Pt./Family Comments that Leave You Speechless

Nurses General Nursing

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I seem to be hearing more and more comments from patients and families that just leave me speechless. I can think of no good response except helpless laughter, which I can't indulge in, so I bite my tongue and say nothing at all.

Here's two from last night:

Family observing nurse use barcoder to give insulin (or rather, struggle valiantly to use the barcoder, since it malfunctions about every three minutes): "Aren't you glad that you won't have to worry about making so many medicine errors anymore now that you have a great machine to do your thinking for you?"

And from a patient who wanted the max in IVP pain meds and slept very soundly through one of the prn time windows: " You should have woke me up or at least have it all drawn up and been standing by my bed waiting for me to wake up." What in the world can you say to comments like those? :smackingf

Specializes in L&D, NICU, PICU, School, Home care.

Along the stupid line....

We have family doc who delivers babies in our small rural hospial. After seeing one of our "challenging" frequent flier patients he came out into the nurses station with a very perlexed look on his face. After a few seconds he quoted a medical school classmated "they should make sex more complicated so stupid people can't figure it out and have babies!!!"

This was about 2 years ago and when we get another "challenged" pt one of is will say "shoulda made it harder" and we laugh as hard as we did the first time!!!!

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I had a patient with end stage CHF that came with palliative care and was espected to die. Day 1 (on the night shift) I received hourly calls from the family (that choose to go home to Michigan and leave him in Illinois) for a complete update on his condition and to tell me to 'call them ASAP if death looks imminant as we live 4 hours away'. Day 2, the same. Day 3, the same. On day 4 I was met by the nurse that I was precepting that 'there is blood everywhere and we can't stop it!'. This patient was bleeding out.

I called the family and told them that they should come right away. The response, "Can it wait until the morning, we DO live 4 hours away." And not another phone call was received all the rest of that night! So I waved my majic wand (because we are miracle workers and keep change life or death with the wave of a hand, er wand :wshgrt:) And did make it through the night and actually stayed with us to say goodbye to his 'loving' family.

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Talaxandra said:

I once had a hysteria of family members tumble into the corridor yeling for help because their mother's "pressure's dropping!!!" As you can imagine, half the staff pour into the room... to find the patient, looking perfectly fine, sitting up in bed and not a sphygmo in sight.

Me: What makes you think her blood pressure's low?

ER-watching daughter: I could see it

Me (looking around the room again): How?

Daughter (with exaggerated patience at having to explain basics to the idiot nurse): On the machine

Me: That's an IV pump

LOLOL!! That is too funny!!:chuckle Hah! BP with an IV pump, who knew?! Made my day off!

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This post has me laughing hysterically. Some of my personal favorites:

Family of pt in ICU rings for me and says: "He's lost his blood pressure!!!!" (he was on hourly BP's and the numbers just didn't stay on the monitor for so long.)

Among the the family of a gentleman on a ventilator was a CNA, who "already knew about all this stuff yer doin'". One eve she picked up his CLAMPED NG tube, looked at me with a look like she was one of the Scooby gang cracking the crime, and said, "His oxygen ain't hooked up!" I wanted to grab the NGT and blow into it, but kindly explained the pt is on a ventilator, and it is indeed hooked up.

The code in which the pt was NOT coming back, the doc explained to the family she is no longer responsive, daughters stated, "Oh, she'll respond when she sees us." Said daughter entered the room with the words, "I am your saviour!" No joke, but it gets better! Finally the family gave in, but asked if they could bathe their mother's body, because "she is allergic to hospital soap". And then-- wanted to take the body home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Hilarious!:yeah:

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I had an 85 yr old female pt tell me yesterday that my family dropped me off here at the hospital on Friday because they wanted to go away for the holiday weekend. They told the er she had a sycopal episode with incontinence (she always wears a brief). We did an entire neuro/cardiac work up and she was just being sent home this afternoon, with all tests being negative.:eek:

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Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.
I had an 85 yr old female pt tell me yesterday that my family dropped me off here at the hospital on Friday because they wanted to go away for the holiday weekend. They told the er she had a sycopal episode with incontinence (she always wears a brief). We did an entire neuro/cardiac work up and she was just being sent home this afternoon, with all tests being negative.:eek:

When I worked in a LTC facility, we use to call what you described as "Granny Dumping". We saw it all of the time.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

mom kept asking why her 30-something year old intubated son kept getting aspiration pneumonia. "umm -- do you think it's all the snapple you've been giving him to drink?"

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I had something funny happen today! I had a patient tell me that her catheter bag was full because they gave her that Latex stuff! Too funny.:specs:

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Specializes in ICU.
mom kept asking why her 30-something year old intubated son kept getting aspiration pneumonia. "umm -- do you think it's all the snapple you've been giving him to drink?"

had a family actually bring in a hamburger and fries for an awake/alert orally intubated patient. they said we were starving him to death and he would never get better if we didn't feed him. which is partially true,, i mean,, he was on tpn... so therefore he would not die from us not feeding him.

they sort of had a good idea.. lmao.. but the wrong good idea.

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OK, so this lady was dying and I tried to call her son all day leaving messages that we needed him, it was an emergency. Later that day, she died. He finally called and we told him she had passed on. He then said, "OK, so what was the emergency?":eek:

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now this is just mean but i had to do it. a family who always complains had brought a roach into the hospital and placed it on top of their loved-one's soup. it was completely dry and you know they did it. of course, i was called to the room to see this travesty and they were going to call their lawyer, the news, yadda yadda. i peered into the lunch tray hmmmed and hawwwd. then i stood up, deadpanned a look at them and said, "it is not one of ours." i meant that it would have been mixed into the soup or at least have been wet. their mouths were open, saying "how do you know?" i replied, "it's not big enough." i turned and left the room. no further complaint was heard.

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