What is your biggest nursing pet peeve?

DHAM · May 6, 2004

A nurse sitting next to the call light and won't answer it!!!

:angryfire

PrncessK · May 6, 2004

My biggest pet peeve when I was a student was mostly when the aides saw you hit the floor and said "great, break time!" and then couldn't be found for hours. I realize that CNAs work VERY hard, and I respect that fact help them out when I can, but they need to realize that nursing students are there to learn to be nurses. Granted, I know there are some lazy students out there that believe they are beyond cleaning up someone after they have diarrhea or taking someone off the bedpan, but I was not one of those students. And before anyone gets offended, I'm not saying that all CNAs were that way. I actually worked with some really great aides as a student. I found that if you help them out they go out of their way to help you.

Ok, off my soap box now. :)

eb_rn · May 6, 2004

nurses leaving the shift and not restocking the necessary supplies...nothing worse than walking into a huge poop-feast and no diapers, no wipes, etc......or a respiratory pt. that needs suction, coughing huge snot bubbles out of their mouth, nose, and trach---at the same time---and NO suction catheters anywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heartsofangels · Jan 6, 2005

My biggest pet peeve is when I walk into a room and a CNA or nurse has completely stripped a pt to wash them instead of exposing one area at a time.

My other pet peeve is nurses who think they are too good to answer a call light or "get their hands dirty"

melpn · Jan 6, 2005

post #26- previous shift coming in and acting like they haven't seen one another since high school, getting some coffee, etc. when you want to go home.
Do you work with me? You must. The same ones also want to give your report before you even get your coat off because they want to "get out of here". Re: the frustrated pt and/or family member who throws a laundry list of complaints at you; cut them off as politely as you can (or they'll go on forever), acknowledge their frustration and say "What bothers you the most of all and we'll see what we can do about it?". Lets 'em know you're willing to work with them but sets limits. They can't grasp the concept that they aren't your only pt.

BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN · Jan 6, 2005

pet peeves:
4) families who want to know how "uncle jimmy" is doing, become incensed when i quote hipaa laws to them, and then claim they don't know how to get in touch with the patient's family to as them how he's doing. (excuse me, but if you don't know how to get in touch with "uncle jimmy's" family, perhaps you don't know him well enough to be visiting him in icu.)

1) people who walk up to the nurses station and say "i'm looking for my mother". like i'm supposed to be psychic and figure out who your mother is without telling me. and patients (or families) who ask about other patients. like they really think 'm going to tell them. most (esp in peds) don't mean any harm, but stop being so nosey, esp. when the kid is dysfigured. this is not the discovery health channel!!

2) parents who don't want you to anything to your child- "does he really need to take that pill?, or "do you really need to wake her up to do that" (vitals, blood draws, etc)? (should have thought about all that before you insisted they be admitted).

3) nurses (and other staff) who spend countless hours on the phone. i'm not saying i never call home. when i do, it's short and sweet. it amazes me how much people can speak to thier loved ones over a 12 hr period, and then go home and talk to them again.

4) i feel the young eating phrase is too played out as well. we all eat each other!!!!! and, on that topic, the comment of 'young nurses with no work ethic' is uncalled for too. that's quite a judgemental statement, as i've seen many old nurses who are terrible, lazy, caome in late, dump work on the next shift.

5) and finally, the one that gets me the most, is when nurses feel the need to quantify eveything they do...i have 2 ng tubes, 2 central lines, 3 accuchecks, 4 blood draws. just shut up and do it!!!!

PrncessK · Jan 6, 2005

I know that I have posted previously but I came up with one more after my shift last night.

I hate not getting ANY respect from the next shift. I realize that every shift is busy, but when meds are held with no explanation and rescheduled for the next shift you end up playing catch up the whole time. I'm sorry, but you can only run so many things through an IV line at once! Then there is the exasperated "Ugh, you didn't get that done!"

No sorry, I didn't get that done. I'm sorry my patient was going downhill fast in the next room while I was transfusing, and I'm sorry that 2 of my other patients had antibiotics that had to be hung almost every 2 hours! Just take report and deal with the one thing that I left you to do.

And I've seen day nurses and night nurses that are guilty of this, so it's not directed at any one in particular.

