All Bad Nurses - Please Stand Up

[bcelzo]

how can you tell if the nurse your dealing with is bad nurse or good nurse?

[erroridiot]

Good Nurse = Competence

Not Good Nurse = Incompetence

[LydiaNN]

This sounds like a set up for a joke. "You might be a bad nurse if..."

You bring your personal or home problems to work and allow them to influence the way you treat your patients.

You don't meet every task you undertake with due diligence, and you don't ask for help when you need it.

You don't listen to what your patient and/or family have to say and consider their input valid. Not that you can fulfill all their wishes, but at least they are given a voice and an explanation of what is being done and why.

You don't treat your patients with respect, even if they don't return the courtesy. And yes, even if they don't deserve it.

I have come across two "bad" nurses in my time. The first was the day I was released from the hospital. She yelled at my husband for not parking where she told him to park, ignoring his explanation that the security guard assured him he would be ticketed if he did so. Then she yelled at both of us when we took a couple tries to successfully get our son belted into his car seat. She snarled "didn't you practice with this?" Yes, actually we did. Funny thing, though, when we practiced, there wasn't an actual baby in the seat. Second one was when my nearly three year old awoke from surgery to implant tympanostomy tubes, and he was frantically crying for longer than the other kids. My son has autism, and at the time had no receptive language, so we also hadn't been able to prepare him for the procedure. Of course he was frantic to awaken in a strange room, brightly lit, with strangers all around. Nurse Ratchitt announced that this "wasn't normal". Sensitive little dickens, wasn't she? I should've filed a complaint, but I was in an emotionally vunerable state myself. I'd hate to think she treated anyone else this way. Funny thing, though. The hospital policy is that the children eat a popsicle to ensure that they can keep it down, before they are discharged from the day surgery unit. I don't know how much you all know about autism, but when a child who has it decides that they aren't going to eat a popsicle, and a rigid nurse insists that they are, the child with autism WILL win out. Because otherwise, he'd still be sitting in the rocking chair to this day, refusing to eat the popsicle. After a couple hours, the nurse went to get her supervisor who talked to us and decided that possibly we were qualified to assess him for any possible after effects of the anesthesia (gee, like maybe barfing all over the place?) and let us go home. You really need to pick your battles sometimes!

[zenman]

"Good nurses" go to heaven; "Bad Nurses" go anywhere they want!! I've been all over the place! :rotfl: Wait, are you talking about the workplace?

[dknunges]

Patients go bad, but one of the best nurses I work with is also one of the least dramatic. She is always calm, even in emergencies, Never unpleasant to anyone, and one of the most efficient people I've ever seen in any field. Her aides say she works them harder than anyone else, but they love her, because she works just as hard, and its all about the patient. She's a mentor and a role model, and a friend if you need one, and anyone on my floor would know exactly who I'm talking about. I can't remember the last time she had a patient code--of course, we don't always work the same shift, but from what I've seen, she doesn't have many emergencies because she anticipates them and intervenes before it gets that bad.

I don't honestly know if I'll ever be half the nurse she is--this last semester has taught me a lot about humility--but at least I do know what to aspire toward.

The nurse you speak of sounds like the very first nurse I worked for after I graduated. After working with her for several months I decided this is the type of nurse I want to be. She was a role model for me and I have always strived to be like her. To this day I think about her often (after 25 years) and ask myself what Harryett would do in this situation!

[dknunges]

A good nurse knows the difference between what a patient wants and what they need in order to get better - a great nurse will give a patient what they need over what they want but the best nurses give the patient what they need to get better and make them believe it is what they always wanted!!!

Just one of the may traits of a truely good nurse

[Judee Smudee, ADN, RN]

Interestingly enough, I have only known a few nurses that I would consider bad. However, I have know a lot of good nurses who were having a bad day. I include myself in that.

[BeachNurse]

Perhaps the key here is the word "dealing" Is this as in Poker? In general most nurses are great poker players because they have mastered the art of the stone face stare, as in "I can't believe you came into my ER with a complaint of sunburn" Never ever play poker with a nurse, the nurse will win everytime.

Question answered..... who is our next contestant?

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[susannyc]

Most of the bad nurse/good nurse stuff has to do with the patient's perception of the situation. I once told a diabetic that eating a pint of Haagen Dazs is a not really a good idea, and suggested other food choices. The patient screamed loudly that I was persecuting him! A visitor thought I was discriminating against his relative when I said that watering the patient's flowers would have to wait a minute as my hands were busy. I was kneeling on his roomie's bed doing CPR and screaming for help at the time. No, he didn't go to the doorway and get me some help, he told me I was lazy, and reported me to the supervisor when the code team arrived. I've also been called a bad nurse when I asked the patient to turn off the TV so I could do an admission assessment or discharge teaching, asked a drunk, abusive visitor to leave the unit and given an incontinent Alzheimer's patient a shower. I've given up on the whole good/bad thing and, after 31 years, chart what I was supposed to do and whether or not the patient permitted me to do it.