Demanding patient wanting me to page MD about insignificant issue.

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Worked a late shift and had a patient who was admitted by a specialty service. It was about 11pm and patient wanted his eye vitamins NOW. (he usually took them with HS meds, but when inpatient a lot of MD's won't order vitamins, especially weird ones like OcuVite). I try to explain this to the patient, but patient wouldn't take NO for an answer. Basically insinuated that the next time I see him I better have followed up on this issue. This would mean that I would have to page a specialty service (surgeon) at 11pm for an eye vitamin as no in house MD was consulted.

What would you do in this situation?

Specializes in MICU, SICU, CICU.

" Mr Smith said that I had better take care of this by the next time he sees me, so I am calling for an order for his ocuvite and by the way, he also needs to learn some manners. "

Where I work the surgeon will take care of it from there.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

No I wouldn't call. I would also assure the patient a "message" had been left and that I was sure the MD would take care of it as soon as possible.

Yes I tell little white lies to patients at 3 am.

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Specializes in Oncology.

I would tell him that there's no way I was calling for that. He could speak to my supervisor if he had an issue with that. Thankfully, all of my patients are followed by the hospitalists at night, so I could ask the hospitalist about that the next time I had to bother them about something important. Usually, the hospitalist won't order non-essential meds without the primary service being aware, either, though, but for something as benign as this they might.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical Orthopedic.

I would lie and tell him I called and was waiting for a call back. I'd also tell him that the doctor was probably already asleep and that we probably wouldn't hear back until the morning.

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.

I blame pharmacy sometimes. If it is not formulary, we don't have it. Or I usually write a note in their chart and we have a text paging system for residents on call, so I just tell pt that message has been sent to physician.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Postpartum.
0.adamantite said:
What would you do in this situation?

Re-educate patient that that the med is not detrimental to his health and will pass along to day shift when MDs make their rounds. All done with a smile with eyes locked with his. If he still has a problem, I don't hesitate in showing them the board with the charge nurse's name and the number to reach her. I'm done at that point.

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Specializes in Hospice.

Yep, I'm in agreement with the prior posters.

Also I'm wondering though if this was really even about the vitamin in the first place....

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Specializes in ICU.

I had the exact same situation happen - apparently, the patient's regular MD had said something that the patient interpreted as he would go blind if he didn't take his eye vitamins exactly when he was supposed to, every single day. The patient was nearly having a heart attack over losing his vision because his eye vitamins didn't get ordered, and he called his family members in an absolute hysterical panic to have them buy new vitamins and bring them into the hospital. I swear his eyes were rolling around in his head and he was just about foaming at the mouth he was so freaked out, despite my trying to convince him it was just a vitamin and he'd be okay without one dose...

I ended up calling because there was no good way to get out of the situation if I didn't - if I just let him take his vitamins and he told the next nurse I let him do it without an order, I would have been in hot water. Some times, you have to do this stupid stuff to keep your job and stay out of trouble. There's a reason I like sedated, intubated patients the most! They can't get you in trouble over stupid things...

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

Where is the PATIENT's accountability? I 'd be damed if I would utilize OTC meds,vitamins and crap from the hospital pharmacy.I would bring my own stuff with me and make sure I discussed it during the admission process to determine if it was ok to take it or not.If I miss my OTC allergy med I start sneezing and itching and the nose runs....not fun

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Specializes in Oncology.

We don't allow patients to take OTC meds without them explicitly ordered. If they're ordered, they come from pharmacy. If pharmacy doesn't have them, they can bring it in from home and pharmacy verifies it.

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
blondy2061h said:
We don't allow patients to take OTC meds without them explicitly ordered. If they're ordered, they come from pharmacy. If pharmacy doesn't have them, they can bring it in from home and pharmacy verifies it.

Yep-that's why I said I would be sure to discuss to during my own admission process ..It's always a good idea to bring your meds with you in order to provide an accurate history.

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vampiregirl said:
Yep, I'm in agreement with the prior posters.

Also I'm wondering though if this was really even about the vitamin in the first place....

I would imagine this was just a symptom of something else as well.

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