My aunt, who had a stroke about 3 years ago was recently admitted to the hospital twice because she fell twice. The stroke has left her limited use of her right side and her eyesight is all but gone. While in the hospital the last time, the decision was made that my aunt should stay in a nursing home temporarily. My aunt has family to visit her and do things for her, but there is no one who lives with her.
When my aunt was told that she was going to the nursing home by her doctor, my aunt leaned toward the doctor (she probably couldn't even see her), shook her finger at the woman, and yelled "I'm not going to the nursing home, and you can't make me." She probably said some more stuff, but she never cursed and she certainly didn't put her hands on anyone. (By the way, it was my mom who told me about this story, I live 200 miles away from my family).
My mother, who is my aunt's younger sister, was able to convince my aunt that this would be in her best interest and that she should go. Going to a nursing home temporarily would be must better than continuing to fall around her home. When my mom went to go get the doctor, she refused to talk to my aunt. The doctor was so upset that my aunt had raised her voice and shook her finger that she refused to talk to her anymore. Well, I have read many of you all's stories on this site, and you all have dealt with A LOT more than that, and still did your job. I am not saying that my aunt was right for shaking her finger and raising her voice, but I can understand why she was upset. I think the doctor should have understood too. My aunt is:
1) Being told that she can't live in the home that she has lived in for the last 60 years or more. She went to the hospital and is told she can't go home (even if it is temporary).
2) She is losing even more of her independence than what she already lost.
3) If she goes to a nursing home she is losing more of her privacy.
4) With losing numbers 2 and 3 you also lose at least part of your dignity.
5) Nursing homes are under more laws to be good nursing homes, but nobody still really wants to be there. Things still happen in nursing homes.
6) She has spent the last 50 years being a grown woman and now she has people telling her what she can and cannot do and she can't do anything about it.
I know the nursing home is certainly for her own good, but I understand why she was upset. I just think the doctor was a little thin-skinned. What do you think? Was the doctor right for being so upset that she didn't want to talk to my aunt? Are the doctors you all work with like that?
Thank you for reading and responding. I know this was long.
1) I never saw a sign that said people who weren't nurses were not to join this site. If there was one I missed it. I would have certainly respected such a sign.
2) There are some post I would like to comment on but don't because I respect that I am not a nurse. I have never started a thread ranting about the bad nurses I've had, and yes I have had more than one. My very first post on this site was about how I was HELPED by a student nurse in the hospital having my 4th child.
3) I only started reading this site because I am considering going to school for nursing. I am on the fence and wanted to read about nursing from real nurses.
4) I was asking if the doctor was right for doing what she did. If someone points out how her behavior was right, then I could accept it. I wasn't asking for medical advice. I have an opinion, but I wasn't making a complaint.
I guess I will be kicked off and the thread closed now. Oh well...
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Well, the site's homepage says "allnurses: A nursing community for nurses" or something like that. And I did read your thread about the student nurses. While it was complimentary of the student nurse, there was a lot of complaining about the staff nurse and the physician. Think of it this way: I have seen a lot of buildings I think are ugly, but I wouldn't join a message board for architects and go posting about what I like/don't like. I don't know the first thing about being an architect.
Respectfully, I disagree that you weren't complaining about the doctor.
There's no need to be melodramatic. I was merely stating my opinion about your post. By now you should know that we all tend to voice our opinions here, and that disagreeing is not necessarily a bad thing.
We can respectfully disagree on somethings. I can understand the doctor may of been having a day where she just had it. I still think she was a little thin-skinned. Just wanted to hear from people who work in this environment daily.
I didn't join the board to complain and I am sorry if it has seemed that way.
Specializes in Mental Health, Medical Research, Periop.
Well, the site's homepage says "allnurses: A nursing community for nurses" or something like that. And I did read your thread about the student nurses. While it was complimentary of the student nurse, there was a lot of complaining about the staff nurse and the physician. Think of it this way: I have seen a lot of buildings I think are ugly, but I wouldn't join a message board for architects and go posting about what I like/don't like. I don't know the first thing about being an architect.
Respectfully, I disagree that you weren't complaining about the doctor.
There's no need to be melodramatic. I was merely stating my opinion about your post. By now you should know that we all tend to voice our opinions here, and that disagreeing is not necessarily a bad thing.
I must admit this post by OCNRN63 did lead me to check other posts youve commented on and threads youve posted. ok, whats the question again? Im seriously off track now.
I guess I have a bit of a different perspective on this that most nurses....
All I will say this this: if the doctor refused to come back in and talk to you aunt, she was wrong. As for the original interaction, the best physicians are the ones that can tell pt's that they need to go to a nursing home or that they must lost weight or they must do a better job of monitoring their blood sugar...etc, etc. My point--even if she didn't handle it in the best manner, she was doing her job by being honest with the pt that she needed to go to a nsg home...
I must admit this post by OCNRN63 did lead me to check other posts youve commented on and threads youve posted. ok, whats the question again? Im seriously off track now.
And somehow I knew this post would end up off track
I just wanted to know if the doctor was right for not wanting to speak to my aunt after my aunt shook her finger in the doctor's face and raised her voice at her. At this point my aunt was agreeing to go to the nursing home. I understand the doctor being upset, I just wanted to know was it normal for a doctor to get that upset? I just thought the doctor was a little thin-skinned, but since I don't work in healthcare I thought I would ask people who KNOW.
I did not mean for this to be a rant against the doctor. If it was I would have just complained about the doctor and would not have provided as much background info.
i guess we'd have to know what was going on with the doctor behind the scenes. (for example, maybe her own parents were ailing, and the conversation with your aunt just stirred up some really bad emotions). in any case, it seems the nursing home issue is a conversation for your family to have amongst themselves. the doctor was just the messenger.
