Hard to manage patients

Tinabeanrn · Nov 3, 2012

LOL now that Cartoon is funny! I wish I could put it on my lab coat!!!!!! So dang on true! I had the most difficult pt ever the other day in the Family practice office. Had literally a thousand complaints and so much attitude. I told her I could not address all of her request and complaints in one visit and I would focus on the main 3 complaints today and reassess the less important complaints next time. To make a very long story short, she cussed everybody out, contacted the owner and never came back. LOL. She refused to take Norco for pain and says she can only have Vicodin..mind you for a foot fracture from a year ago. Her MRI was essentially negative. She refused to sign the pain contract so she got nothing. Thats the new policy and she had such a fit over it. Feels she can have whatever she ask for. I handled it by sending literally an hour an a half trying to address her complaints and trying to calm her down. I was so frustrated it was insane. It was the first day I regreted becoming a NP.

Your turn! tell your story

imintrouble, BSN, RN · Nov 4, 2012

Try taking care of a psych pt who has some kind of history with counseling. Like that's their profession.

The pt turned me inside out, and I have no doubt they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew every button to push and waited for my reaction. It was seriously scary when I finally figured out how far inside my head this person was. At the end of the shift I was simply depleted. Emotionally and physically.

CAnurse2012 · Nov 4, 2012

The patient that I can not stand or manage are the ones who unwilling to work with you, give you time or tell you what they want but want things to be exact the ways they want it or how the previous nurses did...and everything is your fault no matter it is done by others.

Labrynth · Nov 4, 2012

The staff spliters are the worst. They try to play on your simpathies and then turn when you dont give in. The only way to manage this is to have good communication with the other nurses so you can be confident when you say this is the policy, this is the documented time of administration and unless the doctor changes the order this is all you have the ability to do.

joanna73, BSN, RN · Nov 5, 2012

The staff spliters are the worst. They try to play on your simpathies and then turn when you dont give in. The only way to manage this is to have good communication with the other nurses so you can be confident when you say this is the policy, this is the documented time of administration and unless the doctor changes the order this is all you have the ability to do.

We have one of these patients. She is exhausting. I get along well with her simply because I spent quite a bit of time settling her in when she was newly admitted, and I'm not afraid to be straight with her while establishing boundaries. Yet every shift she has some random complaint about another staff member, and this changes from week to week. The best way to handle someone like this is to document, and ensure that the staff doesn't play her game.

nursefrances, BSN, RN · Nov 9, 2012

I once had a patient who would call the unit nurse manager or the hospital liason for hot chocolate or broth (they never asked any other staff first, just went straight to the bosses) and whenever it was getting close to the day of discharge they suddenly had chest pain or some other problem, and oh yeah...is my dilaudid "due" now? :mad:

sherrynichols · Nov 10, 2012

I once had a patient who was admitted with pancreatitis. The doc ordered dilauded IVP every 50 minutes!!!!! He would set the alarm on his cell phone so he would awaken in order to call for his dilauded. He had NS running at 200 ml/hr and informed me that i needed to flush his IV after giving the dilauded. When i refused he demanded he have another nurse.

flkeys · Dec 11, 2012

Sad but true