What is your biggest nursing pet peeve?

McGyverRN · Mar 5, 2011

Ok I'm not a nurse yet but here's my biggest pet peeve from the other side of the hospital bed so to speak . . .
I had just delivered my 2nd pregnancy - b/g twins. Our girl had anencephaly ( which we knew since the 1 st trimester). Anyway, I'm sitting in the hospital bed holding my daughter and nursing my son - knowing full well that my daughter will die at some point but trying to live in that moment-one of the few moments where I was the mother of twins, trying my best to take care of both of my babies - and the nurses walk in and ask if my son has peed, if my son has pooped, if my son has nursed and how long. No one asked how my daughter was doing, if we were able to get any milk in her, if she had peed or pooped. HELLO, I just had TWO babies. I know you're uncomfortable and scared I'm going to fall apart but think how you'd want your child treated. She was not a monster - very beautiful even with her hat off which it wasn't often.
In the same regard . . . the hospital assigned pediatrician walks in while my daughter is deteriorating and we thought she was about to pass . . . We assumed the nurses sent for him and started updating him on our daughter . . . He strides to our son in the bassinet and tells us, "no I'm not here for her. I'm here for the healthy baby." He actually wanted me to divert my attention from my daughter to my son when we really thought my daughter was about to die.
Don't get me wrong - I knew my daughter's prognosis and the reality of the situation and what it meant and i know the medical establishment's view on anencephalics. Regardless of the medical establishments view that I should have aborted her and the fact that she wouldn't survive - she was my child and a human being and was not treated that way by most of the nurses and doctors.
By the way, she was not on life support but we were able to feed her with a habberman bottle . . . She lived 33 days and died in her sleep- at home on my chest.

My sympathies go out to you and your family. I am so sorry you had such a terrible experience with the staff at the hospital. Their callous behavior is inexcusable.

Strawberrygirl2 · Mar 5, 2011

I am not a nurse, but a tech on the tele unit. I will be starting nursing school soon though.

I do work with a lot of wonderful nurses and techs. Tele is a busy floor and we are all constantly busy. However, there are some nurses that don't put in a helping hand...

Nurses on my floor rarely answer call lights. A light will go off, the nurse will look up, maybe look around, then look right back at her computer screen. I also love it when a nurse is right under a light that has been going off for five minutes while she talks about her weekend with another nurse. I would totally get it (because nobody else will), but I am busy in the room across the way trying to do 100 things at once. On my floor the nurses have silently turned answering call lights into a duty only for techs.

I hate the fact that patients cannot piece together the fact that I am extremely busy and have 10 other patients to tend to. They just can't grasp the fact that they can't just use the call light every 10 minutes constantly wanting something different.

Or the patient's always complaining about how they want to go home and how bad the food is and asking me why they had to wait so long for the nurse to get there with their meds. I am constantly sticking up for the nurses when patients bad mouth them to me. Come on your idiots, the nurses are extremely busy, tired, stressed, and working with little breaks. Stop being such *******!

Or when a nurse is walking out of a patients room and happens to catch me in the hallway (extremely busy hurrying around) and just says. Oh, this patient needs help to stand and use the urinal. Then she walks down the hall and sits down to talk to another nurse. She was just in there! Why couldn't she take 2 more minutes to help the patient stand up to use the urinal! I am in the middle of 100 things and I have to stop right then and there to do that because the patient has to go right away. Things like this happen all the time!

Look, I am more than happy to help, and I bust my butt all day long. But some nurses really need to open their eyes and actually do some hands on patient care to help us out.

But to those nurses who are helpful and nice, thank you so much.

mehitabela · Mar 16, 2011

Coworkers who miraculously vanish when their patients need on or off the bedpan/toilet.

It's bad enough with the not my pt not my hall attitudes...the least they could do is take care of they're own assignment! (sorry...recent pet peeve)

belgarion · Mar 16, 2011

Coworkers who miraculously vanish when their patients need on or off the bedpan/toilet.
It's bad enough with the not my pt not my hall attitudes...the least they could do is take care of they're own assignment! (sorry...recent pet peeve)

I hear you. I don't smoke so it's very rare that I ever leave the floor. Seem like every time one of my coworkers goes to smoke, every one of their patients has a sudden urge to go potty. It's also amazing how their smoke break lasts just long enough for yours truly to get those patients cleaned up and back to bed. Has to be telepathy, ESP, or some other weird psychic thing going on.

