God is love...WWJD..patience...get a grip...relax....calm down...take a breather...it's not so bad...sunny smile:).
All these I tell myself because I tell you, on some days you meet aggressive foul-mouthed patients and you KNOW given different circumstances your reaction would not be so mild. But you're their nurse, they are your babies, so you keep a lid on it, plaster a smile on your face and "c"ludge.....coddle them:)
LORD NO! lol I'm and ER nurse in a rather small town so they all think I like them when in reality I want to beat my head against the wall when their name shows up in triage on the grease board lol
Humor me, if you will. By "like", no one is advocating being all buddy-buddy with the patient. But there is certain sense of expectation , that since this person is in the hospital, he/she would watch their foul language and try to get better and leave.
Hope that makes better sense to you.
Thanks for commenting, Katie5, but I'm still confused about how this relates to the thread title, and what exactly your question is... or are you here to vent about rude patients, rather than to get other people's take on things? Nothing wrong with venting if that's the case; I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing. And I'm not talking about being buddy-buddy either; I'm just thinking of "liking" someone as having an generally positive opinion of them.
If the real question is "do you expect all patients to act like civilized people?", then you can expect all you want, but it ain't going to happen.
Now, I work in NICU, and I literally do like all of my patients, since babies aren't developmentally capable of being jerks... but they don't walk through the door either! And I certainly don't like all the parents who walk through the door.
Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.
I don't dislike them. I just don't really think about it. I have some patients that I grow very fond of. I have had very few people that I have actually had hostile feelings toward. I don't like to use the word hate because to hate someone you have to have had some type of emotional attachment to them. There have been some that I felt negative toward because they were mean and nasty. And I know some (visitors mostly) that I would like to throw out from time to time but for the most part I just don't care one way or the other.
Some patients were created to make a nurse miserable...no matter what you do for them, it's never good enough. Those...I can't stand. I am human not an angel, I have a breaking point too!
I don't like them all, but I try to understand why they act the way they do. Usually once I get some understanding it's easier to work with them. What I've learned over the years is that it's OK, and sometimes welcomed, if you just out and say, "I don't get it, can you tell me why you do this? I want to understand where you are coming from." Hey, the patient and I both know we don't click, so if I make an effort to understand their side it is usually appreciated. Then I get it, but if we still don't agree, at least we can come to some compromise.
Dealing with quirky people is one of my favorite parts of the job. I get to see the world in a whole different way, without going through the pain some of my patients have.
That's a good way of looking at it, but when you have other patients needing serious help, having that quirky patient ask you irrelevant questions is bound to make you quirky too.
That's a good way of looking at it, but when you have other patients needing serious help, having that quirky patient ask you irrelevant questions is bound to make you quirky too.
Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.
I surprise myself sometimes when I realize how much I do like some of my patients, even some of the ones who stay on my unit well past the expected 3-5 day length of stay and I start to wonder when/if they'll ever go home (and not come back). They do have their moments, particularly when I'm not the one being called a b****. I think my charge nurse tends to balance out our patient loads so we've got some patients who actually want help and then an a****** or a treatment non-compliant, out of control manic or schizophrenic patient.
ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN
913 Posts
LORD NO! lol I'm and ER nurse in a rather small town so they all think I like them when in reality I want to beat my head against the wall when their name shows up in triage on the grease board lol