If you didn't have to bite your tongue?

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What would you say to patients?

Me to surgical patient; “Your surgeon is a hack.  He was only marginally competent 25 years ago.  Are you really sure you want him mucking around with your vital organs?  His post Op SSIs and complication rates are off the charts.  Maybe rethink your decision?

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Specializes in Been all over.

Put the sandwich/meth pipe/bottle down and get a job. 

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14 hours ago, NotMyProblem MSN said:

Sooooo.....flan is hospital jello?????

(trying some hard not to laugh at this.................................................??????????????????)

I think the only time I saw jello anymore before I left in 2018 was with clear liquid trays….these homeless crack heads thought they were staying at the Hyatt ordering room service….little did they know it was a fluffed up version of frozen nutrisystem gone hospital gourmet style. There’s no chef downstairs hon, just your average lunch lady. I missed mystery meat #1 or #2. It was easy. Choice A or B…no damn flan, polenta (I at least knew that one-but it was from the day before frozen meal pack and the other homeless chick was hellbent on getting it a day late because the night before she got jipped)…..I wish I could of said, the last time I ate anything was 12+ hours ago-eat what you got and be happy-I’m hungry!….nope, had to chase after the kitchen for their requests to help our “satisfaction surveys”…..eye roll.

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Specializes in 29 yrs nursing, Health Content Writer.

Do you remember the TV show "Becker"?  That is how I would like to be if it was socially acceptable.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

To the diabetic patient in room 216 who I just caught trying to hide the candy bar she was eating as I walked into the room:”Don’t insult my intelligence, I know what you’re eating and I know you have a drawerful of them right next to you. And you have the nerve to be surprised when your blood sugar won’t come down. The only person you’re fooling is yourself!” 
 

I’ve always been diplomatic with patients even when I had to call them out on a mistake or a behavior, but every now and then one would irritate me by being stupid and it was all I could do to remain professional. Thank goodness for threads like this where we can vent our frustrations! ?

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, home care, corrections and psych.
On 10/13/2021 at 2:29 AM, macawake said:

I honestly very seldom feel that I have to bite my tongue. I have no problems with the vast majority of my patients. What I think helps me feel quite zen about my patients is that I realized a long time ago that I can only change me. I can’t force other people to change so there is no use getting worked up about it. The second thing that helps me is that I don’t feel contempt for weakness. I feel anger and contempt towards people who are deliberately cruel and selfish, but not weakness. That really helps me because as a result, I seldom get frustrated with people’s behavior. 

It’s a very small percentage that I allow to get on my nerves. And yes, I used the word ”allow” on purpose. It’s a choice. 

Most of the time when I speak my mind to a patient, it’s not because they’ve managed to get under my skin. It’s more that I feel that I have an obligation to let them know that they’re behaving in a less than stellar fashion. I realize that it might sound slightly weird. I feel a bit detached from it all but still think there are certain rules that we should adhere to when it comes to how we interact (in polite society). 

If a patient or loved one is being rude, I will often look them straight in the eye and say something like: ”you know, in life I’ve always found that I catch more flies with honey than vinegar.. I understand that you’re in pain, feel scared and that you’re likely frustrated due to loss of control, but I’m here to help you. Lashing out at me is misdirected. Allow me to spend my time and energy on helping you, instead of engaging in this unproductive back and forth”. Nine times out of ten, the patient will apologize for their behavior. I find most people are actually quite reasonable if you only talk to them. 

If the patient’s behavior is more than rude, and crosses the line to being abusive, threatening and/or violent, I will simply say that ”the behavior you are displaying now, is no more acceptable here than it is in the outside world. If you continue down this path, I will contact the police. You need to stop it right now.” This is of course if I think they are in control of their faculties. I’m obviously not going to threaten my head trauma patient with the police, as I wheel them off to the OR”. 

