Fired By Patient Family

Nurses General Nursing Nursing Q/A

I had a very difficult weekend at work. Very high acuity patients. One of my patients' family members asked the doctor for me not to take care of the patient anymore. The doctor was really apologetic, agreed totally with me, but we agreed it would be best for me to switch assignments. I KNOW I didn't do anything wrong. I have gone over it with several other staff members and the doctor. I made the mistake of asking for family to come stay with the patient because he was increasingly anxious, impulsive, and erratic.

Have you ever been "fired" by a patient/family member?

Specializes in ER/Ortho.

I have been a nurse for a year, and I have been fired by patients. Once it was because I told the patient she really did need to wear her foot pumps. Another time the patient had complained about every nurse on every shift, and fired them. After my shift she fired me too. I knew going in what had happened, and went out of my way to not go anything to upset her, but it didn't work. Another situation was a pt who was emotionally liable. She was on a ton of psych meds, and was upset when I showed up the shift. I did everything I could to comfort her, and make her happy. She later got upset at one of the techs, and freaked out by the lights from the mosimo, bed alarm etc. She ended up asking I not take care of her anymore because I was "scary". I have no idea what that was about other than the fact that she had bigger issues. My last pt was actually an employee of the hospital, but she wasn't clinical. When I showed up she was really mad because she felt the staff before had not taken care of her, she had been waiting for pain meds, etc etc. I went in and told her my plan of care, gave her the meds she wanted etc. She then had a fit 10 min later because she had not gotten her meds. I explained that I had just given them to her, and then I looked to find she had gotten them all last shift too (remember she was complaining she didn't get them the last shift). I made the mistake of telling her and her mother "Its ok...calm down". She then promptly fired me. Management said, the patient is always right even when they are not, and NEVER tell an patient to calm down even if its in a good way.

I have a lot to learn as a new nurse!!!!!

Specializes in ICU, CVICU.

Unfortunately, yes, this happened to me for the first time a few months ago. I work ICU. This pt's family already had a "reputation." They had spoken with the unit manager a few times already, complaining about a ton of things, but never nursing care. The family was nice enough, but VERY passive aggressive. I tend to get assigned to these pts because I can usually diffuse the situations. During my first shift, the daughter asked to speak to the manager. I was thinking, "oh boy, here we go!" But the complaint was about another department. She said all of the nurses, "especially SHURN, have been wonderful!" Ok good, nothing to worry about. (although I still don't completely trust her) She proceeded to thank me profusely for 2 day, offer to buy me lunch, etc.

So, three shifts later with this pt. The daughter asks me a question and I gave her an honest answer. Not rude, but not what she wanted to hear. They were very much in denial about their father's prognosis. Well, this women went off! Said some really rude things. I asked her why this was coming up now, when I had taken care of her dad 2 times already. She said she "had to try with everything" she "had" to be nice. Well whatever, just makes me think you are even more unstable. If you were that unhappy with me, you would have been vocal about it earlier, just as you had been with everything else. So I told her I thought it would be best if another RN took care of her dad.

So no, not really fired. I would have tried to talk it out, but the things she said were VERY hurtful and inappropriate. The sad thing is, my charge sided with her, because, well she is under a lot of stress. You know what? Everyone in the ICU is. Not everyone (and actually very few) act like that.

I was very upset, but more so that I didn't feel the charge had my back.

I got fired by family once over the color of a popsicle! No joke! I had been taking care of this lady in ICU for weeks and we had a good rapport. Nephew who she had rarely seen in years came from out of town. The MD switched her from NPO to clear liquids sparingly. Red popsicle was sent and patient devoured it and thanked me profusely. Nephew however had a screeching fit because his aunt doesn't like red popsicles only banana flavored ones!! I was banned from the room by the family. Patient cried for days out of embarrassment. All I could do was pass by the room and wave. When families carry on about stupid nitpicky stuff there's usually some deeper issues like guilt involved. The issue here I think was plain and simple stupidity.

Specializes in Burn, CCU, CTICU, Trauma, SICU, MICU.

Personally, I see being fired from patients rooms as a blessing! If you are the type of crazy family that goes around "firing" perfectly good nurses - I probably will have a better night by NOT having to deal with you!

The stubborn part of me hates that they think they "won' though. I secretly want to make it equally clear that if I could have fired them, I would have too! ;)

I was "fired" once in my last clinic rotation, and I'm just a student.

I won't go into details, but I think it boils back to something that happened the first morning. I had to sign off on this, and I wasn't going to sign off on something that I said I did/gave/treated if it didn't really happen. Anyway, he was grouchy in general and just didn't want to be there......

Anytime I went to check on him, he'd roll his eyes and say "Yeah, whatever". The next morning the LPN told me he had requested only she take care of him (she didn't care for him either, I don't think anyone did!). That was my fun day though- they had me floating around and I got to interact with all sorts of patients.

Specializes in ER, ICU.

Once, and it was the best thing to ever happen to me. The patient was 40s male with a clingy, overprotective, OCD wife who insisted in directing or performing all care. That included smearing Crisco (she brought a can of it) on his butt. When I did not "promise" to put him on bipap against his needs I was "fired". He was in our unit for 2 1/2 more months suffering every complication imaginable before finally dying, and yes we were forced to do CPR. The few remaining nurses who got stuck with caring for him were completely drained. It was the failing of management and administration that allowed this to happen, but the fear of lawsuits will paralyze and emasculate any bureaucrat it seems.

