Fed up with Stupid Parents

Nurses General Nursing

Published

:oornt: AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Guys I'm sorry this is so long, but...OK I left the hospitals for a clinic to be able to spend more time with my kids and come on lets face it because I thought the patients or parents would be easier to deal with. As you all know I am a Pediatric nurse and have come to a point where I am sick and tired of some of these parents/guardians stupidity. Parents now a days seem to be so clueless about the simplest of things to care for their child. I'm thinking of writing a book titled "Call Your Momma for that Advise", where I will list all of the things that you really shouldn't bother your Pediatricians office with. Then you have the idiots that think that you have to take what ever crap they throw at you and continue to see them as if nothing ever happen. Especially those people that have their children on Medicaid. Now I'm not saying that all people that are on Medicaid are off the wall, there was a time that even I had to ask for help from the state for my child's health insurance. But is it me or are the Medicaid patients the worst? We really don't get paid JACK for the visits , but are expected by the parents to drop everything to do as they need or want.

For example when we have a kid that we haven't seen for a year and all of a sudden the mother calls hysterically demanding an appt for a WCC within the next two weeks or there Medicaid gets cut off........... excuse me you sat on your a**, decided that even though the well visits and dental visits are totally free you just didn't want to bring them in. And don't even give me the my car is broken down or I just don't have the money for gas excuse..... FOR A YEAR..... and anyway Medicaid pays for free transportation as well. So DO NOT sit on the phone and curse me out because you don't give a damn about your kids health and vaccines. Sorry too bad won't schedule you and you now get a formal discharge letter from our practice (which includes all the other doctors within our same health system).

What set me off the edge was today I got a call from my super asking me to fax him whatever documentation I had in a patients chart the we discharge earlier this year because the grandmother decided she was gonna be stupid and put in a formal complaint to Medicaid about being discharged without reason. She called our after hours PA and went on a rant rage about how my Doctor didn't know what she was doing and would never return to us again, so then again we just made official and discharged her.:devil:

Am I just evil or should I really try to get back to the good nurse that loved a challenge like an ignorant parent and thow myself into teaching? Don't get me wrong folks I love what I do, but some of the parents that are not willing to follow instructions or question everything that the doctor says really get to me sometimes. I even caught myself telling one dad once, "so you saw the doctor and don't agree with her diagnosis of a "cold", so now your calling to request antibiotics because you diagnosed your child as having an ear/throat infection... really and where did you get your medical doctors degree from... where did you do your Pediatric Internship?" LOL I was lucky that the dad fell so dumb after seeing the patient again and it still being a cold that he didn't complain. I haven't let my mouth run like that again!

Am I the only one in here like this?

Specializes in PACU.

This thread makes me want to continue with the venting...Haha! I don't know if I should. I might get my **S chewed up.

Oh well...

I also hate when parents lie in order to get a same day appointment and tell me that their child has had a fever for so and so days and so and so high.

I also hate when I make so and so an appointment for the same day, they tend to bring the entire family! So and so patient x3!

I also hate when parents bring their children in during our URGENT drop in hour for something that is NOT urgent, ie. dry skin, sweaty feet, etc.

The end for now!:smokin:

Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Why do I care if you have a thermometer at home? Because some parents say "I think he has a fever" but he doesn't. Fever of 104, 105 tend to get much more aggresive workups than a 99.5. I would dose more heavily and even wake them for anti-pyretics if they kept climbing that high, to prevent febrile seizures.

I got after a mom who was threatening a kid with my shots too; did it in another language she thought I wouldn't understand. Both of them learned something new that day! lol

Hugs OP!

Specializes in Critical Care.
I am a nursing student and my boys are currently on medicaid. I did miss their last annual visits because: 1) I see they are growing and healthy 2) their last dr. was fired, so had to find a new one, 3) the dr's I've been sent to previously for illness/injury appointments are a**es, and 4) I feel bad and am embarrased about being on medicaid. I've worked in human services for 15 years so know how parents can be, but many of these parents that have an attitude are used to being looked down upon by others with a superior attitude.

