being fired by patient's family member

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hello,

I have been working in the ER for less than a year, in my ER we have to rotate through pedi/psych. Pedi is not my favorite because I am not that great at it yet. I took care of a sick developmentally delayed child, it was about 7 hours and the parent and I got along fine it seemed and I was in the room very frequently and was keeping a close eye on him, then all of a sudden - she snapped at me and then claimed I had a tone, I apologized right away and said it was purely unintentional and she then claimed that I had a tone throughout the night and had to work on my bedside manner and kept going... I was in shock and absolutely mortified, and then had to muster up the courage to ask another nurse to take care of them. My co-workers were surprised I was fired. I do just fine with difficult patients and do fine in psych. I cannot help but go over and over in my head what I did wrong or what I could have done better. I understand she had a long difficult night but to snap out of the blue!! How do nurses cope with this????

Specializes in Med/Surg/Infection Control/Geriatrics.
hello,

I have been working in the ER for less than a year, in my ER we have to rotate through pedi/psych. Pedi is not my favorite because I am not that great at it yet. I took care of a sick developmentally delayed child, it was about 7 hours and the parent and I got along fine it seemed and I was in the room very frequently and was keeping a close eye on him, then all of a sudden - she snapped at me and then claimed I had a tone, I apologized right away and said it was purely unintentional and she then claimed that I had a tone throughout the night and had to work on my bedside manner and kept going... I was in shock and absolutely mortified, and then had to muster up the courage to ask another nurse to take care of them. My co-workers were surprised I was fired. I do just fine with difficult patients and do fine in psych. I cannot help but go over and over in my head what I did wrong or what I could have done better. I understand she had a long difficult night but to snap out of the blue!! How do nurses cope with this????

I know it's hard to think that someone could be so unpredictable. It leaves you feeling a bit unsettled. But, try not to take it personally. I know that's hard too because of the work we do being "personal."

You feel like you've been hit in the gut.

As nurses, though, we know that there is a reason for every kind of behavior, right?

Am wondering if perhaps this parent to whom you refer, has her own issues. Stress and possibly going without sleep due to a sick child, plus maybe she hadn't eaten...? I don't know. But something else I am sure caused her to lash out at you the way that she did.

Try to let it go. If you know you did your best, keep pressing on.

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Specializes in ICU, trauma.
Do not take it personally. We have had parents "fire" so many of our nurses that the last time it happened, the charge nurse said "we are running out of nurses that haven't been fired by you, you need to deal with the nurse that is assigned".

We had a long term patient on my unit like this. Family was out of control to say the least. Family was to involved and if you told them no, you would be fired. finally, after firing over 10 nurses our manager had to lay down the law and tell them they can't "fire" anyone else

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

I get "fired" about once every couple of weeks. They're often repentant and/or forgot about it by the next shift :)

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Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.

Getting fired by a PIA patient or family is a GIFT. Take it. You'll have enough occasions to get stuck with someone else's PIA after THEY got fired.

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OP: You can't reason with unreasonable people. You can only be professional and not react to the crazy/stressed/insert-preferred-word-of-your-choice-here on your end. You can have the perfect 'tone', demeanor, provide the best nursing care in the world and still get fired. Just let it go.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Most people have a preconceived notion of what "good care" means. Frequently they differ from the preconceived notion of other people's definitions. Without a doubt they often differ from realities of what we are equipped to do for them while they are with us. It seems common that this comes from a desire to have a certain level of solicitousness combined with affection, tiptoe-ing and over the top expressions of compassion and hospitality. When the reality meets up with their fantasies, they must make a psychological adjustment for being wrong or they must assign blame in order to spare their ego. At a time when a little one is sick, particularly if said little one is chronically sick, their "standards" for care can be very narrow and very stringent and they often feel very entitled to the above "hospitable" behavior, though they cannot put their finger on what is bothering them, because demanding that kind of catering isn't reasonable and they know it. Therefore you had an attitude really means, most likely, that you didn't talk baby talk to the child or you didn't check on their needs or fawn quite enough over them or these types of little things that can be nice to do but actually have little to do with the care itself.

In these situations, it is healthiest for you to shrug it off. I am sorry this happened and is still bothering you. They were in a stressful situation and you were an opportunity to release some pressure under the guise of what good care ought to look like.

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Take being fired from a difficult patient/family members as a gift. Don't take it personally because it has happened to me as well. Its not usually you, but if someone was being prejudice... then its their problem. I remember a patient who fired everyone who didn't do what they wanted so it got to a point that the manager said they cannot fire anyone else. I should add that this patient took so much of your time and it didn't matter how long or whoever else you had to take care of. So go figure why I was happy to be not involved with the care of this patient. Don't be so hard on yourself because not everyone will like you. You cannot please everyone and what each person is happy with depends on their needs. Some people are really demanding and yet others really appreciate what you can do. As long as you are doing what you are supposed to do, you will be fine.

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Specializes in Critical care, Trauma.

I had a patient family member that "snapped" about another nurse in our ICU. I was taking care of him but was in another room when she put on the call light so another RN went in to answer. She later told me she didn't want to put on the call light anymore and would rather wait for me to do my rounds because the nurse that answered the light "obviously didn't want to be here". I apologized for whatever happened (she didn't want to go into it) but was really surprise because the nurse in question is unceasingly nice and polite. I asked him about it later and he said that he wasn't upset but that the lady obviously had been angry before he got in there. Something about a misunderstanding with Speech Therapy.

To the lady's credit, her husband was having a lot of behavioral difficulties and was very frustrating for her to see. Later in the day when the husband was doing better, I saw this same lady laughing with that same nurse and commenting about the wonderful care and how all of the nurses are great.

Emotions cloud our judgment and some people can't understand that they're actually projecting their own feelings onto others (in my case, the patient family member was the one that really didn't want to be there). And others might understand but are simply manipulative. Don't let it bother you. Move on and help the next person.

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We have a couple of regulars who love to fire their nurses, I personally take some joy (though I probably shouldn't) when I see their face when I tell them that every nurse in the ED has been fired by them and they have to deal with it.

hahaha :roflmao:

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Sick and angry feelings can go hand and hand. It may not have been you.

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Complaints about things like tone of voice, how you look at them, et cetera are often the most unfounded. They are the most difficult to prove or disprove and parents/patients learn that they are easy complaints to make.

Yes. ^

And these are wise observations by not.done.yet - I find this phenomenon to be very common, and, rather than subpar nursing care, this kind of thing seems to be the basis of a lot of complaints these days:

It seems common that this comes from a desire to have a certain level of solicitousness combined with affection, tiptoe-ing and over the top expressions of compassion and hospitality.

Therefore you had an attitude really means, most likely, that you didn't talk baby talk to the child or you didn't check on their needs or fawn quite enough over them or these types of little things that can be nice to do but actually have little to do with the care itself.

These types of complaints can hurt, too, because they are unfounded and because they represent a refusal to acknowledge work that is being done on their behalf.

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A patient fires their nurse????

Never had it happen, never seen it happen, never heard of it happening till now.

How does this happen? I have had people get angry with me for not doing what they wanted, how they wanted, or whatever, have had a few even ask for another nurse, but I am their nurse. If they don't like it (and I have not done anything illegal, immoral, unethical etc) then they can continue to deal with me or they can leave. Like I said, never had it get to that point though.

Just as I can't refuse to take care of someone because they tick me off (heck, that is 3/4 of the patients some times), they are stuck with me.

Glad Im not the only wondering this.

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