Blackcat99 · Mar 16, 2011

I will never forget that blabbermouth nurse who I had to give report to in the mornings. She would never shut up. Finally, I just told her "I am starting report right now" and I would give report. She would still be blabbing with the other nurses at the same time I was speaking. I just ignored her and I talked right over her voice. So she only actually heard about 25% of report each time. But that was her choice. I was not going to get stuck staying overtime every day just because she couldn't keep her stupid mouth shut. :mad:

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Mar 16, 2011

I will never forget that blabbermouth nurse who I had to give report to in the mornings. She would never shut up. Finally, I just told her "I am starting report right now" :

I've had this experience many times. With the nurses who have done this to me before; I start giving report and when they inevitably interrupt me to ask me a question about something I've already covered, I always add the phrase "as I just said . . ."

This is only for the repeat offenders though.

Generally I'm quite charming :cool:

Bezoars · Mar 18, 2011

I have two major ones:

1. Patients that hack and cough so loud that you can hear it on the next unit... I'm sorry but it's just soooo dramatic! Can't you hack a little softer????

2. Giving report to the next nurse who askes you stupid stuff (IMO) like "do they have a fall risk band on" while looking at you with eyebrows raised as if to say 'are you gonna do that'. I can't help but to get an incredulous look on my face and say "I don't know, why don't you check when you assess them? I've been here 12 freaking hours!". As most of you know... sometimes we get busy and all t's don't get crossed and I's dotted. Irritating!!!

carolmaccas66, BSN, RN · Mar 19, 2011

Nurses who tell you because you have ONLY been a RN for two years that you can't POSSIBLY know as much as them! FYI peoples: been working in hospitals nearly all my freaking life, been a nursing assistant, coordinated theatres (I could go on), worked in doctors surgeries, have worked in fairly remote communities in many different facilities - you may have been a nurse for 25 or 50 years but please don't tell me I don't know anything! I may know more about you re a specific area, and you may have only worked in one area for 25 years, for all I know.

Show some respect and please don't post this to me again. Also get over yourself - no-one likes a smart a**. You're probably the old, embittered nurse who should retire which nobody on AN likes.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 19, 2011

nurses who tell you because you have only been a rn for two years that you can't possibly know as much as them! fyi peoples: been working in hospitals nearly all my freaking life, been a nursing assistant, coordinated theatres (i could go on), worked in doctors surgeries, have worked in fairly remote communities in many different facilities - you may have been a nurse for 25 or 50 years but please don't tell me i don't know anything! i may know more about you re a specific area, and you may have only worked in one area for 25 years, for all i know.
show some respect and please don't post this to me again. also get over yourself - no-one likes a smart a**. you're probably the old, embittered nurse who should retire which nobody on an likes.

speaking of nasty and embittered . . . .

some people have twenty years of experience, and some have one year of experience twenty times. nobody knows everything, but it's impossible to teach anything to someone who already believes they know anything. are you learning as much as you could be, or is your absolute conviction that you know it all standing in your way?

Altra, BSN, RN · Mar 19, 2011

My pet peeve for the day: caring for, or just being nearby, a patient or family who is an acquaintance.

Let's say I know you because your kid is in my kid's class, sports team or whatever ... and then suddenly there you are in my ED with all your glorious family dysfunction on display ...

Very, very uncomfortable.

AOx1 · Mar 19, 2011

The infighting: ADN vs BSN, nurses in specialty "x" are better than those in specialty "y," this department vs. that, claiming all non-floor nurses aren't "real" nurses (ex-managers, nurse educators, etc), new grad vs experienced, the list is endless.

For such a "helping, caring" profession, some devote so much time and energy to infighting it's a real wonder anything else is accomplished.

belgarion · Mar 19, 2011

This has happened twice this week. Get to work at 1835, not even on the clock yet but off going nurse wants me to go ahead and do the narc count now so she can get out of there and go home. Next morming, same nurse is 10 minutes late, holds up report even more while she gets all her stuff together, them sits talking to her coworkers after report instead of getting her butt out to the desk and doing chart checks. This in spite of a few pointed comments that people who work nights have homes to go to as well.

It would be different if this was just one person but the prevailing attitude seems to be that day shift people here have some kind of god given right to get off on time so they can go home. It's bad enough that the docs monopolize the charts right at shift change but to have your fellow nurses screw you over like that is just plain silly.