I'm a new grad and I've been working in PICU since Janurary. I have a question about charting a family situation, and sorry this post is kind of long!
Yesterday at work, I was taking care of a pt. whose family (mainly Dad, who was a former EMT of several years) has been having a lot of conflict with other staff, including physicians and other RN's. Pt had been intubated for several days, and was finally extubated the day before this all happened. The pt had like 5 siblings and they had all been in the room throughout the hospitatlization, touching him excessively and talking loudly telling him to "wake up!". When I found out sister was in ER during my shift with pink eye and similiar flu-like respiratory symptoms, I told the physician because I knew that they had all been in such close contact and I was worried about pt being reinfected. Dr went in to the room to talk to the Dad and siblings about how they need to wash their hands before they have contact with pt, and Dad exploded, saying that he didn't appreciate how Dr "talks down" to him and wife and treat them like they're stupid. He went on, yelling about how they only reason they're even at this hospital is because they have no other choice. Dr explained to him his other options, he said he wanted to transfer hospitals, so we called social work and had a staff/family meeting, and eventually the conflict was resolved for the time being without a hospital transfer.
I'm still on orientation so later in the day the nurse I was working with glanced quickly at my charting and asked me about why I had charted so much about what happened. I had just charted the facts, what Dad said and what Dr said, that we had a meeting with social work, and conflict was resolved, bascially what all I just typed without placing blame. She was surprised I charted so much and told me she just would've charted something like "Conflict with Dad, family meeting held with social work, conflict resolved" without much detail. When I asked her why, she said it was so that if it went to court, she wouldn't have to testify or anything. We asked another nurse who also agreed to do it the "short way" to avoid a court date. I guess I thought it was important to chart what I charted because it had an effect on the pt's care (his VS elevated every time family was in room overstimulating him, other RNs had been having problems with him on a daily basis being verbally violent and one time physically violent, and had to call security a few times, all of which had been previously charted).
I guess my question is how do I chart a situation like this? Did I chart too much detail? Thanks in advance for the feedback and help!
