When your alert and oriented, walkie talkie, 25yo husband is in the hospital for observation and a little fluid resuscitation, be sure to come out of the room frequently, search out the nurse, and ask for things like a different gown, because the one he has on is too thick, or a robe so he can go for a walk, or fresh water because the ice in his water pitcher has melted. We love that. Especially when we have another patient who is a post CVA LOL on an insulin gtt and her CBG has just tanked, an older man with severe multivessel disease who needs a four vessel CABG and is hypotensive, and another patient whose sodium is 129 with a BP of 198/90, with anxiety issues who needs a breathing treatment right now.
Oh yes, we love it when you come out of the room and stand in the hallway, looking lost, until you spot us digging through a chart to find the insulin gtt protocol or frantically dialing the phone to page the doctor, and come up and ask for these Very Important Things.
In fact, I like it even more when you stand there, in the doorway, with your arms folded across your chest, watching me until I can't stand it anymore and finally ask you what it is you need. Yes, the fact that your husband's gown is chafing him is right up there on the top of my priority list. This is a hospital, after all. Can't have any chafing.
Please do not use the call light, or even worse, wait for me to come check on your loved one before you make your requests. After all, the CNA is incapable of bringing fresh ice water. The nurse is the only one qualified to do so, and this is a very good use of her time. :heartbeat
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
By all means, come in the ER with c/o "diarrhea for 4 days" when all you want is a work excuse, and then sit and stare holes through everyone because the very thorough NP student who was astute enough to take you at your word that you have had the splats and no food ordered a CMP and discovered your liver enzymes were elevated, so she then ordered a lipase. Pardon her for making sure you did not have pancreatitis.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
stand right there while we're trying to care for your loved one and insist upon telling us all about your granny's gall bladder surgery, you're great-aunt's diabetes and the plantar wart that's giving you fits. we're nurses, so of course we're interested in all that! we have plenty of time to listen to your health care stories -- after all, our other patient still has at least some blood pressure.
take over our chair from our computer station and plant it right next to the bed. when we ask if we could please sit down to chart (because we're 53, you're less than half our age and our recent back surgery and knee pain have left us unable to stand for 12 straight hours) roll your eyes and sigh really loudly. after all, you can't leave the bedside -- we get to run out to the med room and the supply room from time-to-time.
go ahead and ask us to toilet your 86 year old grandmother who your wife brought in to visit. after all, we're professionals. we don't mind toileting the visitors.
be sure to lie to us when we ask such intrusive questions as "did you give your (intubated) son any of that big gulp to drink?" or "have you been drinking from that plastic bottle clearly marked "sterile water" at the bediside?" or "before you go to surgery in the next few minutes, have you taken any of those valium tablets from the bottle in your hand? the bottle your husband brought you because you were nervous about your surgery?" (really, really bad outcome.)
Please, the very moment your completely alert and oriented grandma is brought up to the floor, ask me if I can get her something to eat, because she hasn't had anything since this morning. Nevermind that I need to get her into her bed, hooked up to telemetry, do a head to toe assessment and a complete set of vitals, and that the chart is up at the front desk at the end of the hallway that is a football field in length, and I can't see that far to check and see if the doctor wrote a diet order, or if diagnostics that would require her to be NPO have been ordered, or if the admitting physician is coming to see her and write the orders, and I left my crystal ball at home today. Yes, getting her some custard is the very first thing on my mind. Thank you for reminding me of that. I couldn't do my job without you.
Oh, and I love it when I come in to assess your elderly father who is going to spinal surgery in the morning and you start quizzing him about his gown and whether that food stain is the same one from breakfast this morning, and when he confirms that it is (but doesn't seem to be bothered by it), make a sarcastic comment about this being an example of "quality care". Yes, the nurse who is at the bedside listening to his heart and lungs, making sure he has IV access, checking that his ID band is correct and that he has an allergy band on, that he has an H&P in his chart, and making sure he gets his medications on time, is supremely concerned about that half inch in diameter food stain on his gown. After all, that is truly the primary indicator of the quality of care he is receiving. Thank you for reminding me where my priorities should be.
Be sure to complain non-stop about the food and how it isn't like the food at home. And remind us constantly that the blankets aren't as thick as you'd like. Buy a clue...we aren't the cooks and we didn't shop for the blankets. And for the record...you aren't home but in the hospital for medical care. Excuse us for being more worried about keeping you alive and getting you well then the fact that your 74 year old mommy doesn't like her crackers and would prefer orange juice.
And if you are the visitor and the patient isn't actively dying get off your ass and get your own drink and food from the cafeteria. Try peeing in the public restrooms as well. That's what they are there for.
In case you didn't know...ice melts. It happens. The earth however doesn't start rotating off it's axis if you need to wait five whole minutes for your third cup of ice in an hour. The CNA might be helping to cealn up a very sick and embarassed patient with diarrhea and your nurse just might be trying to help a patient who can't breathe. Your ice will wait.
Ane be sure if you are a visitor to always answer for the patient who is alert and more than able to answer for themselves. After all we never take the word of our patients who know how they are feeling. We'd much rather here it from a visitor. Oy.
