Another pet peeve....ER nurses who treat us like idiots

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Last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. She was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. Her hip broke. So we sent her to the ER. The ER nurse called one of my nurses and said "She was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire When I was told this by my nurse, I immediately called that nurse. She denied saying that, but she did say, "Well, people just don't break bones for no reason." OKAY...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. You would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. The woman is 86 years old. In 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. I tried to explain to the ER nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (I looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. One of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....ZOWIE...makes me so angry for the ER nurses to act this way.

Look at what forum this is in. LTC. I myself have seen in before, not much, but since we don't deal with the rest of the hospital staff except maybe or should I say rarely a M/S nurse giving a report on DC.

I can only imaging what ER nurses see coming in from LTCs and I'm sure I would get angry at what I see, too. Just remember we are all PROFESSIONALS. I still get jumpy after 10 yrs in nursing when I send a pt to the ed for treatment I always call report before they leave, give a fully detailed report of current complaint and PMhx. I feel I owe them a detailed report.

Last week I had a nurse get a little snippy with me for send a pt who had "just vommited once and had no fever" "Is that it?" Well she vomitted what looked like blood, had a hugely distended belly and absent bs, hx of illeus. The nurse told me it was probably her cdiff and I'm sure I'll be sending her back.???? ER doc called and told me they were transfusing her for a major GI Bleed. I guess I didn't miss anything?

I guess I'm still gonna "hide out in LTC" and "waste my BSN" and "lose all of my skills" for a while longer :rotfl:

Oh yah.....what Ruby Vee said, too.

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Having worked LTC, M/S and now ED I can tell you that there are excellent nurses in all places just as there are nurses that probably would be happier if they had chosen a different career. The hospital I work in services 3 nursing homes and I can tell you first hand that most of the nurses do an excellent job with their residents. The few that stand out are usually not good. One of the reasons is lack of orientation for new nurses. Several new grads have gone to work for the one in my town and had about 2 weeks orientation. That is not enough training for anybody. For instance, the nurse who refuses to send all the necessary paperwork with the patient and I have to get the MD involved in order to get the papers. According to the nurse they had direct orders from the DON not to send medication records because they are a legal document.:o This woman was following her DON's orders and couldn't understand why we needed them. Needless to say that after waking up a doctor and their admin on call I got the paperwork.

We have requested a meeting with one of the DON's and she is too busy. We want a good working relationship with all facilities who send patients to us so the patient can be taken care of they way we all know every patient deserves and to be able to do this safely

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Specializes in ICU, PICC Nurse, Nursing Supervisor.

I had a lady one time that was walking on her walker and her Left arm all of a sudden spontaneously obtained a greenstick fracture. I seen this happen and we sent her to the ER. She had severe osteoporosis and rehabed at our facility. SHe was eventually discharged and sent home able to do her own ADLS and such. However, 3 months passed and she was re-admitted because of advanced bone CA...that was not diagnosed until after she left our facility the first time. So yes it can happen, the elderly are so suseptiable when it comes to things like this. I hate dealing with the ER as well.. most of the time I hang up the phone just shaking my head.

Last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. She was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. Her hip broke. So we sent her to the ER. The ER nurse called one of my nurses and said "She was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire When I was told this by my nurse, I immediately called that nurse. She denied saying that, but she did say, "Well, people just don't break bones for no reason." OKAY...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. You would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. The woman is 86 years old. In 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. I tried to explain to the ER nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (I looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. One of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....ZOWIE...makes me so angry for the ER nurses to act this way.
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I'm on your side. When people get that old it's not impossible for them to break the hip bone and then fall and not necessarily the other way around, but I don't blame anybody for checking further...Just in case.:)

Last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. She was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. Her hip broke. So we sent her to the ER. The ER nurse called one of my nurses and said "She was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire When I was told this by my nurse, I immediately called that nurse. She denied saying that, but she did say, "Well, people just don't break bones for no reason." OKAY...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. You would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. The woman is 86 years old. In 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. I tried to explain to the ER nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (I looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. One of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....ZOWIE...makes me so angry for the ER nurses to act this way.
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I also have a problem with ER nurses in my area. Actually the local hospital in general gives us a lot of problems. I would love to find out why the nurses in the hospital seem to look down on nurses in long term care. Every time we send a resident to the hospital, and they have a decub., a nurse at the hospital will call State on us. But when the roles are reversed and we have a resident readmitted from the hospital with a new decub. we don't report them.

I sent a resident to ER with edema of the right leg. The extremity was cool to touch, unable to palpate pulses, etc. The ER nurse called me after about an hour to let me know that they were sending the resident back because it was just "dependent edema" and it should resolve in a few hours. I was furious. They didn't even do a doppler/DVT study on him. So the next day I sent my resident to the ER again. The same nurse was working that day, and he was pretty upset with me. He treated me like I was a total idiot. At least they did do a Doppler on the resident.....and gee whiz it turned out he had a clot. The man died two days later.

I totally respect what those ER nurses do....really....but I don't understand why they can't have the same respect for nurses who work in Long Term Care. (I shouldn't have generalized ER nurses. It's just the ones in my area that I have problems with.):uhoh3:

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

OMGosh, so yesterday a patient at a facility I was doing agency for was coming home from the ED (shift before for syncope). A nurse called to give report and one of the sweetest nurses was on the phone with her. All went well from what I can hear (I was at my med cart right next to her!)...but 10 minutes later the ED nurse called the facility saying that sweet nurse was rude! RUDE??? I heard NOTHING rude!!!!!

