I'm pregnant and was dehydrated with a stomach bug so had to go to L&D yesterday for some fluids. I decided to fly under the radar and not out myself as a nurse and just be a patient. My nurse and I were going through the intake H&P and details about how my pregnancy has been going and at one point she looks at me out of the corner of her eye and says "you're a nurse, aren't you?"
Busted!
We had a good laugh and she says she does the same thing whenever she has to go to the hospital.
while my grandfather was in the hospital recently he had a doctor come in while myself, my mother (who is not a nurse) and my grandmother (who was a nurse) were there. He was explaining a procedure they would be performing on my grandfather and we were all listening. He stops mid sentence and says " are you two (pointing to me and my grandmother) nurses?" Busted without having even said a word! My mom though this was hilarious. Apparently we were looking like we were following what the doc had to say a little too easily. I was so surprised he picked up on it so easily!
while my grandfather was in the hospital recently he had a doctor come in while myself my mother (who is not a nurse) and my grandmother (who was a nurse) were there. He was explaining a procedure they would be performing on my grandfather and we were all listening. He stops mid sentence and says " are you two (pointing to me and my grandmother) nurses?" Busted without having even said a word! My mom though this was hilarious. Apparently we were looking like we were following what the doc had to say a little too easily. I was so surprised he picked up on it so easily![/quote']
That's super observant of him! I would be reassured by that I think!
The first time I went to see my new dentist, he asked me if I was a nurse. I asked him why he thought that, and he said, "I can just tell." I wasn't acting "smart" about anything...
A guy at the Walgreen's pharmacy tonight asked me if I was a nurse, too...not the pharmacist, just some guy in the waiting area. He had not heard me speak a single word, but had noticed my Danskos. Maybe that's how the dentist knew, too?
I guess I'm backwards then. I'll mention it, especially when they ask for your occupation on the new pt forms. I know when I'm working and my pt is a nurse, I'm more likely to use the lingo and not have to translate medical speak into English and I'm more aware of my technique, so I assume all nurses are like that. If my nurse knows I'm a nurse, they're less likely to skip a step because I know how it's supposed to be done properly. :)
I guess I'm backwards then. I'll mention it, especially when they ask for your occupation on the new pt forms. I know when I'm working and my pt is a nurse, I'm more likely to use the lingo and not have to translate medical speak into English and I'm more aware of my technique, so I assume all nurses are like that. If my nurse knows I'm a nurse, they're less likely to skip a step because I know how it's supposed to be done properly. :)
I'm not a specialist in everything though, so unless I'm going with a child to the ER or a med surg unit, I'd rather have things over-explained as though I know nothing (because when it comes to maternity and L&D, I really know nothing!). I'd also rather not be in their headspace- I feel like being overly focused on dotting the Is and crossing the Ts makes them too focused on tasks and less on my overall as a patient.
Plus, whenever anyone has announced to me that they're a nurse rather than it slipping out or coming up organically, they've gone on to be a challenging patient.....
Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.
When I went to high risk perinatal I found nurses a little too open about how their charting system didn't work, the COWs were always offline, and how they often couldn't scan meds. All this while they tried to hang a bag of D10 on me instead of LR. I always felt a little more careful or perhaps just nervous when I took care of a nurse, while this crew seemed to think it was a license to tell me all the scary stories about their practice!
I am almost 39 weeks myself and pretty much ready to go lol.
I was ready to go at 37 weeks myself. At that point, I was over being pregnant and as soon as he could safely come out I wanted him out. He disagreed and took his time
Do you think your care is better if they know you are a nurse?
I don't know if I'd say it was better--I'd hope that no matter who or what I was that I'd get the best care they could give me! But I think they definitely communicated with me better and more often--there wasn't a need to "dumb" things down when explaining them to me.
Plus, I think they appreciated that I understood what they go through re shift changes, breaks, staffing, MDs, etc.
hiddencatRN, BSN, RN
3,408 Posts
Why would we try to avoid being recognized as nurses if we thought this?