:angryfire

unknown99, BSN, RN · Jan 6, 2005

Nurses who say, "Well, that's not MY patient!"

Also, nurses who think that answering a call light or putting someone on the bedpan is beneath them.

BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN · Jan 6, 2005

no sorry, i didn't get that done. i'm sorry my patient was going downhill fast in the next room while i was transfusing, and i'm sorry that 2 of my other patients had antibiotics that had to be hung almost every 2 hours! just take report and deal with the one thing that i left you to do.
and i've seen day nurses and night nurses that are guilty of this, so it's not directed at any one in particular.
:angryfire

because of people like this, i've seen nurses who are almost afraid to tell me that they didn't get to do something. i've had this recently with some new ones. now, i work both shifts, so i know what happens. i know on nightsw, the nurses on my unit get stuck with the docs rounding at 7:30 (our shift starts at 8), barking orders at them. i wouldn't expect the night nurse to drop everything, in the middle of charting, i&o's and finshing up, to do something that is not stat. i'm not that mean (as long as the same nurses don't make it a habit)!! on our floors, the routine is to do weights at 6am :angryfire not fun, when you are the night shift and the pt is a crying, cranky kid, who's parents don't want you to bother them. so we had this one family who refused the wts at 6am. so every morning the nurse would apologize for not getting the weight. no big deal. but some feel the need to be so apologetic. it's a 24 hr job!!!

BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN · Jan 6, 2005

Just thought of another one (this is fun!!! I can't believe I didn't see this thread sooner!!) nurses who are 'special':

-can't work nights

-can't work holidays

-can't work OT or be mandated

-have a family (I guess the majority of us don't????)

-live too far to come to work when it snows

get the point???

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Jan 6, 2005

Omniscient Nurse, the All-Knowing Nurse.

Omniscient Nurse wasn't really sleeping last night when she was home. She couldn't have been, because when I was doing my patient care and getting my assignment, she knew enough about it to CORRECT ME when I gave her report the next morning.

Example: I floated to another tele unit, causing the more popular nurse who usually works there to float to ICU. Reason: ICU Charge was going to give me Critical Care patients. (Usually they'll give us Tele patients, but not that night.) Well, I refused because I'm not an ICU nurse.

In the morning, the day shift nurse (Ms. Omniscient) CORRECTED me when I told her that I couldn't work ICU that night because it involved REAL Crit. Care patients, for which I am not trained.

"Oh, you would've gotten Tele patients, not Critical Care patients," she said.

I said, "Excuse me? I believe I know what my assignment was to be" and spent the next couple of minutes straightening her out while the other staff in the background tried to shut me up.

Not gonna happen when I'm treated like that, no. :angryfire

CritterLover, BSN, RN · Jan 9, 2005

i have no shortage of pet peeves. anyone who knows me will second that. i get irritated with oriented/orientated and with homophone abuse, too, just like previous posters (i'm a little kinder with spelling, since i can't spell either; but still i find myself thinking "come on! even i could spell that!"). my my biggest pet peeve though, by far, is families.....especially ones with attitude issues....oh how they aggravate me. and in so many ways. which is a little odd because i was a home health nurse for a few years and rarely had a problem with the family. i loved my interaction with them then, but families are so much easier to deal with on their own turf where they are in control.

the last shift i worked was very busy for our er. i had a little lady, about 80 or so, who had been brought in for weakness. her blood sugar was over 500. the family (one of whom works in our hospital, though not a nurse) was hostile and confrontational with everything from needing a chair (wanted to go room to room looking for one) to why the nitrol ointment i had applied wasn't effective in bringing down mom's blood sugar when it had, indeed, brought down her blood pressure.... they were also hostile when i tried to explain the reason, and didn't like my explanation.

(how many ways can you explain that one? i really hope it doesn't sound like i'm making fun of my patient's family, because i'm not. i love to teach. and clearing up confusions like that can often go a long way in keeping people healthy at home. it was one reasons whey i stayed in home health so long. the question was not the problem. the attitude that went with the question was.)

its one of the reasons i can't be a floor nurse. i truly respect all that you floor nurses out there do, because i couldn't do it. i need to work somewhere that i can either pass the patient on rather quickly, like the er; or somewhere that has limited visiting hours (like icu), or i will lose my sanity :)