Difficult families....

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OK, we've had a run on crazy families lately. I am not talking about the normal stressed and anxious parents, I am talking about people who are completely out of touch with reality and seem to have been raised by wolves or something. That's the only logical explanation for their behavior that I can see. Our unit really seems to coddle these people. They will even switch nurse assignments in the middle of a shift if the parents don't like the nurse they have (because said nurse enforced the rules regarding visiting policies, cell phones, etc.). How do other units deal with this type of thing?

Hi, I know this thread is pretty old but I felt I had to post. First of all, thank you to all NICU nurses. You really are helping create miracles everyday. I have 10 month old b/g twins that were born at 26 5/7 weeks. They are doing great now.

Anyway, this thread caught my eye because while my babies were in the NICU I had one nurse put on the conflict list because she was VERY negative about my daughter and how well my daughter was doing and she also was a little lazy. I consider myself very easy-going and it was very difficult for me to have her banned from caring for my daughter. I hate conflict of any sort but whenever she had my daughter I left the hospital with an uneasy feeling. Now with all the stress already put upon parents in this situation I don't think I needed to leave the hospital unsure of the care my children were receiving so that is why I had her banned. After reading the previous posts I hope that I wasn't considered one of those "difficult parents."

Also one of our primary nurses said that the nurses could also put parents on the conflict list and not be assigned those babies. I was curious if this happened everywhere. Anyway, just wanting to leave a parent's perspective and to thank you all for the very important job that you do.:)

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Hi, I know this thread is pretty old but I felt I had to post. First of all, thank you to all NICU nurses. You really are helping create miracles everyday. I have 10 month old b/g twins that were born at 26 5/7 weeks. They are doing great now.

Anyway, this thread caught my eye because while my babies were in the NICU I had one nurse put on the conflict list because she was VERY negative about my daughter and how well my daughter was doing and she also was a little lazy. I consider myself very easy-going and it was very difficult for me to have her banned from caring for my daughter. I hate conflict of any sort but whenever she had my daughter I left the hospital with an uneasy feeling. Now with all the stress already put upon parents in this situation I don't think I needed to leave the hospital unsure of the care my children were receiving so that is why I had her banned. After reading the previous posts I hope that I wasn't considered one of those "difficult parents."

Also one of our primary nurses said that the nurses could also put parents on the conflict list and not be assigned those babies. I was curious if this happened everywhere. Anyway, just wanting to leave a parent's perspective and to thank you all for the very important job that you do.:)

Believe me, I don't consider a family difficult if they have conflict with one nurse. It's when it happens again and again and again. If a parent has problems with several nurses, the common denominator is the parent and that needs to be looked at rather than just appeasing them every time they get upset by changing the assignment.

Our unit doesn't really allow nurses to make a list of parents they won't look after (if they did certain families would never have a nurse to look after their baby), but if there is a significant conflict the nurse can usually avoid being assigned to that family.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

We are the same as Fergus...there are some families that only want XYZ taking care of junior, and that is because they get a way with murder when they are there. I can say in 20 years, that I have only had maybe 2 families that I truly, truly couldn't stomach. For the most part, I do what I have to do with the difficult families, kill them with kindness, but don't let them get away with anything.

There are sometimes that we can't honor a families request not to have a certain nurse....and if they come to us in the middle of a shift we will not change. Too much hassle and then if one family sees it then the rest follow suit. Our manager is good at weeding out which families are difficult and which ones are truly uncomfortable with a certain person.

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