I was fired once while working stepdown. Pt made some comments I was not comfortable with and when I didnt agree with him, he asked for another nurse. In fact, he fired two of my other co-workers as well within a 24 hour period.

My response above was the assertion that the doctor, administration, etc had not backed me up. I felt supported, not only by the doctor, who was doing what was in his limited power to protect me, by NOT defending me to the patient and have it later found out that I was his daughter, and therefore I may have had done something that NEEDED defending. The charge nurse definetly backed me up, as she took over care of that patient.

i think that all the previous poster was trying to say, is that while drs, mgrs, those in charge, may defend you to your face...

how they respond to the family, is often a whole other story.

they typically 'suck up' and readily agree with everything the family is complaining about.

it is the rare charge/nm/dr. who vocally and earnestly defends the nurse.

i also agree that it's NOT a good idea to confront the pt/family about their dissatisfaction.

it usually serves to put them in defensive mode, and in pursuit of customer satisfaction, it is ill-advised to further burden them with explanantions for their decisions.

that said, i honestly cannot recall being "fired".

however, there have been a few, who i truly believed hated my ever-stinking guts.

one guy spit on me, tried to hit me, and even throw his colostomy bag at me.

after that, i told him "clearly, you would be happier with another nurse". (hoping and praying he'd agree)

that s.o.b. paused for a moment, and then told me, "no, we're good. it has nothing to do with you."

lovely.:rolleyes:

however, after the flying poop episode, he treated me much better, and even praised me, moments before he died.

leslie

Specializes in NICU.

Don't beat yourself up about it. It's happened to me at least once in my career. Some of our families were so difficult to work with that they "fired" almost every nurse assigned to their child. The Coordinators actually had a list in their office about who the families members would allow to care for their child, and whom they stated that they did not want coming near their child.

You did the right thing by asking family to come in when patient was anxious and disoriented. They should have thanked you and been grateful that you cared enough to place your patient's welfare and emotional needs at the top of your list.

Specializes in Med-Surg Nursing.

I was fired by a patient a few months ago along with another coworker. This patient got upset with me because she claimed I was mean to her. My coworker was mean because he made her keep her leg straight for two hours post cath(angioseal was placed).

Ok...yeah, call me mean because I explained to you why it was necessary to draw your AM labs given the fact that you were having a LOT of ventricular ectopy and were scheduled for a trip to the cath lab that very morning!! I got the best phlebotomist in the building to come draw your labs because after I looked for a suitable vein, you told me where I could and could not try to draw you because you were tired of being poked since our usual night shift phleb had tried and missed twice...I admit she's not the best so I got you the BEST one.....yet you have a ton of tattoos and numerous body piercings besides your earlobes!!! Apparently that wasn't good enough because she decided that I was mean to her. Whatever! I'll GLADLY not take care of you with your psych issues!! Less drama for me!!

I also have been fired by a pt who complained to her Dr that I threw her purse at her so she could look for her own hearing aides because I was lazy and wouldn't do it. She also told the Dr that I refused to get her a drink and refused to give her a bath. I would NEVER refuse to do those things unless you are on a fluid restriction!! And sorry but I couldn't bathe you because my other more critical patient was trying to die!!! Thought that was more important that giving you a bath. We don't have aides in our ICU and my coworker was just as busy as I was...you could barely breath lady! Bathing you was NOT my top prioroty.

FTR, I DID go in the next night and apologize to this last pt, she wanted NOTHING to do with my apology!!! I didn't ask her to explain herself I simply went in to apologize because I honestly could not fathom what I could've possibly done wrong to her that upset her SO much!! She REFUSED to accept the apology so I said well for what it's worth I AM sorry for upsetting you and walked out of the room.

Had to go to a meeting with my boss over this one as the Dr complained to her about me since this was one of his "special" patients ;) I told her that I did apologize and she seemed satisfied with that and impressed that I took initiative to do so. I didn't get written up because I didn't sign any kind of disciplinary slip.

I just shook my head...told the boss it was VERY busy that night and since I'm only ONE nurse for THREE ICU patients, I do the best I can....if someone didn't get a bath...sorry then give me an AIDE that can do that..

And then you have some patients/families where Jesus himself could be their nurse and they'd STILL find something to complain about!!! You just cannot please everyone!

Specializes in Med Surg.

Got "fired" a while back. Had a pt. in the end stages of COPD, his wife was staying with him 24/7. The orders called or the HOB to be kept at no lower than 30 deg and preferred 45. As soon as a nurse would walk out of the room his wife would lower the bed because he "just looks so uncomfortable that way. He always sleeps flat." After trying for the entire night to make her understand that there was a good reason for keeping his head up, I told the doctor about it and I guess he took her to task over it. Anyway, she requested that I not take care of her husband any more because I had "tattled" on her. Oh well.

In anything you do you will always find people you just don't click with. If you let it get to you every time you are going to spend an awful lot of time dwelling on things you can't really control.

Yup... more than once. LOL And its more the family than the pt even! I don't think this should be allowed personally but it is what it is. I am pretty straightforward with my pt and families... tell them like I see it, don't sugarcoat things, etc. I work in ICU where pts lives are hanging on a string all the time so tensions are high. Plus I am in the South but have a Northern accent and think that I get taken the wrong way sometimes. These are usually the families you don't want to have to deal with anyways so its nice to say you can't take care of them. There are always going to be pt/families that you just dont mesh well with and know that it happens to everyone...

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