Do you identify yourself as a nurse when you or your family are a patient?

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  1. Do you identify yourself as a nurse when you or your family are a patient?

    • 1977
      Yes
    • 2195
      No
    • 2755
      Sometimes
    • 363
      Never

7,290 members have participated

We've all been in the situation when either we are the patient or our family and/or loved ones are the patient.

Do you identify yourself as a nurse?

Please answer our quick poll, then share your stories or why or why not.

Thanks

Specializes in IMCU.
No and it annoys the hell out of me when people proclaim they are a nurse.....it changes nothing in my mind...if anything I lose more respect for them as I know for the most part they are using it as a tool to get the upper hand in one way or another.

I am so sorry you feel that way. I just don't believe we can read people's minds and ascribe motives to what they say or do. As for losing respect if someone tells you -- wow -- what a disturbing reaction.

How do you "know" they are trying to get the upper hand? Even if they were... which I think unlikely...so what?

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Specializes in ER/Geriatrics.

why don't you express your opinion instead of picking my answer apart....pathetic

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Specializes in Med Surg.

Several months ago the doctor prescribed IM injections of B12 for my wife and the nurse was going to set up home health to come by and give them. When I told her that I could give the shots and save the insurance hassle she gave me the eye roll and said "just what would YOU know about giving shots?"

I said "probably because I learned how my first semester in nursing school and I give them all the time at work". She just said "oh" and found something else to do.

If she had simply asked if I knew how to give shots I would have just told her yes because I'm a nurse. But when someone literally rolls their eyes at me and give me that kind of attitude I will throw it right back at them.

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.
no and it annoys the hell out of me when people proclaim they are a nurse.....it changes nothing in my mind...if anything i lose more respect for them as i know for the most part they are using it as a tool to get the upper hand in one way or another.

well i was just a patient admitted via er and here is my take (although yes i am only a student nurse):

i think it is only fair to my sister & brothers in the profession that they know (ok future profession). even if i had not said, someone in my family would have told them. also, i think is is as important to the good nursing care of any patient that their nurses know more rather than less. it was important to me that they know i was scared to death about seeing my nursing career hit the toilet (amongst other things) -- it caused me huge distress.

did i pay attention more? sure. was is critical or judgmental? no. did i learn stuff? yes. was i looked after appropriately? you bet. was i looked after better? no, and i wouldn't expect to be.

one nurse seemed to be a bit weird with me because i had terrible trouble with iv sites infiltrating (5 in 3 days). i "mentioned" the pain and napalm type burning and she just kept brushing me off for 8 hours -- 2 ivp's and a flush which brought me to tears. she indicated to me that she felt i was "telling" her what to do. to bad. now that may sound lke a complaint but -- i am a big girl -- i could have, at any time, just said "please change the site". instead i hinted, complained and cajoled. what did i learn....? when a patient hints, indicates or otherwise repeats themselves about something worrying them...i want to be the one that listens and acts (i know very advanced nursing). being a nurse is hard but being a patient is harder.

i hope, when i am a real nurse, that patients and family do tell me (if there is a nurse/doc in their midst). i don't even care if they tell me in such a way that makes it sound like they are "watching" me. how i interpret the information is my problem (i.e. if i feel paranoid).

honestly, this was a very eye-opening experience. i love nurses more and more all the time. i felt extremely well looked after and was very touched by the professionalism and dignity with which i was treated.

by the way...doctors have no problem telling you they are a doctor.

i am so sorry you feel that way. i just don't believe we can read people's minds and ascribe motives to what they say or do. as for losing respect if someone tells you -- wow -- what a disturbing reaction.

how do you "know" they are trying to get the upper hand? even if they were... which i think unlikely...so what?

why don't you express your opinion instead of picking my answer apart....pathetic

as my mom used to say when i was about eight or nine, "knock it off, you guys!!"

please don't get a perfectly good thread shut down by the mods..

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

i do identify myself as a nurse always because am really proud to be a nurse and i'll want other nurses to be careful in what ever care they might be delivering to me or my relative knowing that i also have an idea about the procedures.:yeah:Also in Africa where i practice, people tend to pay more attention to you knowing that you are also a medical practitioner.

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

neimara,

welcome to the allnurses family! come often because you are one of our family now. it's fun to make a faraway friend.:)

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

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Specializes in Case Mgmt, Anesthesia, ICU, ER, Dialysis.

It depends on the situation. I try so hard not to be obnoxious....BUT when my mom is taken to the hospital because the holter monitoring center tells her she's having "pauses", yet the ER and tele staff tell me she has a "regular" rhythm, well, I knew something was up. I very sweetly asked the charge nurse to fax me the 12-lead, which caused a caca-storm of massive proportions, when all I was trying to do was determine if I needed to leave work myself (at 11 pm) to make the 2 hour drive.

Was told she was "fine", and "regular heart rhythm" at 4 and 7 am the next day, and she'd probably be released that morning.

The next morning, as I was extubating my second patient of the day, the nurse manager of the OR came in and told me I needed to hand over care to the supervising CRNA, because my mom was having an emergent pacer put in for 3rd degree block - she had just taken the message from my husband and was trying to get me out of there to get on the road.

Needless to say...I played the nurse card loud and proud on that one...how does one go from being "fine" and "regular" to a complete A-V dissociation in the blink of an eye, especially when there were documented sinus arrest >5 sec earlier in the evening??

Once I arrived, ascertained my mom was OK, and had a little chat with the nursing supervisor, the level of care greatly improved.

