Do you form outside relationships with your patients?

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If you are very friendly to a patient, and have a good relationship with them during work hours and they ask you to "hang out" and visit them on their birthday special occassions is it wrong to not want to?

I am a very nice person, and sometimes patients who are disabled and lonely and don't get out much become very attached and want to have a more intimate relationship that goes beyond just taking care of them. It's nice and all, but I like to leave my work at wo rk. I dont want to seem mean or anything, but I just don't have the time and neither do I feel comfortable

Ima Nurse,

wow I can't believe the nerve of your 'friend'. I bet if something went wrong, she would have laid ALL the blame on YOU. What did she want you to find anyway? just being nosey:specs:

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Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.

I have also attended the funerals of some of my patients.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I have found that as a nurse, I tend to associate with less people in general because I feel I have to set limits. Had a friend who happens to be a manager of her own clinic in a different hospital who asked me if I would be able to forge a PPD test/result for her son, who has frequent visits to jail. She wanted to try to get him into a drug program before they sentenced him. You bet your boots I said no. Too many issues with this. First off, the fact that she is a manager in a hospital clinic of her own makes me wonder why she didn't ask the physicians/nurses themselves to help her out. In addition, what if the test came out positive, yet, I had no order from any physician? I mean, I can go on and on.

The point I am trying to say is when a patient encounters you, that is one relationship. Somehow, one can bleed into the other if you are not careful.

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With HIPPA regulations being what they are, and many facilities having policies regarding this, I would not think it a good idea to mix personal life with professional. Though you may mean well, there is always the "look of impropriety". That's what my nursing instructers called it back in the day. It is hard enough to avoid a ethical situation with family and friends, having to defend your position in relation to a patient you met while caring for them could get rather sticky.

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Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.

I have gone to the funeral of one patient.

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Specializes in ER and Home Health.

No. not at all.

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Specializes in Rehab, Infection, LTC.

let me tell you about the most idiotic thing i did this past weekend!

we have this patient...his wife is a retired LPN known to many nurses at my work. she is the most annoying little woman! i know it's because she is lonely but she stays at the desk constantly!

i feel sorry for them. they live on disablitily. their car tore up and they cant afford to get it fixed. her filling fell out saturday causing a lot of pain. i told her about the temp filling you can get at the drug store. since she couldnt get out to get it, i picked it up for her and fixed her tooth sunday.

she showed me this knot that has suddenly come up on her arm. it's painful, doesnt feel like fluid or fat nor an abcess. it's something that needs looked at immediately. well, she cant get to the doctor.

before i knew what was coming out of my mouth...i offered to take this annoying little lady to the doctor!

o m g i need my butt kicked. *** was i thinking??

i immediately wanted to take it back! God just laffed at me and said "you said it...now you gotta do it! bet you wont do THAT anymore, huh?"

ugh! im so pist at myself.

so in answer to your question, having no boundaries, yes, i am going to have a relationship with a family memeber outside of work, lol.

ugh!

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Nope. Tried that once and it bit me in the a**.... so again... nope!

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