The public just doesn't get it.

Nurses General Nursing

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The public just doesn't get it. The confidentiality thing. Yesterday at work, I got a phone call. I answer the phone "Med/Surg, this is ....," Caller "Is John Doe there?" I could tell right away that this was NOT a family member. I reply, "may I ask who is calling?" "A neighbor." "Sorry, I can't release any information." "His wife ask me to take care of their dogs and I need to see how he is doing." "Sorry, I can't release any info. You should try to contact the family." "I just need to know, is he there." :( "I can't release any info." "Can I talk to your charge nurse." "She is assisting with a procedure (which she really was) and can't come to the phone. But she will tell you that we can't release any information." Then I hear a click. :D

Funny thing was, this lady had called our ICU right before she called me. She told the ICU nurse that she thought the pt was right outside of the ICU because the ICU was full and couldn't take him. :rolleyes: The ICU nurse told her that she didn't know who was out on our floor. (We work at a small facility) The lady tried the same nonsense with the ICU nurse. Some people just never give up.

Gee, I hate the telephone sometimes. :(

For me, I had a call where the caller said, I'm Dr. so and so and I would like to know how Mrs. such and so is and could you tell me her lab and xray results, please.

I said that Mrs. Such and so was comfortable but I could not release any lab or xray results as he was not a physician on the case nor was he a physician with privliges at our facility but that I would be very happy to transfer his call into the patient's room so he could talk directly with her.

"But I'm Dr so and so!"

I replied, "You may be a Dr. but you are not on our staff nor on the patient's case therefore I can not release any infomation due to patient confidentiality." :rolleyes:

I then just transfered the call into the room while he was spitting and sputtering....

Later, I informed the family about the call and they told me, "Oh, he's a dentist."

DUH!!!!

It's one of my big pet peeves as so many professions do have the title of Dr. Unfortunately, not all are MD's or DO's.

My brother, the family's PhD... also announces himself as Dr.... yes, it's allowed but I know him well enough to know that he does introduce himself in that manner in the hope that the other person would think he was an MD which is what most people assume when they hear the title. We've had many a heated argument about that. :( He sees nothing wrong with it as his PhD is in Cardio Pulmonary Physiology... but..... he's not worked in the field in over 13 years due to burnout. He sells insurance now. At least I can tell him exactly what I think of his trying to pass himself off as an MD to get information he has no right to. :devil:

Kat

Confidentially is something that we must uphold for the dignity of the resident. I've worked in geriatrics for many years and when we send someone to the hospital to be evaluated, we call the family. We cannot tell them a lot of detail, but we tell them where we've sent them, and, say if they fell, we tell them that, but beyond that, we ask them to please speak with the res's doctor. We give them the number if necessary. :)

I hate when people call for info and claim they are family. Or after we've explained the family spokesperson deal and they say "I know, that makes sense, but how's he doing?" or "I know, but I'm on the other side of the family and they don't talk to us" or (my favorite) "They didn't call me back." Well, do ya think they maybe don't WANT to talk to you??

Of course, the funniest thing is the buddies of the drunks who come in in the middle of the night. They call, still drunk themselves, and say "How's John Doe doing?" Can only talk to family. They call RIGHT back and say "I'm John's brother, how's he doing?" LOLOL Like we won't recognize the slurred speech and the party in the background?

The only thing that has worked for me is to say to callers and visitors "When you call, I have to wash my hands, leave him, come to the phone, then return to taking care of him. I know you love him, but every call takes time away from the patients. His condition is unchanged from yesterday, please call the spokesperson for details." Or when it's not a family member calling, I say "I wouldn't tell anyone about you, either" with a laugh- it seems to work most of the time.

just thought i'd drop this one in pt bought in by spouse in his car made it to the doors of ER and arrested did it again a few times in my care within the next hour in CCU husband left phoned family members got a phone call this guy said he was phoning long distance (it was actually only about 50 miles down the road) asked him who he was he said he was this womans "sort of stepdad" as he was living with her mother and how was she, as the mother was distraught and hysterical told him i couldn't give him the info he wanted over the phone and to phone the husband he got stroppy said the mother was hysterical i asked to speak to her he told me i couldn't as she was deaf and blind! at this point i was near hysteia myself how had he told a deaf and blind woman her daughter was ill managed to contain the surfacing laughter and told him to phone the husband or else come and see for himself not a happy man but a very hysterical nurse after he had put the phone down 1. he'd said long distance thinking i'd tell him everything

2. the deaf and blind bit finished me

he said stuff confidentiality as he was to far away to get there and she could be dead by the time they did get there what difference i could make make on that by giving him the info he wanted escaped me you'd have thoought he would have grasped the situaion that i wasn't telling him anything i say go for it respect pt confedentiality found out after the patient hated him anyway and didn't even visit her mum because of him

sooo..was she really deaf&blind?lol..just curious...:rolleyes: :p

Bottom line is that by following confidentiality rules no one will get their a** in a sling, and any administrator worth his/her salt will back you up.

In a small town the problem is that everybody knows everybody. Mnay times it is family themselves that breach confidentiality. A visitor may see a family member in the hall & say "Well who do you have here? or- "What's the matter with them?". We also had a priest (not picking on any religion so don't bash me) that was known for walking right into the nurses station to look for anybody he knew. Staff took to calling him Dr. ***** because there was nothing he didn't know. Was not too good about blabbing either.

One of my co-workers said the other day she was gonna put out a sign outside the ER door that said WE DON'T DO STUPID.

So how in the world do we train morons??

Specializes in correctional, psych, ICU, CCU, ER.