I'm not for being a b****, but I don't think there's anything wrong with advocating on behalf of your loved ones.

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NurseKitten's reply reminded me of a situation that was similar with my late husband. He had a history of PVCs, PACs, and short runs of VT. He was hospitalized for a different reason and I knew his heart was skipping more than usual. The staff did an ECG and reluctantly told me it was "normal" when I asked how it looked. They had no idea I was a nurse. I informed them that I was surprised because he had never had a normal one in the time I had known him. When they asked what I meant I told them in words of one syllable. I also told them, accurately, that I taught interpretation of strips. The following day I got a call from the MD requesting my help in stablizing my husband.

They had no reason to lie to me. It made me question all the care he received. I would rather be considered the ***ch that is a nurse than swallow dishonesty. If I see a reason to tell, I do. I would rather not, but...

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Specializes in general nursing.

i am a student nurse. it is not good to show what you do for a living when it comes to this matter. at times it can even make confuse a little because he/she will know that what ever he/she will do you know it and if a little mistake make you will complain.

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Whenever I went to the MD while I was working at Duke, my occupation came up with my medical record as my employee ID was attached to it (a message would pop up on the screen for every Duke employee identifying us as employees in an effort to further safeguard our medical information). And we had to go to DUMC MDs/NPs, so I was pretty much outed as soon as I walked in the door. For myself I appreciate it, because the way I was spoken to was more colleague to colleague (a nice change sometimes since I look a lot younger than my age and tend to get talked down to a lot as a result - at least they knew I had a brain in my head...).

When my mother had her knee replaced, they snowed her on oxycodone. She is completely independent - 75 but still with it - drives (safely!!) an hour from her house to my sister's house, takes care of herself - fully independent. She arrived at rehab on OXYGEN and the LPN asked me if she'd had a stroke (!!!!!).

And I kept getting this when I'd ask about the O2 - "Oh, well she must be on O2 at home, her oxygen levels are really low". And I'd keep saying, "they're low because her drive's depressed because she's got too much opiate in her system", and they'd look at me like I'd been on the Internet too much.

Out comes the RN card. I kept my mouth shut for a day. For two days they treated me like some sort of mental ward escapee. It was like I not only didn't know what I was talking about, I didn't know my own mother! I wasn't a jerk, I swear I wasn't - I was professional, I was amazingly restrained - but they treated me like I'd gotten my education from Wikipedia.

I felt pretty bad because I'd not only researched the Medicare/Medicaid complaints against this place (they got busted once for leaving medical records unlocked and accessible - big deal in comparison to the place across the street with the high nosocomial pressure ulcer rate), but I'd also polled the Duke faculty for recommendations. I could only imagine what might have been the case had I NOT done my homework and she'd been somewhere else.

Don't get me wrong - the staff was very nice and the place was very clean and for the most part they took very good care of my mother. But this was the limit.

It took me three days to convince them they needed to approach her pain management a bit differently. My mother has NO narcotics tolerance, can't hack benzos - give her Tylenol and she's good. They wouldn't listen. "But her pain is X" - "yes, and SHE'S ON OXYGEN" - I kept telling them how independent she is and what level of functioning we expected her to go back to - no one was listening. Finally I sat down with her lab work and pulled up her GFR, then I swear I calculated out the half-life of Oxycodone and quite literally did the math for renal clearance based on GFR - and THEN I went into the chief RNs office and was like, look, here's the deal - this is why she's stoned, this is why the Oxycodone has to stop. She's over seventy and it's X amount in her system, and on top of that, she's essentially opioid naive. (My mother does not remember the three days after her surgery - she was on a Dilaudid PCA, she'd stop talking in the middle of sentences, couldn't stay awake long enough to finish a meal - I had to force her to eat b/c I told her, if you don't eat, they'll keep you here.) She doesn't remember getting to rehab. It was scary.

This is the reaction I got: "Oh, I see what you mean, I never thought of that, let's try something else then. Tylenol works for your mom??" OMG!

Now, the whole time at the rehab place I found out my MOTHER has been saying, "I only need Tylenol" and I found out she was being told "Tylenol's not enough" - OMG OMG....IS ANYONE LISTENING TO THE PATIENT??? (I suppose though when it's obvious you're stoned into oblivion, who the heck's gonna listen, right?)

FINALLY, my mother was taken off the Oxycodone, put on Extra Strength Tylenol and NSAIDS (liver function perfect for age, no hx of GI bleeds/other s/sx), finished her PT and was out in nine days, perfect and good as new. No problems since. I think she takes a Tylenol maybe twice a week for her knees now.

Nuts. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, you have to play the RN card. And sometimes you have to go a bit above and beyond...

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Specializes in Quality Management.

I do not ID myself as a nurse and I ask my family to comply with my wishes, although they usually blurt it out at some point.

I am not ashamed of being a nurse, but neither do I want to be emptying my husband's foley bag, making the bed, cleaning, CHARTING (I&O's for Gosh sake!), and all of the other duties the inpatient nursing staff left to me as soon as they discovered my training. That is grossly inappropriate, but not uncommon I am told. And we have staffing ratios so there is no excuse!:eek:

paganoid

student no longer!

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Specializes in hospice, corrections.

My husband usually outs me. My primary care doctor knows, (my husband also sees him) :p I will mention something when my FIL is in the hospital, which is fairly often, just so I can interpret what the doctor's and nurses are trying to tell him and my MIL, she doesn't remember what the doctor tells her when she starts to get stressed about his health. I have never noticed any better care when nurses or doctors know, but sometimes it makes communication easier.

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