Your most annoying, obnoxious family member stories

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Aug 14, 2011

The most recent:

I had a know it all family member. She was "best friends" with our charge nurse. The charge nurse hated this woman. Anyways this person would have something new to complain about everytime I went in the room. She even went so far as to yell at me for having the hall light shine in the room when I was taking care of her mother, the actual pt.

But the one incident that stood out was when she told her mother she had developed a pressure ulcer on the right foot, lateral side. Now when she told me I kind of looked at her like how in the hell did she manage that. I look at her foot......Its a bruise, (she later told me she stepped on a rock at home). No broken skin, nothing we could do and no issue with it really. So i leave the room and 5 minutes later the daughter is pitching a fit demanding to see the doctor, charge nurse, DON, jesus himself because I would do nothing with the "pressure ulcer". I explained to her what it was and she was not happy. She went and beat on our managers door (its 2100 at this point), screaming up the halls how the nurses here are terrible and not taking care of her mom, stormed into the nursing station ******** how awful I was. So charge nurse goes in looks at it, comes out of the room and looks at me and laughs. She de-escalated the situation and calmed her down enough to not write a complaint about me. Oh I love family.

Aeterna, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2011

I nearly kicked out a patient's sister because she wouldn't stop complaining about every little thing. Some of her concerns were genuine...for example, the patient's IV had gone interstitial, causing her arm to swell. However, I explained to the sister that, yes, she has reason for concern and such a thing shouldn't happen but they do on occasion, but the swelling would go down eventually. Still, the sister wouldn't listen to anything I had to say about it.

But what really got me was that the patient had a minor bruise on her arm. From my initial assessment in the morning, I knew the bruise must have formed overnight since I knew it hadn't been there the day before. Now, this woman has Parkinson's so I imagine, at some point in the night, her arm must have bumped her side rail. Of course, the sister blew up at me about it...why didn't I know how it happened, why didn't I report it, why wasn't I doing anything about it, why was I taking such bad care of her sister...and on and on and on! It was a bruise! Little kids get bruises all the time and don't make a big deal about it! Even the patient, who was normally very anxious, was like, "But it's just a bruise!"

We also had another patient whose daughter complained that her mother wasn't washed...by 0900. Keep in mind that this patient is a total care - she needs to be fed breakfast, it takes her a long time to get her pills down, etc. - on top of all the other things we have to do in the morning. Of course, simply explaining to her that we have a number of patients to care for didn't rectify the situation at all...*sigh*

ShayRN · Aug 24, 2011

I once had a sister of a brain tumor patient follow me down the hallways calling me a murderer because her sister was dying from said brain tumor. As if I could do anything to change that.

Once had a sister of another patient call every member of our board, the president of the hospital and the directer of our organization for kicking her out of her dying brother's room. Ofcourse, she left out she had spent the last 3 days of his life terrorizing the mans wife and it was HER request that I make the woman leave. She told me when she was leaving "you haven't heard the last of me yet, this is the biggest mistake of your life." I don't know, lady. I have made some pretty big ones, lol.

Lynx25, LPN · Sep 3, 2011

Hahaha, LTC breeds some fun families.

I have one that EVERY DAY, they come in and unwrap my super neat dressing on this ladies pressure ulcer. To top it off, I'm using Santyl on the necrotic areas, and I'm afraid this crazy lady is just smearing it around on all the healthy tissue. I even went so far as to offer to SET UP AN APPOINTMENT daily, so they could be with me when I change the dressing, but they continue to sneak around and unwrap it behind my back. Seriously lady, I have thirty patients, and you want to unwrap things during my 5 PM medpass? Come on now.

Another family member made me call the doctor, because her mother had a cold. No wheezing, no abnormal lung sounds. I had to call the doc with this woman screaming, "THIS IS HOW OLD PEOPLE DIE, I WILL SUE YOU TO HELL!!!1!!!" in the background. Hurray!

IheartICUnursing · Sep 3, 2011

I had a patient one time with acute asthma exacerbation who was intubated. The husband was crazy, I mean seriously had some psychological issues and would NOT leave the bedside for anything. He was livid that this was not the 1st time she had been in the hospital due to asthma and constantly expressing how dissatisfied he was by the fact that we had not yet cured her. Ummmm its asthma.... its a chronic disease... not something that magically gets cured!!

He would corner anyone who went in the room for 30 minutes to express his random thoughts... "I graduated magna cum laude, bet you can't solve this geometry equation... look at all these hundreds in my wallet, I'm recording everything you guys say with my phone so I can sue you, this is gonna be a big news story, I drive a honda and its the best car there is, trust me I know, etc..."

Ughhh! When his wife got extubated, she developed stridor shortly thereafter. we were giving epi, steroids, etc to help her out and the RT, MD and myself were checking on her every minute basically. The husband gets angry, asking "Do you really have to come in here every d*** minute, you've already put her through enough! What is that inhaler you are giving her? (epi) What does that do? If anything goes wrong I know it is because of that inhaler! Why are you giving her a shot?? (SQ Epi) You just like poking people!" Etc, etc.

The next day, he called the administrator, and proceeded to tell them how she "almost died" yesterday because we took away the life support as soon as he stepped out to the restroom, he came back to find her gasping for air and had to search for a nurse and demanded that we give her some epinephrine.

We even had to call security twice- once in the ER when he insisted the male nurse was only asking him to leave the room so he could "have his way with her" and once when he wouldn't allow us in her room... "This is HER room, not yours and I will let you know when you can come in here!"

Good thing we have cameras in every room :)

Worst part is, the patient is actually an employee of the hospital, so I'm sure she was mortified

JDZ344 · Sep 4, 2011

People are crazy.

Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN · Sep 7, 2011

Daughter of Pt : I would have been here at 2:00pm to talk to MD but I have to WORK for a living you know.

Me: Outside voice: yes - it is so hard to be here when the doctor makes rounds. If you give me a phone number.. (etc etc)

Inside Voice : Yeah, well, duhhhh... I'm not exactly here for the joy of dealing with people like you! And yeah I work for my living too!!

RaineyRN · Oct 16, 2011

Give them to me!
Here is a contender for mine: We have open bays in our hospital, not private rooms unless you are isolated. So its the middle of the night but this patient has just been admitted so the daughter is staying a while until we get her settled in. She walks over to the patients bed opposite, UNPLUGS HER IV PUMP and PLUGS IN HER CELL PHONE TO CHARGE. The RN, alerted by the beeping, tells her she can not plug her cell in and she most definitely can not unplug anything that is already plugged in. The daughter ends up pitching such a fit about HAVING to charge her phone that we get security to escort her out. You guessed it- she wrote an official complaint!
Any family member horror stories you want to share?

WOOOOOwwwww..... Can you say, "Patient Endangerment?" What an idiot.

nursery_bee · Sep 28, 2016

This quite an old post but I stumbled across it randomly and thought I'd post.

I had a relative ring the ward regarding her dad today. She alleged that her brother had been informed that dad was being discharged elsewhere the previous day. I explained that I had been looking after dad that day, that he had indeed been referred on elsewhere but we was still waiting for a bed.

She then went on to say that her brother was given contact details for elsewhere, that he was told there was a bed available, that he doesn't make things up and was I accusing him of being a liar. That she was frustrated, that she works full time and can't possibly find the time to visit her poorly dad in hospital.

This phone rant went on for 15 minutes with so I had to politely shut her down by saying 'no I was not accusing your brother of being a liar. But I was on shift for 13 hours that day, so rest assured if there was a bed available I would know about it. We have offered dad reassurance and explanations regarding this every half an hour, but he phoned you to tell you noone told him anything. As soon as I know you will know'. Kill me now! í ½í¸‚

On another occasion a patient had a meeting with the MDT during the early shift, to discuss progress so far, new targets and a planned discharge date. When I received handover for the late shift the nurse informed me that the meeting stirred up a lot of uncomfortable and upsetting memories. Once handover had finished, the patients scowling sister marched over to the nurses station like she meant business and the conversation went as follows.

Sister: Hello nurse, my sister was in a meeting this morning and she was quite upset and I want to know why.

Me: well from what my colleague handed over to me there was apparently a lot of upsetting memories resurfaced.

Sister: well I know that, I was at the meeting

Me: well it will be that then. She is putting on a brave face on things and we are here to chat when she's ready.

Sister: OK, her husband should have been there too but he wasn't. She messaged him asking where he was and she got upset after that and I want to know why.

Me: I'm confused. Are you asking if I know about a private conversation that your sister had with her husband?

Sister: Yes

Me: well I'd it's a private conversation then I don't know. Have you asked her?

Sister: no she won't tell me

Me: well if she won't tell you then I doubt she will tell me. Maybe speak to her husband?

Sister: OK I'll do that...

I wanted to lie down in a darkened room after that painful conversation.

Lady_Leijing, BSN · Apr 25, 2018

I had the mom of one of my NICU patients come to room-in. She was informed to bring anything she may need for the night because she's be the one feeding and caring for her baby; we're just there to make sure everything goes smoothly.

She informs me at 3 AM that she doesn't have her seizure meds. I politely told her that she's welcome to go get them and I'll watch the baby while she's gone or she can have someone bring them to her. Otherwise there's nothing I can do. She proceeds to get in a huff about it and asks rather brusquely "well, what if I have a seizure?" I told her that if that happened we would call a response team and send her to the ER. She wanted to know why I couldn't just get her medicine for her. 1, lady you're not a current patient, 2 we can't just go get drugs willy-nilly from pharmacy, and 3 this is a Neonatal floor, so we certainly don't stock your seizure meds.

(I was much nicer and more professional sounding, I promise!)

She stormed out to the nurse's station and asked them the same thing before walking down to ER to have them give her what she needed.

sallyrnrrt, ADN, RN · Apr 26, 2018

I nearly kicked out a patient's sister because she wouldn't stop complaining about every little thing. Some of her concerns were genuine...for example, the patient's IV had gone interstitial, causing her arm to swell. However, I explained to the sister that, yes, she has reason for concern and such a thing shouldn't happen but they do on occasion, but the swelling would go down eventually. Still, the sister wouldn't listen to anything I had to say about it.
But what really got me was that the patient had a minor bruise on her arm. From my initial assessment in the morning, I knew the bruise must have formed overnight since I knew it hadn't been there the day before. Now, this woman has Parkinson's so I imagine, at some point in the night, her arm must have bumped her side rail. Of course, the sister blew up at me about it...why didn't I know how it happened, why didn't I report it, why wasn't I doing anything about it, why was I taking such bad care of her sister...and on and on and on! It was a bruise! Little kids get bruises all the time and don't make a big deal about it! Even the patient, who was normally very anxious, was like, "But it's just a bruise!"
We also had another patient whose daughter complained that her mother wasn't washed...by 0900. Keep in mind that this patient is a total care - she needs to be fed breakfast, it takes her a long time to get her pills down, etc. - on top of all the other things we have to do in the morning. Of course, simply explaining to her that we have a number of patients to care for didn't rectify the situation at all...*sigh*

I hope hope you realize that a bruise of unknown origin, is a " state reportable"