A vent thread for patients- what can we do better?

Nurses Relations

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There have been so many nursing vent threads that patients have come to chat on. I'd be interested in hearing the opinions from the other side of the stretcher. Let's try to be constructive, us nurses can be very sensitive :p

Compliments are welcome too!

I'll start. It drives me nuts when people go into a room to do an assessment or procedure and the curtain isn't pulled. I don't care if they're just stitching a finger, not everyone wants to walk by and see that stuff. Physical exams might not reveal naughty bits, but I don't imagine showing off your naked abdomen is what you signed up for in triage. Closed curtains are just common respect.

Even worse- people that feel they have a right to stick their head behind a closed curtain without warning. You may have seen it all before, but just speak up and ask before coming in. :mad:

This should be a good one !

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Specializes in ICU.
5. not treating your patients differently (better or worse) based on type of insurance they have.

I NEVER know what, if any insurance my patient's have, nor do I care. :nurse:

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

I'm not sure why this thread has raised the shackles of some posters. For those who've responded as nurses and patients, it's clear to me that in the rush-rush/everything at once of nursing, we sometimes forget some of the basics. It's good to be reminded of that, don't you think?

This is all based on personal experience:

If family is sitting at bedside on a relatively stable patient--and the call light has been silent since admission--please try to round every couple of hours. Sometimes family needs a break, too, and their anxiety about leaving their loved one can be ameliorated with a, "Hey, take a break. Your dad/mom/sister/etc. will be okay. I'm watching." :)

For peds, involve the parents in care. They've raised this kid, and now they're afraid of doing everything and anything because it "might hurt him." Don't judge their hands-off approach; they are frightened. Get them involved and give them a job to do. If the pre-schooler needs toileted, show them how to do it safely. If the kid needs to be fed, teach them on doing it slowly with the size of each bite. I was scared to death of doing anything for my kid. Some nurses seemed hostile to my fear; others took the time to reassure me that I wouldn't hurt him if I followed their instructions.

For L&D, no matter how many kids a patient has had, each labor experience is new. Getting rooms ready at arrival is a busy time, but the mother may be frightened for some reason. For my second kid, I was being induced, and I was scared. The nurse was rushing around to prepare my room, and I had no idea what she was doing. I walked into the bathroom and started crying my eyes out. She heard me, asked me what was wrong, and I just told her I was scared. She was a wonderful nurse who, after that, explained everything to me as she was doing it. It decreased my anxiety considerably.

Hope this helps. I know my experiences have helped me. :)

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.
Be your patients advocate-if there roomate has tv and light on-tell them to turn them off after reasonable hour.

This x 10. Working nights, it's one of my priorities. Usually, the patient who wants to sleep won't say anything, but it's obvious by the pained facial expression (with eyes closed) that the sound and lights are a real PITA. My compromise for a particularly insistent patient who wants to remain awake is lights off/TV on, sound down and speaker close to the pillow, and pulling the privacy curtain on the sleeper.

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There have been so many nursing vent threads that patients have come to chat on. I'd be interested in hearing the opinions from the other side of the stretcher. Let's try to be constructive, us nurses can be very sensitive :p

Compliments are welcome too!

I'll start. It drives me nuts when people go into a room to do an assessment or procedure and the curtain isn't pulled. I don't care if they're just stitching a finger, not everyone wants to walk by and see that stuff. Physical exams might not reveal naughty bits, but I don't imagine showing off your naked abdomen is what you signed up for in triage. Closed curtains are just common respect.

Even worse- people that feel they have a right to stick their head behind a closed curtain without warning. You may have seen it all before, but just speak up and ask before coming in. :mad:

Vent 1!

staff that does not wash there hands or put gloves on !!!! I witched a nurse chance my tube once she put on gloves played with the old one picked up the new one then put the neew tube down on a table :confused: go annd walk out of the room touching the knob she come back in and picks up the new one all with the same pair of gloves :uhoh3: the doctor was worse he walked in the room walks over see there no glove and says oh well and reaches over and pulls my old tube out :eek: with out even washing his hands and as I said no gloves eater .

vent 2! doctors that do not look at med algery lists :eek: and call you in stuff that will kill you!!

vent 3 ! med tech replacing nurses they do not know about meds and should not be calling them in (see #3)

vent 4 ! not being able to talk to a person on the phone at the doctors office !!

vent 5! er not being able to give you take home meds not everyone can drive to a 24/7cvs :mad: and the hospital pharmacy is never open at night ?

vent 6

Ok this just happened I was sick as in vomiting my guts out thanks to some meds from hell .so I went to the er for what maybe was the 4th or 5th time this month for same thing :devil: anyway i walk in and i find that all my meeds are not right for what seems to be the 10th time . the nurse walks in and is ovisuesy having a bad day she asks for a urain sample and I have ask her to close the door as I do not want the other people around seeing me pull my tube out :uhoh3:

i am laying there in a coat and 2 blankets so cold i am shaking i call for a 3 rd blanket and am cut off before I can ask for a trash can as I am about to vomit on the floor i then hear the door open and NO JOKE a blanket is tossed at my head :eek: and they are gone I call back for a trash can and the front desk girl brings it to me :) I then ask her to please find the doc because i need more meeds i waited 45 mins to get more zofran :mad:

my BP was stroke high and nothing was done about it and it was never taken again the hole time I was there:confused: this hospital er never does blood sugars unless you ask for it ? I once passes out in the waiting room last year after telling them I was unable to eat or drink and was having low sugars .

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Please tell me who you are and why you are there ? If the housekeeping woman can do it so can every one eles !

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.
Please tell me who you are and why you are there ? If the housekeeping woman can do it so can every one eles !

