Do you enjoy taking care of people you know?

[ricki76, BSN, MSN, RN]

Ever since I’ve been working ICU, friends / old coworkers (non-ICU) will request for me to be the nurse for their families/friends in ICU because they think they will somehow get “VIP” treatment if I’m their nurse. I work with a highly skilled, awesome team of people and honestly I would let any one of them care for my family member if they were sick. I personally am not comfortable caring for people I know outside of the hospital, especially being in critical care where situations get complicated and we are often the bearers of bad news, with patients and families often reacting in strange and unpredictable ways. What would be your response to an old friend/coworker asking for you to be their friend/family’s nurse?

[WestCoastSunRN, MSN, CNS]

If your unit doesn't already have a hard policy on this, I would discuss with management at least establishing a unit practice of nurses not directly caring for those they know. Sometimes it's inevitable, such as when the patient is a staff member -- well everyone's gonna know him/her. But that is rare.

In answer to your question, no, I don't enjoy it, and also I won't do it (unless there is no alternative).

Like you stated, I work with a fabulous team and I trust any of them to care for me or my family -- so I'd just use that same logic with anyone else who asked.

[Cowboyardee]

Generally, we try to avoid having nurses take care of people they know on our unit. It's not a written-in-stone policy, but we typically follow it. If someone's friend or relative is sick, they won't typically be assigned as their nurse.

Where we've had to make exceptions is usually when a coworker (or their loved one} is sick. I've taken care of a coworker's dying husband, and it was very difficult, even though I got the assignment due to a combination of not knowing that particular coworker well and being seen as someone who would do a good job of with them.

More common would be the situation where a close friend or coworker asks me to look over their medical situation and give an opinion on it. This would be the kind of thing I might do as a friend/family of someone who's very sick, but not in any kind of official capacity. And I would be very careful to ask the patient/next of kin for information or for the patient to authorize me to speak on their behalf and ask for information, rather than looking them up in the computer or anything else that would be construed as a HIPAA violation.