Do you ever put your foot down with difficult patients?

[FireStarterRN]

I rarely do, but once I had one of our frequent flyers who is in his 20s and a pathetic alcoholic who comes in with abdominal pain and wants narcotics. He has had pancreatitis several times, but often his amylase is WNL and he still presents with this manipulative clock watching neediness.

So one night he got the unassigned doctor who has the most old-fashioned views about pain control. For the needy types he always orders it IM and definately doesn't buy into the current thinking on the subject. My patient was whining and wheedling. The doctor wouldn't up his pain med.

Finally, I put my foot down and chewed him out. I told him he should be ashamed of himself for drinking again, that he was self-centered and thoughtless for the well-being of his two young children. I told him that the doctor was not going to give him more pain medicine so he might as well stop ringing his bell because I was busy with other patients who hadn't gone on a drinking binge to land themselves in the hospital.

Didn't hear a peep from him all night, and he's always on his best behavior when he sees me.

[Toquay]

The sad thing is whether you work for profit or a community hospital, management wants 100% patient satisfaction. I applaud the hospitals that support their staff and treat them as the professionals they are. It is sad when hospitals do not support staff and take only the patient's (often embellished and misconstrued) complaints and do not even wish to look into the full details. The reason healthcare is becoming so bad is that no one is accountable for themselves anymore, there is always another to blame. The addicts blame the drug companies and doctors, the overweight blame the fast food, if you fall down blame the owner, and it goes on and on. Those are only generalizations and of course don't apply to everyone or every case but in todays lawsuit happy lottery winning world it does apply to quite a few more people than it should. The "customer is always right" idea is more appropriate for fast food not health service.

Toq

[Medic04]

I rarely do, but once I had one of our frequent flyers who is in his 20s and a pathetic alcoholic who comes in with abdominal pain and wants narcotics. He has had pancreatitis several times, but often his amylase is WNL and he still presents with this manipulative clock watching neediness.

So one night he got the unassigned doctor who has the most old-fashioned views about pain control. For the needy types he always orders it IM and definately doesn't buy into the current thinking on the subject. My patient was whining and wheedling. The doctor wouldn't up his pain med.

Finally, I put my foot down and chewed him out. I told him he should be ashamed of himself for drinking again, that he was self-centered and thoughtless for the well-being of his two young children. I told him that the doctor was not going to give him more pain medicine so he might as well stop ringing his bell because I was busy with other patients who hadn't gone on a drinking binge to land themselves in the hospital.

Didn't hear a peep from him all night, and he's always on his best behavior when he sees me.

WOW! That is awsome if you did that, more folks need to hear that. But man if he complains at my place you'll be lucky to have a job on the floors there if not a HUGE conferance in the office of the house sup for Poor customer service.

I am so glas you put your foot down