What are you referring to? Whatever you are referring to--I'll guess, a housekeeper did a task for you that you thought the nurse should do? It's called delegation. If a nurse is being slammed, she/he delegates appropriately. If you got what you needed, that's the important thing, regardless of who is doing it.

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What are you referring to? Whatever you are referring to--I'll guess, a housekeeper did a task for you that you thought the nurse should do? It's called delegation. If a nurse is being slammed, she/he delegates appropriately. If you got what you needed, that's the important thing, regardless of who is doing it.

I am talking about when a nurse ,doctor, any staff member walks into a room they should say ( its - I and here to take your blood ) the housekeeper in this case knocked pocked her head in and said I am housekeeping here for the trash do you need anything before I leave ? I have no vision without my glasses and I go nuts when someone just walks in and have no idea who it is .

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Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.

Medicate the patient even though it might take some time for you to do so. I was being wheeled from PACU to my room. I woke up in severe pain because I had a nephrostomy tube placed. I asked the nurse if I could have anything for pain in recovery. She told me NO! I had told them prior that pain meds made me sick after surgery and I needed anti emetics or I would get sick if moved. So, the brainiacs that that they were, decided to not give me any pain meds. All I had to endure was a trip upstairs in an elevator, down a hall and jostled into my bed all with no pain meds on board.

Only after I pulled myself in bed with the help of my husband and yelled at the nurses for pain relief did I get some some pain medication.:uhoh3:

My roomate (breast reduction) was even ****** off. She couldn't believe how they took their sweet time.:devil:

I was always good about medication right after surgery, but I'm even more aware and it's the first thing I do. The CNA get's vitals, I go get pain meds.

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Medicate the patient even though it might take some time for you to do so. I was being wheeled from PACU to my room. I woke up in severe pain because I had a nephrostomy tube placed. I asked the nurse if I could have anything for pain in recovery. She told me NO! I had told them prior that pain meds made me sick after surgery and I needed anti emetics or I would get sick if moved. So, the brainiacs that that they were, decided to not give me any pain meds. All I had to endure was a trip upstairs in an elevator, down a hall and jostled into my bed all with no pain meds on board.

Only after I pulled myself in bed with the help of my husband and yelled at the nurses for pain relief did I get some some pain medication.:uhoh3:

My roomate (breast reduction) was even ****** off. She couldn't believe how they took their sweet time.:devil:

I was always good about medication right after surgery, but I'm even more aware and it's the first thing I do. The CNA get's vitals, I go get pain meds.

Wow I am sorry they did that to you :mad: I will say that the pacu nurses where grate as soon as I opened my eye the first word word out of the nurses mouth was do you need and pain meds :)

I think that everyone Needs to understand that not everyone yells in pain . The more pain I am in the quiter I get I was in a lot of pain when I was very sick and in pain at the er ( other post) the point I cryed once when on one was there and no one beleaved me i had to begg for meds for nurve pain witch is painfull as hell .

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I posted earlier but I totally forgot to mention this horrid situation, probably because it didn't happen in a hospital:

A couple months ago I had 2 wisdom teeth removed. I wasn't scared at all, I'm fine with dentists and I've been under before. I was at an oral surgeon's office and there was a nurse prepping me for the general anesthesia; she started my IV and set me up on the monitor and stuff. So the doctor comes in and starts the anesthesia and I'm quickly out.... Then I wake up, but they're not done yet. I'm just starting to become conscious... I start moving my eyes - they're the only thing I can move. I'm looking around desperately trying to make eye contact with someone, the nurse, the doctor, trying to somehow communicate HEY I'M AWAKE I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE AWAKE! Eventually I start making some noises. All of a sudden the doctor is like "Can you feel this?" and now I'm making louder sounds "AHHHHH AHHHHH" (I had no idea they gave me a local anesthetic too, while I was under) I can definitely feel something. I start to panic, realizing they are cutting my tooth in half inside my mouth. I'm making more noise and I hear the doctor say, all frustrated "I can't get this done while she's screaming like that". Well I guess at that point they knocked me out again.

I wake up and the nurse is there. I remember the terror of what just happened... I have a full blown panic attack, hyperventilating and crying. The nurse says to me, in an annoyed voice "Stop crying, you're scaring everyone in the office." I ask her what happened, why did I wake up in the middle. She just says "you had a reaction to the anesthesia so we had to stop it." WELL THANKS SO MUCH FOR LETTING ME KNOW THEN. Before I leave the recovery room, the doctor comes in and explains what happened a little better - my O2 was dropping dangerously low and they stop the anesthesia for a while so I would breathe. Now I know it's probably just as much the doctor's fault as the nurse's.... But they were both in the room and the doc was the one trying to use the power tools in my mouth. That nurse could have talked to me, said "Hey we know you're awake, we had to stop the anesthesia for a little while. Don't worry, we gave you a local too and you won't feel anything." It would have been nice if she just kept repeating that until it sunk in for me, so I would calm down. And then to yell at me when I wake up and I'm upset? I was terrified! It could have been easily prevented just by talking to the patient like they're a person, not a sack of meat laying in a chair. Ugh, what a witch.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I have a medical condition that most people have never heard of - so here is my advice:

If your pt has a conditon you've never heard of, don't pretend you know about it. And if you've you've never heard about, but have done a google search, please don't pretend that know "everything' about it. Yes, the 'majority' of pts with this disease may present that this, but some people will be outside that 'majority".

If you really want to learn about it, ask me. Trust me, - not only have I read everything I can find about this condition, but I've lived with it for over 45 years. so yes, I DO know more about it than you do. Deal with it. You would actually learn something

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