Specializes in Burn, CCU, CTICU, Trauma, SICU, MICU.
it makes me feel good that you are so concerned about your husbands health! he is 53 years old and s/p CABG 4 days - amazingly - he has had tele orders for 2 days but has been kept in the icu at *your* demand - thanks to you calling your "icu nurse" friend who states he will get better faster if he stays in the ICU. thanks for calling the attending, risk management and the AOD about these orders and you're preference for 2:1 nurse care.
since you are here monopolizing a bed that he does not need and making me do 4x the work on a patient who does not need it, i appreciate your beratement of me and anyone who walks in the room. I loved how when as soon as I finished report and walked into my room, I looked at my 93 year old man who is having periods of apnea, a sat of 70% and is also sitting in a pile of poo - thanks for yelling from the next bedside over "MY husband needs to get out of bed to the chair NOW or else I will call the attending and talk your charge IMMEDIATELY."
When the situation was explained, thanks for using your cell and speed dailing the doc saying i was refusing to provide care that is "essential" to him every getting better. Thanks for making the loud, snide comments while i was intubating the roommate and you refused to leave. Thanks hospital system for standing up for the wifes rights to stay in the room, visit and say and do whatever she likes because god forbid we get sued or get a bad review....
Thanks to the whole team for taking her word over mine also! When he used his hand that had his pulse ox on it, and it lost its waveform and read a sat of "28" for 20 sec while it normalized. Thanks for not listening to my explanation, calling the team from your cell and talked about a plummeting saturation. Thanks to the team for not listening to me, ordering 3 sets of cardiac markers and serial ekgs, thanks for the the stat echo and cxrs and serial abgs. While my other patient who really was sick needed it. God forbid you tell someone who *thinks* they are right when they clearly are not all the power to make me bend over backwards.
Thanks for also pushing buttons on his external pacer and completely flipping out his heart rate while i was busy trying to save my other patient and for silencing the monitor because you thought it was no big deal because its what we do when something beeps. where did you get your health care degree? oh? you dont have one? ... shocking.
I'm sure your husband will also thank you for pulling the doc in the hallway and having all of his narcs dc'd because your nurse friend said it could cause constipation. When the doc explained the bowel regime he was on, and how much narcs he was actually requiring, thanks for pushing harder and screaming that he may only receive tylenol. high five to you doc for listening to her!
And thank you tele ordered, totally fine in the ICU patient for yelling at me at the top of your lungs because i wouldnt lay you prone and give you a full back massage. Yelling will do no good. And yes - i did lose my patience! I *did* explain to you very clearly that this NOT a hotel nor a SPA, you could not order things like a menu, I am NOT a do-all individual and if he was looking for being waited on, that he find another a nurse. I got a degree in nursing, not massage therapy.
but the BIGGEST thank you goes to the AOD who finally put her foot down and sent them to tele wether they liked it or not because there were patients that actually needed that bed who needed intubated!!!!!
I love that you are in your forties and pretty capable of self-care, and when I ask if you need anything that your wife asks me to give you a bed bath, while she sits inches away doing nothing and I am tripping over her and then you want lotion over every square inch of your body. I especially love how I was giving you a bed bath that ended up taking forever, when other ACTUALLY SICK patients got rushed ones or had to wait for the next shift, and then the second I finished my nurse told me that you were being discharged, which YOU KNEW but decided hey, this is a nice day spa, let's get one more rub-down before we check out.
You all are just so inconsiderate and rude. Perhaps that pink comforter was the highlight of that woman's day, and you all were too lazy to take the TWO MINUTES to go to another floor.
What if she was colorblind- would that make you just a little more COMPASSIONATE!!! I was in the hospital once, and all they had was white sheets- I was practically snowblind- had to wear sunglasses as they wheeled me out I had such a headache. Darn nurse wouldn't even let me stay an extra 15 mintutes so I could get another dose of my Percocet.
Wait til that Press Ganey comes...
Thank God we don't have that in Canada.
And would you rather I spent my time finding a Pretty Pink Blanket or deal with the dropping hemoglobin?
Please feel free to spew profanities and F-bombs left and right at the unit secretary because the house officer was attending a code when he should be up at your mom's side to check out her cough.
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
Please, please feel free to complain about the "attitude" that the nurse gives you when she finally snaps at you after you have asked for the 14th time if the gorked patient who JUST arrived from surgery could not have something else for pain. By all means, tell the charge nurse that "all she was doing was fiddling with little tubes" when she was hooking up necessary drips and getting post-op VS.
Feel free to sniff and comment about how "nice" nurses are supposed to act after she's told you that she has to look at the chart before she can give pain meds, and since she has not left the room yet, and will not be leaving the room until the patient is settled, there is no possible way for her to know what is ordered or how often, but that she knows that your loved one was dosed in PACU, not 10 minutes ago, and as soon as she gets the patient stable, she will get right on that.. Oh, and while you're at it, play the race card, we love that. I'm Caucasian, y'all are Black, and you have pushed me to my limit, so obviously I have a PROBLEM. ( I think that bothered me more than anything else. That actually hurt my feelings. I would not have cared if they were green with purple stripes, they were annoying, and after multiple explanations, I had had it. Flame me if you want.)
Oh, and when we tell you that your family member can not have anything to eat or drink because she is GOING to surgery, and then surgery gets delayed, especially since the surgery is for a PEG tube since she can not swallow, please hold up the desk and demand food and drink, and when we deny you and stop you from taking food in there, have every member of your extended family call and threaten us if we don't feed her.
No, we don't know for a fact that eating will mess up her surgery and possibly kill her, we're just guessing.
AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN
2 Articles; 1,291 Posts
By all means, come in the ER with c/o "diarrhea for 4 days" when all you want is a work excuse, and then sit and stare holes through everyone because the very thorough NP student who was astute enough to take you at your word that you have had the splats and no food ordered a CMP and discovered your liver enzymes were elevated, so she then ordered a lipase. Pardon her for making sure you did not have pancreatitis.