You are trying to improve your situation, there is no reason to be ashamed to be on medicaid. I am quite sure, based on your post, a sense of entitlement is the last attitude you would exhibit. You do need to keep those well visits for your children and it sounds as if you are doing the best you can. Please, don't be ashamed.

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
QUOTE=HappyNurse2005;. . . There are some people who truly don't care, but many do care but have other extenuating circumstances....

I believe the vent is about the "some" --- but OP is being attacked as if she had said, "all".

QUOTE=amymina As for parents that don't make routine visits for their children as well as those on medicaid that were mentioned, I don't believe the problem is with the people who have medicaid specifically.

This is true, but there is a factor present with Medicaid that isn't present with private insurance, and that is you are getting something at no cost through the labor of other people. To me, it just isn't a huge burden for the receivers of a service paid for by the public, you are asked to do just a little something in return. It isn't too much to ask, really. Just a few well-child visits and you're good to go.

Those visits that are so easily forgotten because you are very busy and something broke down and. . .your child feels fine anyway so what is the big deal? The big deal is that those visits overall have been proven to decrease expensive and very uncomfortable situations in children-- like a kid gets an inhaler sooner and avoids running to the ER with a gasping child. You may be a fine parent, but the system can't distinguish how fine a parent everyone else is, so everybody has the same requirement.

If a woman is receiving public assistance with pre-natal care, would it be OK to skip the free check-ups because you are poor and don't have a current bus schedule and the baby seems fine to you? I guess there are people who think it's mean to require someone to demonstrate some responsible activity when the taxpayers are helping them out.

Specializes in ICU, PICU, School Nursing, Case Mgt.
I believe the vent is about the "some" --- but OP is being attacked as if she had said, "all".

This is true, but there is a factor present with Medicaid that isn't present with private insurance, and that is you are getting something at no cost through the labor of other people. To me, it just isn't a huge burden for the receivers of a service paid for by the public, you are asked to do just a little something in return. It isn't too much to ask, really. Just a few well-child visits and you're good to go.

If a woman is receiving public assistance with pre-natal care, would it be OK to skip the free check-ups because you are poor and don't have a current bus schedule and the baby seems fine to you? I guess there are people who think it's mean to require someone to demonstrate some responsible activity when the taxpayers are helping them out.

Well said,

The prenatal post hits home/took care of many babies in NICU that of course graduated to PICU-and took care of them there because mothers did not show for prenatal check ups or were not compliant with orders...went into preterm labor and delivered low birthweight or very premature babies.

Then after the 1 million dollar NICU stay was over, they would go home on their Vents, with their trachs and g tubes and the revolving door would start again.

NOW BEFORE ANYONE GETS BENT OUT OF SHAPE-----I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ALL MEDICAIDE RECIPIENTS...AND YES, I KNOW THAT MOTHERS WITH PRENATAL CARE ALSO DELIVER PREMATURE BABIES....BUT

I am speaking from many years of experience of taking care of these kids and dealing with these parents.

The ones with their nail and hair extensions, talking on their cell phone and carrying designer bags.

They drop by occasionally to see the kid, or more accurately to "show off" for their friends. Just great until a diaper needs to be changed. Poof, they are gone....however, that is preferable to the mother interrupting something important to call you over to the bedside to tell you the baby is wet and "that's your job"...uh, it would be nice if you occasionally touched your baby (I am talking about stable feed and grow kids, not critical ones)

Ok, I am done for the moment. GRRRRRRR.....

Specializes in NICU, School Nursing, & Community Health.

OP, I totally sympathize with everything you said. I currently work newborn nursery and I see it all the time. How many times do I have to tell someone that they have to wake their baby up to feed it? How many times do I have to tell someone not to sleep with their newborn in the bed? (I actually had one of my parents drop her infant on the floor due to this).Working in peds can be extremely frustrating!

