Harrowing experiences as a patient???

[Suninmyheart]

I had a doc who during a normal intalady partsl ultrasound clamped down so hard on my uterus that it was extremely painful and it was all I could do to just breath through the procedure. Then when I sit up after I see there is blood that had spilled ALL OVER the floor. I had to leap to get off the table so I didn't step in blood. And the nurse was actually defensive with me when I asked her questions. :angryfire Oh and also, when the doc came in he hadn't even read my file and assumed I was there for something different. As a patient I actually felt traumatized by that experience. I did report this experience to the clinic manager.

[Antikigirl, ASN, RN]

I would certainly advise to look for other MD's to go to! The trust factor is gone, the bedside manner certainly gone, proof that the MD doesn't care is alive and well, and obviously his choice in RN's is certainly a reflection of that as well! (he may not have picked the RN personally, but by working with them...he can choose to fire them if they are not personable enough for them!).

I would be attending to your pain issues right away, and answering as many questions you had to the best of my ability and/or getting the MD back in~! To have that type of injury/pain is not a light deal...it hurts like hades! (I too have had similar injury but was well cared for afterwards). I can empathize and sympathize and certainly help...and that is why I chose to be a nurse!

If you are feeling up to it...perhaps a letter written to the MD about how the experience made you feel! Maybe the MD can realize how voulnerable we women feel during procedures like that...then to be hurt...WOW! Talk about horrid! Then add no help post, and even more torture by being treated like a trouble maker...beyond horrid to absolutely unforgivable! You can also add that you will not recomend him to people, will not be giving him repeat business...and that is incredibly bad business!!! (It costs so much money to catch up with the damage of even one person saying not to go to a facility because it is never just one!).

I hope you are feeling better, and good luck!

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

I wouldn't have walked out of that office. I would have sprinted.

[RGN1]

man, the 1st sign of the kind of pain you must ahve been in & my foot would have caught him straight in the face - stirrups or no (trust me because I did it once - difference was I was giving birth & the doc - who I'd told I didn't want to re-examine me went ahead & tried - only thing was he standing up so it wasn't his face I hit -OOPS!!) - & that kick would have been accompanied by the loudest scream in his history if I'd have been in your place - just to warn the waiting room!!

I hope you recover/ed ok & I totally agree with the above poster - a letter with details should be on it's way pronto!!

[Retired R.N.]

After two weeks on a vent, I had a doctor (assigned to me at admission) who refused to order a soft diet for me after I was out of ICU, but insisted that I should be happy to get a regular diet because, as he said, "A hospital is not a restaurant or a fancy hotel." Also, on three separate occasions he ordered a medication for me while I was wearing a wristband warning that I was sensitive to that medication. There was also a note taped to the cover of my chart about this medication. I complained that another one of the medications was giving me stomach pains. This was duly charted by the nurses. but he bragged that he "never read the nurses' notes because they just didn't know enough about medicine to know what they were talking about." (At that time he did not know that I was a nurse, and I didn't see fit to inform him.) I begged for Maalox, but didn't get it.

Needless to say, I became quite upset and demanded to know what every medication was before I would take it. Then one morning he told me I was "cranky" because I had refused to take one of the medicines that he (in his ultimate wisdom?) had prescribed for me because I had "the mistaken idea that it was upsetting my stomach." By then, I had progressed to tarry stools, and was really developing an attitude. Or was it prednisone psychoses from the massive doses that I was getting? All I could think of was getting out of there as soon as possible.

The final blow was one of my discharge prescriptions. He wanted me to split a tablet of an extended release medication and take half of it in the morning and half in the evening.

The first thing I did after I got home was call my GP for an appointment, and ask her to take charge of the rest of my recovery. This was over ten years ago, but I haven't forgotten it.

[TazziRN, RN]

The last few years of my previous job were so stressful that I suffered frequent flare-ups of asthma and was often in my own ER for treatment. When I left there the attacks gradually decreased but it was a while before they almost quit completely. One evening I was purse-lipped, tripodding, and pale. I was take back quickly and placed on the monitor...........and left sitting there for over half an hour. I kept begging for a treatment (there is a protocol there for nebs before the dr. sees the pt if it's needed) and I was told the RT was busy on another unit. My husband saw my PMD walk through the ER but he was on his way to a delivery so he couldn't help me. The ER doc finally came in and asked me if I was any better after a treatment. Hubby told him I hadn't had one yet, and the doc was visibly surprised. He ordered a neb, IV, and IV meds stat. Guess where the RT was?

Two beds down!!!!! No one had paged him before that, no one told him I was there and needed him too. When my PMD finally made it down he was not happy to find out about the delay either. The staff's excuse was that my sats were fine. He asked them if anyone had bothered to look in my old chart, because everytime I'd been admitted I had started out with good sats and they had taken a sudden nosedive.

Can you guess I had left that job under negative circumstances? I did call a few days later to discuss my concerns with the manager, and all she said was "You've worked here, you know how crazy it can get."

[Hoozdo, ADN]

In ICU as patient with foreign nurse that can't speak English well at all.

1. Nurse can not tell me what IV drugs she is hanging in English

2. Nurse stepping on foley line and dragging it out on her shoe, OWWW :trout:

3. Out of bed in chair for first time, NEED to go back to bed. Nurse can not figure out how to operate specialty bed to get it back to supine position. I am stuck in chair 2 hours longer than I need to be due to her lack of understanding how the bed works. Husband figures it out.

4. Nurse can not answer any of my questions in English

5. Same nurse needle sticks herself, not MY FAULT!

This was a travel nurse in a very pretigious hospital. Total customer dissatisfaction! :angryfire

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

Years ago, things had to be added to IVFs. So there I am, a young kid, sitting in a wheelchair in the hall, waiting for a test, when the nurse comes along and hangs a new IV bag, then injects some yellow stuff into it.

The yellow stuff sank to the bottom and started going through the tubing. My hand, then my arm started burning like crazy, which I didn't think was right, so I did what all kids do to quietly get attention--I raised my hand (the other one). And waited. And waited. The burning sensation crept up my arm to my shoulder.

A passing nurse stopped, I explained the burning, and she promptly took the bag down and shook it up vigorously.

Sweet relief!

She walked over to the nurse's desk, pointed at me and said, "OK, who forgot to shake that IV bag when they added that potassium!"

[TazziRN, RN]

2. Nurse stepping on foley line and dragging it out on her shoe, OWWW

*crossing legs in sympathy*