Ever have a patient complain about you?

Nurses Relations

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I recently had a patient that asked to speak to the manager about me. She also requested a different nurse to take care of her. Don't want to post the details because of privacy issues. I wish I could. Nothing serious at all, which really bothers me. I always try my hardest to do the best for all my patients, I really feel awful about the situation.

How are patient complaints about staff handled at your facility? I hate worrying about whether or not I'll lose my job over it. My facility always thinks the patient is right.

I've had parents complain to administration on me (school nurse, different dynamics from the hospital). One was simple misunderstanding, another is a parent trying to stir up trouble for an unknown reason . . . all you can do is grit your teeth and keep doing your thing as best you can. I try to think of the 400+ OTHER parents without any complaints and figure I'm still coming out ahead. ;)

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

My patient was playing sports and hurt himself, came in my ambulance SCREAMING. When the doctor came into the room, his cell phone rang and he took the call. I.e. pause the screaming, take a phone call. The doctor was so surprised he left to see another patient. When the patient got off his phone call he asked me what was going on and I said his exam was incomplete because he took a phone call, but I could ask the doctor to come back. The patient became furious and said "My dog is dying and I don't care what happens to me. That was my dog's caregiver. I don't need your judgement about my phone call. I need to speak to your manager because this treatment is ridiculous!". My charge went in to talk to him and came out quickly; she said to me "I guess I couldn't help. He told me I was worthless and to get the %$@ out of his room. We can give him the number for patient relations." All I could think of was that playing sports while the dog was dying was ok, but now we were holding him back from being with his dog by giving him medical treatment for his hysterical pain!

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.
I was administering Dilaudid IV to a pt, diluted in about 10ml of saline, and followed with a flush of saline to push it through. It was a 10ml flush and I only pushed about 6ml of the normal saline through and tossed the other half of the saline flush in the trash can. The pt yelled at me for not giving her the full dose of Dilaudid, and I was trying to explain to her that I gave her the full dose in the first flush and the second flush was just normal saline to push it through the IV. She asked to speak with the charge nurse and when we came back in the room to talk to the patient about her "complaint" she was sleeping hardcore.

4cc left? That's less than a teaspoon.

why not just give the whole thing in the first place?

Everbody's happy.

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Specializes in CDI Supervisor; Formerly NICU.

I was fired from assignments a couple of times for being white,and once or twice for being male.

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I was "fired" once for mispronouncing a pt's name. Name was 9 letters long, 5 syllables, and started with an unusual letter; I mispronounced the last syllable. After that, the pt would sigh, roll their eyes, and demand a different nurse. If I was the only one available, they'd either wait or come back a different day. I had another pt complain about me taking too long because she was told her appt would only be a few minutes and my new pt intake was taking longer than she thought it would. I was explaining the importance of getting an accurate H&P as a new pt and she cut me off, telling me she wasn't going to answer any questions that had nothing to do with her problem. She told me she'd been there almost an hour and needed to leave. I was so tempted to remind her that she had been at our office for 30 minutes, but 20 of those she was on the phone with her insurance company arguing about her copay which she thought she didn't have to pay--despite the clear "$10 OV" printed on her card.

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I was "fired" from a FF who refused his lasix and demanded 3 20oz beverages. I did some teaching re: the need for lasix and his fluid restriction when I said "if you're not going to take the lasix, the extra fluid will make your CHF worse and make it harder to breathe."

He kicked me out and demanded a new nurse. I wasn't too upset about it at all!

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MID 40'S.

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Not a nurse. Start nursing school in a few days. Yea. Anyway. I'm a paramedic and just recently had a family member call in a complaint to the owner of the company himself because I would not allow her to ride in the back of the ambulance. Her husband was very unstable, needed intubation, and pretty much circling the drain. Now I was familiar with the connections these people had with our management so I was sure to remain very professional. She at one point had the VPO on the phone while she sat in the cab of the ambulance front and was screaming at me "ma'am, ma'am, I have so an so on the phone. Here talk to him." My partner tells her "ma'am, my partner can't talk right now. She is trying to intubate your husband." Unbelievable. She then proceeds to tell the VPO of me not allowing her to ride the previous night. Mind you I didn't even work that day. She says "well it was one that looks like you." Seriously? I was ******. Actually felt sorry for the husband because he had to live with her. He was a very, very pleasant man.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

It's been said, but as a nurse, if people never complain about you, I think you're not doing it right. People will always complain if they don't get what they want. And let's face it, if everyone always made the best choices for their health, well, many of us would not have jobs. So you're going to say things people won't like, and they will complain. And honestly, I'm completely fine with that!

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I just ignore the complaint if I think I didn't do anything wrong, but our manager will not ignore it, she will kick you out if you get more complaints than others, but as a visible minority, very easily getting more complaints than our white co-workers, no matter how hard we tried.

the only way for me is to change a job.

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Specializes in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.
Not a nurse. Start nursing school in a few days. Yea. Anyway. I'm a paramedic and just recently had a family member call in a complaint to the owner of the company himself because I would not allow her to ride in the back of the ambulance. Her husband was very unstable, needed intubation, and pretty much circling the drain. Now I was familiar with the connections these people had with our management so I was sure to remain very professional. She at one point had the VPO on the phone while she sat in the cab of the ambulance front and was screaming at me "ma'am, ma'am, I have so an so on the phone. Here talk to him." My partner tells her "ma'am, my partner can't talk right now. She is trying to intubate your husband." Unbelievable. She then proceeds to tell the VPO of me not allowing her to ride the previous night. Mind you I didn't even work that day. She says "well it was one that looks like you." Seriously? I was ******. Actually felt sorry for the husband because he had to live with her. He was a very, very pleasant man.

Death was probably his escape!! :confused:

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Once no matter how nice I was to this lady. She said I wiped her too much. When she clearly had Cdiff. She said I threw pills at her. When I gave her choices on what to take her pills with to make it easier to swallow and placed them in her applesauce. She kept going back and forth about how to take them. Then the final complaint....I SMILE too much. I ended up switching assignments and if I had to walk in her room someone was with me. Call me out for doing something wrong okay..but don't ever lie about me. Oh and don't smile too much. Haha

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