And for everyone who came in here to rail the OP about her Medicaid comment, get a life! I worked Community Health for 1 year doing home visits to "at risk" pregnant women. I have never had a more unappreciated job in my life! I will go as far as to say the majority of my clients were rude, non-compliant, and looking for a handout. I would try to refer them to jobs and they would actually decline saying they didn't want to work. They would push for their children to be diagnosed ADHD so they could get another check from the state. The health department will pay for tubals and they would decline that as well. All they wanted to know was could they get free formula, cribs, and diapers. Once or twice I had a client who was really in the program to learn how to care for their child properly but that was rare. This job really changed my views on a lot of things. I am all for helping people who are having a hard time but there needs to be a limit. I was making 35,000 a year with a BSN, driving an old beat up car, and my clients were living better than me. I actually had one say to me when she saw my car, "I thought nurses made more money."

And if anyone is wondering, I was a single mom at one time and I supported my daughter and myself working full time as a waitress and put myself through nursing school. It can be done, it's just a matter of how bad you want it.

Sorry to have gone OT but I too am frustrated. Had another cocaine positive baby last night withdrawing =(

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
. . .NOW BEFORE ANYONE GETS BENT OUT OF SHAPE-----I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ALL MEDICAIDE RECIPIENTS...AND YES, I KNOW THAT MOTHERS WITH PRENATAL CARE ALSO DELIVER PREMATURE BABIES....BUT

I am speaking from many years of experience of taking care of these kids and dealing with these parents.

But people will get bent out of shape, because they choose to take it personally when most of these vents state very clearly up front that they are not talking about every single person who has ever been in a program when they've gone through hard times.

Why is it that the self-righteous responders do this? Could it be that there is an internal pay-off for them to put down nurses who have the audacity to put in words things they see over and over again? I guess they are implying that you were absent from school on Compassion Day, otherwise you would not say such horrible things about people who's disadvantaged status they believe confers lifetime exemption from the expectation of stopping behavior that robs their innocent children of things they will never get back.

It's as if observing something somehow makes you a bigot. If you talk about or write about what you see, it's worse. If you then have an opinion about what you observe, unless you absolve all of it, it's worse still. If it is true that a problem can't be solved unless it is framed honestly, we've got a ways to go. I suppose now I will be the :flamesonb flame target. . . oh well. . . :chair:

Specializes in ICU, PICU, School Nursing, Case Mgt.

But people will get bent out of shape, because they choose to take it personally when most of these vents state very clearly up front that they are not talking about every single person who has ever been in a program when they've gone through hard times.

Yeah, what's up with that? Is it selective hearing? or in this case *selective reading*?

It's as if observing something somehow makes you a bigot. If you talk about or write about what you see, it's worse. If you then have an opinion about what you observe, unless you absolve all of it, it's worse still. If it is true that a problem can't be solved unless it is framed honestly, we've got a ways to go. I suppose now I will be the :flamesonb flame target. . . oh well. . . :chair:[/quote]

We think exactly alike!

I've got your back....let's get flamed together! :yeah:

Also, to the poster regarding education of new mothers----we had a 2 week old that suffocated because her mother had the baby sleep in bed with her...all of the time...mom fell asleep and rolled over...woke hours later to a very unfortunate situation.

It was very sad, but really, I can't ever imagine what would make people think that this is acceptable behavior?

s

Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.

but people will get bent out of shape, because they choose to take it personally when most of these vents state very clearly up front that they are not talking about every single person who has ever been in a program when they've gone through hard times.

why is it that the self-righteous responders do this? could it be that there is an internal pay-off for them to put down nurses who have the audacity to put in words things they see over and over again? i guess they are implying that you were absent from school on compassion day, otherwise you would not say such horrible things about people who's disadvantaged status they believe confers lifetime exemption from the expectation of stopping behavior that robs their innocent children of things they will never get back.