Doctors are people, too. Your aunt may have been one of many people to chew out that doc that day, and maybe she'd just had it at that moment.
Not meaning to start a flame war here, but I am not sure I understand why someone who is not a nurse is posting here asking questions about medical situations. I thought this was a forum for nurses/nursing students, not health care consumers to air complaints about their/their family member's medical treatment.
Not giving medical advice, but as long term care is now, from my short perspective, I wouldn't want that either. I would want my family to look into home health first. Of course we don't know everything about this, and as you will learn in nursing school, Maslow's hierarchy spelling? Of needs shows that safety is more important than staying in one's home.
I wish you the best of luck with your aunt and your possible nursing career.
I can't comment on the MD's behavior, too many possibilities. Good luck.
Obviously it's difficult to pass judgement on a situation you haven't seen first hand.
But if you are going into long-term care, away from your family, with a great loss of independence, to a place some might view as a "last stop" (I'm sure this is what nursing homes mean to a lot of old people), it's going to be very upsetting. And the doctor should have understood that.
There are two sides to every story. And often the truth lies somewhere in between. But refusing to talk to your mother was unprofessional of her, IMO.
Maybe the doc didn't feel like there was anything more to discuss. Pt yelled and shook finger and said mean things to doc after doc gave professional opinion of what needed to happen. Later (what, that day?), family member approaches doc and says pt has changed her mind about the nursing home. Great. What more needed to be discussed? Frankly, if the doc had other, more important things to attend to (seeing pts sicker than your aunt, getting pts who needed to be discharged out, that sort of thing), why would she come in to see your aunt again? So that your aunt can get mad at her again? What exactly were they going to talk about, that the doc was right and your aunt was wrong? What exactly did you expect the doc to do?
Was this your aunt's assigned doc, or someone who was covering? If it wasn't her regular, assigned doc, I can understand the doc thinking, I said all I needed to say, the pt can agree with me or not, and I don't need to go back in there for anything, much less to be treated disrespectfully again. Let her regular doc deal with that.
Third hand stories are just that; third hand stories. Who knows what all the details were. Maybe your aunt has a history of being a disagreeable, verbally abusive patient, so the doc felt there was no reason to go back. Maybe your aunt frequently changes her mind and her story, so the doc felt that going back in there might just agitate her again and give your aunt the opportunity to get worked up and change her mind about going to the nursing home. Maybe the doc had already initiated a social work consult regarding helping your aunt evaluate her options, and felt there was nothing more for her personally to do in the situation. Maybe the doc honestly had better things to do than repeat her recommendations to an angry patient. Maybe your mom doesn't know the entire story, and doesn't realize the true nature and scope of your aunt's interactions with her caregivers.
I've heard before from families that I didn't evaluate the patient all night (uh, really, because I was in there giving meds every two hours). That I told a patient he couldn't get up to go to the bathroom and had to "p&ss in the bed" (no, I told him he was too unsteady to get up independently and needed to use the call light to ask for help with walking to the bathroom). That I refused to let a patient eat, because she was too fat (your mom is NPO for a scope, for crying out loud). I've been told by family members that their mother couldn't possibly be as violent and awful as I said she was (really, because everyone else on this floor heard your mother use terms that would make a sailor blush when she attempted to use all her power to pull out her lines and foley. I have the bruises and scratches on my arms and back to prove how awful your mother is, and I don't feel the need to go in there any more than is necessary to provide her with good care).
So I'm skeptical that your third hand story is cannon. Was your mother there at the interactions between the doc and your aunt? If not, how do you know exactly how the aunt spoke to the doc and whether she made any threatening gestures? Was she there 24 hours a day, to see what sort of history your aunt has with the staff? And what purpose did your family think another visit from the doc served? If the plans were in place and wheels in motion, what point is there to having the doc come in again?
Finally, maybe your aunt will learn to treat people with respect. Sorry, but if she's in her right mind (and I have no idea if she is or not, based on your info), whether she's upset or not doesn't give her the *right* to yell, call people names, and put a finger in someone's face. If she were in her right mind, and I didn't *have* to see her for any treatment issues, I'd probably refuse to see her again, too. My time's too valuable to be taken up with unproductive interactions with rude people.
Not meaning to start a flame war here, but I am not sure I understand why someone who is not a nurse is posting here asking questions about medical situations. I thought this was a forum for nurses/nursing students, not health care consumers to air complaints about their/their family member's medical treatment.
AN has always had an open door policy where visitors are concerned. That includes people who do not work in health care.
Hearing how our actions appear to patients and their families can be helpful and illuminating. It's easy to forget how foreign our medical language and practices can seem to someone who is unfamiliar with our territory.
No, we can't give medical advice, but we can sometimes help with communication gaps and offer reassurance and encouragement on an emotional level.
Any time you see a post or thread that you think is improper, please, use the report triangle in the lower left corner. But keep in mind that the founder of this site wants it to be available to everyone.
ok, whats the question again? Im seriously off track now.
caregiver1977
494 Posts
1) I never saw a sign that said people who weren't nurses were not to join this site. If there was one I missed it. I would have certainly respected such a sign.
2) There are some post I would like to comment on but don't because I respect that I am not a nurse. I have never started a thread ranting about the bad nurses I've had, and yes I have had more than one. My very first post on this site was about how I was HELPED by a student nurse in the hospital having my 4th child.
3) I only started reading this site because I am considering going to school for nursing. I am on the fence and wanted to read about nursing from real nurses.
4) I was asking if the doctor was right for doing what she did. If someone points out how her behavior was right, then I could accept it. I wasn't asking for medical advice. I have an opinion, but I wasn't making a complaint.
I guess I will be kicked off and the thread closed now. Oh well...