Another splendid readon why I left hospital nursing. Now, when I have an inmate in jail, everybody in town knows they're in jail, because it's in the newspaper and TV.

Now, I get to watch as the guards separate "friends" in the visitors room who are the "1st baby's mama", fighting with the "2nd baby's mama" and so on and so on and so on. And LMAO.

Like when I worked in the unit and had patients say to me" oh don't let my wife see my girlfriend" or such. DROVE ME NUTS!!!!

Confidentiality...some days thos you have to bite your tongue to honor it.

I had a patient yesterday whose adult daughter was irate, stating that the person in bed B told her that NO nurse had been in the room in a "long time" and that we were obviously not taking good care of the mother. I SOOOOoo wanted to tell the daughter the truth: that Bed B patient was bi-polar and you can't really believe her statements. I DID explain what care we had provided all day. Daughter continued to insist about Bed B Pt's statement, as if she believed her more than me. :confused:

Originally posted by andrewsgranny

Well, I dont work in a hospital setting anymore, but people are just as nosey in a clinic. And can be very rude. If a pt. is being taken back into a room and happens to see a computer they will stretch their neck to look and see whats on it:eek: And if they happen to see somone they know they will say

"Oh so you all see Mr. Doe too?":(

And our exams rooms are small so we have to limit one family member per pt. And have a sign posted to such in the waiting room. So when I get g-maw back everyone in the waiting room gets up to come too. Now I understand their concern that g-maw wont remember what the Dr. said but hopefully it wont take all of them to remember it. So I'll say I'm sorry our exam rooms just are not big enough for everyone. They respond... "well thats ok, when the Dr. comes in we will leave" NOT. Then a few will sit down and I still have 3 or 4 plus the pt. :( I say I'm sorry I only have enough room in here for one other person and then the pt. responds.."well I want them in here" What do I do? Then the Dr. says to me "we are gonna have to be more forward in preventing this many family members back" I'm sorry did I hear him tell any of them to leave? NOPE! The only way I can be more forward as he calls it is to be RUDE. Then I will hear it from the Dr. How the pt.'s family and the pt. complained I was rude to them.

No Win situation.....:o :o

Sounds like the person you need to be more forward with is the Doc. He needs to be told that HE needs to speak to them himself. He is useing you as a scape goat. Because he knows that if he tells them they might be mad at him heaven forbid.:(

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Don't you just LOVE dealing with families :-( I swear, this job wouldn't be half as stressful if we didn't have to put up with people who place their mother or father in our care and then do their level best to interfere with the way that care is delivered. I'm a care manager in a skilled nursing facility, and I've seen family members literally rip their loved one's chart out of a nurse's hand and demand that she copy the entire medical record for them. Of course, these are always the same folks who go on and on about how well they cared for Mom or Dad at home, dictate which medications they want him/her to take or not take, what s/he is allowed to eat or not eat, etc. (If our care is so inadequate, why don't they take the resident back home??!!) They are also the first ones to threaten us with their cousin/uncle/friend who is an attorney if we don't do exactly what they want, when they want it. And on top of it all, they think nothing of barging in when we're doing personal care for their relative's roommate and sticking their head through the curtain to demand attention RIGHT NOW. Sheesh!

We have a doozy of a family right now on our floor. Basically expect a private duty nurse 24/7. Won't go into the specifics, but man is this family a trip. One shift with them and you want a whole new assignment the next day, even if it means you having 8 pts and getting two admits. :eek:

My personal favorites are the patients and families who always complain about the care at our hospital. Comments like "well they don't it this way at Big City General, or maybe we ought to have gone to Uptown Downtown Hospital-at least they know what they are doing." And these are same patients who keep coming back to our facility for treatment. I don't get it. If I am unhappy with a certain business I don't go back. Pretty simple. I do not like the fast food chain Hardees. Can't stand their food. So, therefore I do not go to Hardees'. If you are not happy with the hospital, go somewhere else. I also appreciate the patients or families who gripe about their doctors not doing this or that but they won't speak to the doctor about it. :( Instead, they complain to the nursing staff about something that we have no control over. :eek: Aggggghhhhhh!!!

Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency, Infusion.

I hate it when visitors just barge into a room when the curtain is drawn or door is shut without even knocking!

When I worked in ICU, we were helping a patient with her bath with the sliding doors shut and the curtains pulled. All of a sudden the door opens and the curtains are yanked back -- there stood a group of five women. We immediately covered the patient at the same time yelling "Please step back outside!" The leader of the group had the gall to look offended, and yelled back "That is our sister and we are here to see her!" Come to find out, they were her church 'sisters', and to make matters worse, they were actually there to see the woman who had been transferred from that room earlier that morning! And to add to the problem, the poor woman they barged in on was another member of that same church who had a colostomy and later confided to me that she was mortified that they might have seen it because they were the 'biggest gossips in the church'.

Another time I let a 'brother' visit with an 18-yr old patient who was intubated and sedated. Later the patient's mother yelled at me for letting the man visit. When I told her he had told me he was his brother, she explained that he was a member of a religious cult that they were trying to get their son to quit. Oops.

Our unit now has a keypad with a code to get the ICU doors to open. There is a phone outside the doors, the visitor picks up the phone, it automatically rings the nurses station, we answer it, check with the RN if the patient can have a visitor, and push a button that opens the doors for the visitor. Of course, half of the time the visitors just wait for an employee to open the doors (which is about every 5 min what with all the therapists, SW, MDs, etc going in and out) and follow them in. They have no shame! :rolleyes:

Your pal.

Sherri

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