Anybody else had frustrating experiences caring for patients or their family members who are nurses?
Don't get me wrong--the majority of the nurse patients/families I've cared for are very understanding and delightful to work with. However, it really grinds my gears when we have families whose nursing experience is vastly different from the specialty that they're admitted to, and yet they consistently second-guess and undermine the staff because they think that they know better.
I would never walk into an OR and try to tell an OR nurse how to do their job (or any other specialty in which I have literally zero background). I don't understand how anyone can think that is remotely appropriate.
I honestly think that these families can be harder to teach and work with than non-medical families; in some cases, they know just enough to think that they know what they're talking about, when in reality they completely misunderstand what's happening. Even more frustrating, some of these patients/families don't want to be taught because they're convinced that they already know everything (or worse, they dig their heels in because they don't want to concede that they were wrong in the first place). In addition, when they're dissatisfied about the care (even if they don't understand the situation), they encourage other relatives to 'advocate' by questioning the care, too (at which point you have somebody with no healthcare background/knowledge insisting that they know better than you); now Uncle Bob the mechanic is standing over your shoulder telling you that he 'doesn't like the way that IV looks.' It devolves into this painfully adversarial, no-win process.
Above all, it drives me nuts when these patients/families have entirely unrealistic expectations about their care. For instance, you can't demand that the doctor/provider call to update you every hour. I could understand that request from a layperson (I mean, we still aren't going to do it), but surely, as a nurse, you realize that that's a wildly unreasonable expectation, right? I've seen nurse patients/families perform certain behaviors where I find myself literally shaking my head and thinking, "You should know better."
I've seen this in family members with all kinds of medical backgrounds (EKG/rad techs, CNAs, doctors, etc.) but I see it so often with nurses. As I said, the vast majority of nurse patients/families I've cared for have been amazing, and their background has been a huge asset. However, I can say with absolute certainty that some of my worst, most exasperating patients/family members have been nurses, too.
It devolves into this painfully adversarial, no-win process.