What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

Nurses General Nursing

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Just wondering, to all the nurses out there what do you deem your biggest weakness??? :coollook:

mine is dealing with all the bloody paper--duplicate charting and care-plans that are almost as lengthy as the H&P. on one patient, i might chart VS on four or five different forms. we have care plans that are the thickness of short novels. we spend more time wading through reams of paper than laying hands on our patients.

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.
Going through this thread I was surprised that no one mentioned pt's families. I understand that alot of them are scared, but I have more than a few get in my face upon literally walking in the room for the first time. I don't like having my personal space violated, especially by someone I do not know, so this is a tad awkward for me.

You know what? This *is* another weakness of mine. I do find pt. families to be a tad intimidating at times. They do make me quite nervous when they get in my face. :uhoh21:

Oh, yeah, and another weakness of mine is my sloppy handwriting- when I take telephone orders I usually have to rewrite them before scanning them to pharmacy. My report sheets (my brain!) is quite sloppy, but I'm working on fixing that. :nurse:

And another weakness of mine- conflicts with particular coworkers that drive me batty. I imagine I probably drive others batty, too, tho. :rolleyes:

I love nursing, but man is it overwhelming sometimes!!! :eek:

You know what? This *is* another weakness of mine. I do find pt. families to be a tad intimidating at times. They do make me quite nervous when they get in my face....

i suspect families who behave that way have seen one too many episode of "ER," or more than there share of lifetimeTV movies. they have the idea that being overbearing and treating us like the enemy is the way to operate. true, there are some who deal with anxiety/fear by resorting to anger--those, i've found, usually escalate rather than initiate.

Speaking of computer charting....for those of you that have went to it....does it help with the paperwork? Our hospital is supposed to be computerized by the time I graduate (woopee).

I know this is months later, but I don't know if I could survive in a hospital without computerized charting and bar code med administration. Orders are written on the computer, dont' have to decipher handwriting. Med program interfaces with pt chart, don't have to go to MAR to find exact time med was given, when entering Telephone order for med pt's last pertinent lab results pop up. Don't have to wait for records to bring up previous hospital records, it's all in the computer, including outpatient clinic records if they are in the same system as my hospital.You can find out what meds a patient is prescribed from the clinic. It's much easier calling an md and saying, "he's c/o pain 8/10 and according to the computer he is normally on MSIR 30 mg q 6 hours at home", trust the MD will usually say give him what he takes at home unless it's medically contraindicated. We have templates, so some is point and click, with areas for comments at the bottom of the template.

My biggest weakness. Certain family members, not all just a certain type. The type that are never there when something is taught to the patient, or the patient signs a consent for a procedure. Those drive me insane when they do show up and start screaming at the nurse's about the patient's treatment plan. Or "how dare you let them take him to surgery, I have durable POA, I didnt' sign consent, and he has a chance of dying in surgery, the doctor said so!!!!". "well, yes ma'am you do, but technically the patient is alert, Oriented x4, deemed competent and he agreed to the surgery and signed the consent. Your POA doesn't kick in until he is deemed incompetent or incapable of making those type of decisions." ( the patient made it through fine, though he did spend a week on the unit. Found out later he changed his POA.)

I also have problems being sympathetic to the "prodigal" who shows up after the patient's been on the floor for 2-3 months battling terminal cancer, and has decided to go to comfort care. The "prodigal" usually doesn't show up until after the patient has slipped into a coma, and then threatens to report us all for letting the patient die.

my biggest weakness is a tie between my hatred of ADLs (though i wouldn't call that a weakness really, as i'm damned good at avoiding them), and pinching lemanade from the pantry.

My biggest weakness is my sense of smell. I mean, I have a nose like a Bloodhound. I even once paid an NA $5.00 to empty a BSC for me. The patient was passing old blood :barf02:

Specializes in LTAC, Peds/OB/GYN, wounds, M/S, Alz, Ger.

My weakness.... still the same since nursing school in 93-94... everything is still pretty much "black and white".... still having trouble with working in "the grey". To me, things are either right or wrong. I am a perfectionist by nature and nursing is sometimes difficult because I don't like to mislead anyone and think things should be done "by the book" in most every circumstance. I am getting a little bit better... I even have gotten to where I don't feel guilty for giving the siblings of my patient a little snack out of the "pantry" on my floor even though the snacks "are for the patients only". Love kids too much to give just the patient a snack and let the siblings "starve".

from a place on the peds floor lost somewhere in the deep south...

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