it's as if observing something somehow makes you a bigot. if you talk about or write about what you see, it's worse. if you then have an opinion about what you observe, unless you absolve all of it, it's worse still. if it is true that a problem can't be solved unless it is framed honestly, we've got a ways to go. i suppose now i will be the :flamesonb flame target. . . oh well. . . :chair:

here's the new rule:

all sns/gns/non-nurses who want to "judge" a vent: =====>

place on ignore from now on. they can start a thread of their own on how "mean" and "awful" we grunts in the trenches are.

but as far as "this grunt" goes...i've earned some medals and unless you have a medal (i.e. license, nursing experience) to go along with the judgements

i highly suggest you "zippa the lippa."

Specializes in ICU, PICU, School Nursing, Case Mgt.
[quote=nursel56;440388

here's the new rule:

all sns/gns/non-nurses who want to "judge" a vent: =====>

place on ignore from now on. they can start a thread of their own on how "mean" and "awful" we grunts in the trenches are.

but as far as "this grunt" goes...i've earned some medals and unless you have a medal (i.e. license, nursing experience) to go along with the judgements

i highly suggest you "zippa the lippa."

jo,

bravo, bravo, bravissimo!

this is one of my favorite topics...and i have posted on it extensively...i have the "singed" eyebrows from all of the retorts by the "not dry behind the ears" nurses and the "wanna be's" (they are my personal favorite):rolleyes:

i too have the medals and the battle scars from being a grunt in the trenches and i have earned every one!

loved the "zippa the lippa"...sounds like something to do with hipaa...which is another one of my pet peeves...it's hipaa not hippa!!!!!

can't wait to hear the new set of "mean old nurse" comments :yawn:

s

Specializes in new to NICU.

Why is it that the self-righteous responders do this? Could it be that there is an internal pay-off for them to put down nurses who have the audacity to put in words things they see over and over again? I guess they are implying that you were absent from school on Compassion Day, otherwise you would not say such horrible things about people who's disadvantaged status they believe confers lifetime exemption from the expectation of stopping behavior that robs their innocent children of things they will never get back.

I suppose now I will be the :flamesonb flame target. . . oh well. . . :chair:

A good nurse who has nothing but good intentions, as I assume the OP to be, can make mistakes. Is it my job to identify and point out others' mistakes? No, it isn't, and I know that. But if I was being hurtful and didn't know it then I would want someone to tell me.

Specializes in Pediatrics, Newborn Nursery, Post Partum.

:yelclap: I'm glad that my original post helped to open all these discussions, never thought a simple vent would stir up so much....LMAO! And if anything it helps me to realize that I'm not burned out, I'm only feeling that same feeling that many experienced nurses have felt throughout their entire career.

:twocents: For those nursing students or new nurse that have not even begun to experience a our loads, I hope that you read this thread and learn from it. I have worked with some new nurses fresh out of school who choose this career for the wrong reasons. So recruiter convinced them that there was a lot of money in this field (well it depends on which state and specialty your in). Then when they start working they realize that its not the case and turn right around and run. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WILL GET SCREAMED AT, CURSED AT, SPIT AT, BIT AND KICKED, PUSHED AND DEGRADED AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER IN YOUR CAREER.

:spbox: Understand that our rants/vents come from our "observation" of the human nature within our respective areas. And it is human nature to be judge mental and that no one is above it. Just like you were judgmental of me, so shall other will be of you..... why because we all have opinions and beliefs that we hold strong. Remember what you say, in a few years, if your lucky for it to take that long, you will be saying similar things!

:hug:I love my sisters and brothers in nursing! I hope that we will continue to come to this site and post our vents, concerns and questions regardless of what others may say. If we can't tell each other that are living it, who can we talk to........ I've gotta keep my sanity somehow!

The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest.... ~William Osler:redbeathe

:thankya:You might be a nurse if you firmly believe that "too stupid to live" should be a diagnosis. ~Author Unknown

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