Quite frequently, I find myself caring for patients who are nurses or who are former nurses, or those who have family members who are nurses. I have to say that these people make me a little more anxious than those who are not and those who do not have any family connection to nursing. When I see RN after a patient's name, it almost makes me intimidated, even though I'm an RN myself.
Although I'm not sure what, exactly, causes this anxiety, I think part of it has to do with feeling the necessity to perform to perfection. Not that I give substandard care to non-nurses, but I feel like I have to be especially mindful when I'm caring for a nurse. After all, they know what is going on, and will likely know if I'm doing something wrong or am missing something.
It's either really great or really awful. Moments are either heartwarmingly sweet, or make you wonder if the nursing profession can actually suck all the kindness out of someone's soul.
I do not mind caring for anybody who is a nurse or who has a nurse as a family member.
My suggestion is to establish the "ground rules" and a good communication/collaboration between everybody by asking the same questions you would for anybody and in addition just ask "is there anything you want me to know that would help me to provide care to you?" or "tell me a little bit more about how I can help you best" - often times those questions lead to what is important to the person and that will help you to provide best care.
When I was a patient myself and had surgery, I did not tell anybody in post operative or on the floor that I am a nurse but I did tell with the intake assessment because I was already in their data base as a former employee.
However, apparently it got passed on and some nurses were obviously very uncomfortable, which I found strange.
My cover was just blown again, this time my husband is the pt. I swear all I did was describe his symptoms. "Debilitating abdominal pain with bloating, nausea, and burning. "
I'm curious what in that was revealing.
Probably the masses would say "a really bad stomach ache". :) Your lingo screams: Educated!
I'm an RN and have also been a patient ( a few times ). But what I found is that when a nurse becomes a patient it's totally different. The patient even though he/she might be a nurse is thinking more about themselves and their needs. I can't say I've noticed a difference in nurses who knew I was a nurse, in fact I think they are glad because they don't have to explain everything. But that could be a problem. I was an OB/GYN nurse and had Orthopedic surgery which was way out of my comfort zone. But I have to say I had great nursing care. I once had my nursing instructor as a patient and was all jelly inside ! She told me that she was glad that she taught me so well lol
I've had many parents who were nurses and docs and that's fine. One surgical resident dad was annoyed with the lapse of time for lab results. What I actually find frustrating is when a family member of mine or I am receiving treatment and my dad/sibling/friend tells the medical team that I am a nurse. I always respond with "I don't take care of big people." I honestly want to be treated as a patient or family member, not "the nurse "
I completely understand the anxiety with taking care of former nurses. I am not an RN yet, but am in school. I have taken care of probably 5 or more nurses in the past year and I loved it. To me, they were always nice and understanding. They didn't object to having to be walked to the bathroom, or vitals at 4am, or anything else. Some of my best conversations have been with nurse patients and how nursing has changed over the years. I could spend hours talking to them.
I am a retired RN; I'll be the first to tell you I don't know everything; there's always something new to learn, whether it's a new or different way to start an iv or a new procedure for whatever my illness is. Don't treat me like I'm stupid but I'm glad to learn whatever you can teach me
I always say that I don't want to insult their intelligence or prior knowledge, so how about they tell me what they know already. It's a good place to start with anybody. Some say, "I was a psych nurse, I don't know nothin' about this stuff," and some say, "I was teaching this to my students last year, so I'm pretty up on it."
When I was in the hospital once wth a really bad postpartum infection it was early summer and I had a couple of new grads taking care of me on their orientation. When they learned I was an ICU nurse they started asking me questions. Unfortunately I was finding all my brains going right out of my nipples and a little dingy with dilaudid, so honest to god I couldn't remember whether atropine made your heart go faster or slower. (I remembered later.)
Their preceptor was an older, obviously well-experienced OB nurse. She came in her first morning c me and said, "We're a little short today and I have a new orientee, OK if we give you a bath together?" I had a bit of an overdose, where my epidural accidentally turned into a high spinal and I wasn't moving my legs anytime soon (it turned out to be about 30 hours after the baby was born), so I said, "Sure, hit it." Each one took one side and I got a great bath in record time and felt so much better I almost cried. Told them I was proud to be a nurse after all that.
While she was "orienting" the new nurse she was actually teaching me, assuming that as an ICU nurse with a first baby and a lot of complications to boot I probably needed it, and she was right. "Now, with all that dilaudid on board we're gonna start giving her metamucil three times a day right now-- we'll get the order when the doc make rounds this morning, so be sure she gets it, you hear?" And I said to myself, "Yes'm, I surely do."
Next day,"OK, she's got a bad headache whenever she gets upright. What does that make you think of? She had an epidural, but it took 30+ hours to wear off, so that's not an epidural, is it? It's a spinal headache because they put a hole in her dura, so we're gonna get anesthesia up here to do a blood patch and she'll feel better in about 20 minutes." And I damn near cried again, because I didn't know a goddam thing about spinal headaches other than the fact that I had a beauty and wondered how I was going to take care of my baby, and she was right on again.
Good care and teaching depends on lots of things, and knowing your target audience is second-- first is knowing what to do in the first place. Nurses really appreciate good care because we know what it takes, and we know what we don't know (mostly).
Recently, I had a retired private practice doctor and a retired RN as patients. I didn't find this information out, though, until about halfway through my second day with each of them. Did it change the way that I cared for them? Nope.I continued on just as I had before I discovered they were retired healthcare professionals.
At the beginning of November, I had an outpatient procedure done, and it was the first time I'd been in the patient role since becoming a nurse three years ago. I have to admit that it was strange for me being on the other side of things!
knurse10
75 Posts
It's either really great or really awful. Moments are either heartwarmingly sweet, or make you wonder if the nursing profession can actually suck all the kindness out of someone's soul.