The poor gal was stunned and so upset! I hugged her and encouraged her that I heard nothing rude. But I could tell she was very hurt!

Not very professional, not very kind, and not right! And it is certainly not limited to ED!

We all come in different shapes, sizes and attitudes...best we all see eachother as a team and help the patient...vs getting tizzy over a phone call! I was so angry..and I don't get angry much..but to see this dedicated, sweet, honest, caring nurse cry...well that gets me every time!

I also work at that hospital... ;)

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Last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. She was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. Her hip broke. So we sent her to the ER. The ER nurse called one of my nurses and said "She was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire When I was told this by my nurse, I immediately called that nurse. She denied saying that, but she did say, "Well, people just don't break bones for no reason." OKAY...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. You would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. The woman is 86 years old. In 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. I tried to explain to the ER nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (I looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. One of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....ZOWIE...makes me so angry for the ER nurses to act this way.

I would not blame all ER nurses. But I do have to say that the general community and many nurses with no geriatric experience believe that work in LTC is easy and that the people that work in LTC are not as much of a nurse as a hospital nurse. My own brother has told me "well your just a nursing home nurse". The community in general needs to be educated on the demands that LTC nurses experience. Nurses with LTC experience have definitely mastered time management (we do 12 hours of work in 8 hours), we have supervisory experience, good sound clinical judgement --trusting our own instinct; the ability to collaborate with doctors, families, and upper management;and to complete the mountains of paper work at the end of the shift. We are truely nurses. :nurse: :nurse: :nurse:

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Specializes in Cath Lab, OR, CPHN/SN, ER.

I can only imaging what ER nurses see coming in from LTCs and I'm sure I would get angry at what I see, too. Just remember we are all PROFESSIONALS. I still get jumpy after 10 yrs in nursing when I send a pt to the ed for treatment I always call report before they leave, give a fully detailed report of current complaint and PMhx. I feel I owe them a detailed report.

.

Very thoughtful of you! I would appreciate it if some of our LTC nurses did that around here (although I'm sure they're just as busy).

We do see some nasty stuff come in, and we have to wonder sometimes, how did it get that far?

Burnout? Stress? I'm sorry the ED nurse was such a whench- I hope she was having a bad day and isn't usually that bad!

I did see my first spontaneous fx the other day- poor lady was rolling over in bed, applied weight to her arm, and fractured her humerus! Young thing, history of CA (they think the CA is what caused the fx).

-Andrea

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:o:uhoh3: some (fill in the blank) make me graetful for the rest ;)

fellow nurses

doctors

patients

people

New to the site and wondering if this is an ancient thread

that never gets read anymore

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Specializes in ICU, PICC Nurse, Nursing Supervisor.

i have had it happen. i had a woman walking with her walker while in pt and get a greenstick fracture...it can happen...

last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. she was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. her hip broke. so we sent her to the er. the er nurse called one of my nurses and said "she was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire when i was told this by my nurse, i immediately called that nurse. she denied saying that, but she did say, "well, people just don't break bones for no reason." okay...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. you would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. the woman is 86 years old. in 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. i tried to explain to the er nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (i looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. one of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....zowie...makes me so angry for the er nurses to act this way.
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Last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. She was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. Her hip broke. So we sent her to the ER. The ER nurse called one of my nurses and said "She was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire When I was told this by my nurse, I immediately called that nurse. She denied saying that, but she did say, "Well, people just don't break bones for no reason." OKAY...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. You would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. The woman is 86 years old. In 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. I tried to explain to the ER nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (I looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. One of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....ZOWIE...makes me so angry for the ER nurses to act this way.

Cape Cod - I especially appreciate your sticking up for your nurse.

Like someone said there are those types in every area. When I worked in ICU we had a girl who loved to treat the nurses from the floor like craap. When they would bring a patient over she would just pour over the chart, looking for the tiniest mistake. She was rude and vindictive to them when they brought people over, and I had to apologize to more than one that she made cry.

I got rieally fed up with her, as did some of the others, and we started coming down on her for it - she finally left.

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Specializes in Long term care, pediatrics, orthopedics,.
Last week, we had a woman with a spontaneous hip fracture. She was doing nothing out of the ordinary...no fall..nothing. Her hip broke. So we sent her to the ER. The ER nurse called one of my nurses and said "She was either dropped or was hit." :angryfire :angryfire When I was told this by my nurse, I immediately called that nurse. She denied saying that, but she did say, "Well, people just don't break bones for no reason." OKAY...we live in an area that's mostly people over the age of 65. You would think the local hospital would have nurses who have a clue about old people. The woman is 86 years old. In 1998 she was diagnosed with osteoporosis and had an xray then which showed an almost 20% loss of height in her spinal column. I tried to explain to the ER nurse that we neither drop nor hit our residents (I looked at her leg before the ambulance came...no mark no bruise) but she just couldn't believe anyone could just break a hip doing nothing. One of the docs called later and said that in his professional opinion, it was a spontaneous fracture caused by significant osteoporosis....ZOWIE...makes me so angry for the ER nurses to act this way.

Were you using a Hoyer Lift on her? We had a resident with osteoporosis. Her femur broke while the staff was using the Hoyer lift. She was that brittle.

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