buddy, my crystal ball says 0400, :confused: )

i had a patient who was darned-near brain dead, on full support, and doing very poorly. i gently explained to the patient's sisters that there was a good chance the patient would die during the night.

her sister asked me, "well, if she dies tonight, will they still do the eeg tomorrow?"

i wasn't sure how to react to this. i said, "no".

"well, what about cat scans?"

"no," i said, "if she dies, we aren't going to do anymore tests."

:uhoh3:

While working as a nursing assistant, during nursing school, I was asked by a rotund, elderly, spinal surgery patient if I would shave her legs because her husband was picking her up early in the morning to go home. She explained that since she had been in the hospital for a few days, he would probably want to pull the car over on the side of the road and get into the back seat for some "lovin." hmmmm..just never got around to it that night! :)

actually, this is not an unfair or out of bounds request.....which i hope you learned in nursing school

Specializes in Med/Surg.
actually, this is not an unfair or out of bounds request.....which i hope you learned in nursing school

You don't think it's out of bounds for a patient, who is about to be discharged, to ask/expect you to shave her legs? It MIGHT be different if they were there long term, and you were doing it to help out with a sense of normalcy issue, but either way.....they didn't teach us to shave legs in nursing school, and I've not shaved a pair of legs in 14 years in healthcare (and don't remember ever being asked, for that matter).

be glad you don't live in holland. here's the first sentence, the title and a link to another forum here on allnurses:

a union representing dutch nurses will launch a national campaign friday against demands for sexual services by patients who claim it should be part of their standard care.

new standard of care? (warning: adult content)

https://allnurses.com/nursing-news/new-standard-care-461905.html

what is shocking is that it seems the patients' demands are being taken seriously as the union is needed to help the nurses get out of it.

I DO remember shaving legs in nursing school. But I was never asked to shave someone's legs while working as a nurse.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Omg, where do ya draw the line?!?!

Lol! Ha!

Specializes in ICU, MedSurg, Medical Telemetry.

a gentleman with a ginormous, edematous scrotum who would ask us to put his scrotum in a sling made from a towel.

A lady who asked for food or coke every time we walked by or into her room. While I had two dying patients and a full team of six people. And she says, "why can't you deal with me now. spend a few minutes on ME." Well, if you only knew... Then at 0200 or 0300, she asks for tomato soup to help her fall asleep. I get it, but tell her to sleep well -- i.e., stop calling me for food, so I can concentrate on my pt who is desatting and having LOC changes. Next time I go in, to change an IV bag, she asks for chicken noodle soup to help her fall asleep. Wasn't that what the tomato soup for? Well, I didn't like it. Oh, well, if you didn't like it...

Charge nurse told me to just tell her the kitchen was closed. That I had other things to do besides being this lady's waitress. "Well, if I don't get my chicken noodle soup, I'll tell on you." I just walked out. I think she was still talking, but I had had it. Thankfully, she forgot about her anger later -- or realized how stupid she would sound -- b/c she told the dayshift nurse how much she loved me at the end of the night. Go figure. I wonder if she eats all night at home too.

Just for the record, usually I don't mind getting patients food, but I was just worn out that night and she was my least complicated patient except for some wound care.

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