As I started off by saying, I get along just fine with most of my patients. Many express gratitude and share that I made them feel safe and seen, as we say our goodbyes. I could never have a job where I felt angry a lot of the time and felt that I had to hold stuff in. Since my first career was in law enforcement, I think that I’ve developed some coping skills that help me today. I am not responsible for people’s poor choices and bad behavior. Human beings often make poor choices, it’s part of being human. We as healthcare professionals can offer support and provide information, but we can’t force people to change. It’s liberating to recognize that, because it takes away so much frustration. 

 

I don't think you understood the question. Nobody asked how you performed superhuman, perfect control in the face of utter frustration and stupidity. Try it again after reading the question correctly. 

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1 hour ago, By-a-thred, RN said:

I don't think you understood the question. Nobody asked how you performed superhuman, perfect control in the face of utter frustration and stupidity. Try it again after reading the question correctly. 

I understood the question just fine. ”If you didn’t have to bite your tongue - what would you say to patients?” No big or complicated words. Pretty straightforward. 

The question presupposes that we all feel like we have to bite our tongues. I shared my experience which is that I extremely seldom feel that I have to bite my tongue and that I feel I’m free to speak my mind on the occasions there is something I think needs to be said. 

I pretty much never feel ”utter frustration” at what patients say, do or don’t do, so there’s no need to be, nor do I think I am; ”superhuman”. Not getting worked up over other people’s choices was my whole point. If I experienced a large amount of frustration and felt angry at people a lot of the time, I would find another job. That kind of negativity would affect my quality of life, and life’s too short for that. 

I have to wonder why my post provoked you enough to make you write your response? You didn’t even answer OP’s question yourself, just decided to share what you think of my answer. What gives?

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On 10/23/2021 at 6:56 AM, VivaLasViejas said:

To the diabetic patient in room 216 who I just caught trying to hide the candy bar she was eating as I walked into the room:”Don’t insult my intelligence, I know what you’re eating and I know you have a drawerful of them right next to you. And you have the nerve to be surprised when your blood sugar won’t come down. The only person you’re fooling is yourself!” 


I think I lost my filter sometime during my previous career. Those shifts spent at the police station, being in charge of the arrest cells, dealing with extremely absurd and often violent behavior, changed how I handle volatile or emotionally charged moments. I don’t sugarcoat the things I say. I’m very direct. I could have more or less said what you were thinking there, Viva. What do you think would have happened if you had said something similar out aloud to the patient? 

Perhaps not the part about insulting your intelligence, because whatever made your patient hide the candy, was all about her and her feelings and not directed at you or a judgement of your smarts. 

I had a similar situation back when I worked in the ER. A woman in her late fifties with diabetes and a couple of other related comorbidities was one of our frequent fliers. She’d been there often enough that I’d gotten to know her daughter and son-in-law. She’d shown me pictures of her two grandchildren, one toddler and later on a newborn. 

As I walked in to her room/cubicle I caught her doing the exact same thing as you described. She tried to hide a chocolate bar under the blanket. I just pulled up a chair and asked her if she tried to hide the sweets because she didn’t want to hear me lecture her or if there was some other reason for her action? She said that she knew it was wrong of her to eat the candy and she felt ashamed. I replied that ”well, feeling ashamed isn’t going to make you any healthier. You’ll still have too much sugar in your body and you’ll keep on jeopardizing your health and shortening your life, and you’ll feel emotionally bad while doing it. Is there something I could help you with that could make you feel enthusiastic about taking care of your body instead? After I’m done with your tests I’m going to do now, I have to go check on my other patients. But I’ll be back here later if you want to talk some more about this after you’ve had a while to think about it”. 

Long story short, I talked to her for three (I think it was three, but it doesn’t really matter) more five minutes sessions and the end result was that she cried for a while and said that she wanted to be there to watch her grandchildren grow up. In the end, I wrote a referral to both a therapist for counselling (and asked for an appointment as soon as they had an opening) and a referrral to a dietitian (where I wrote that they could delay the first appointment for a couple of weeks to give the patient time to see the therapist for a couple of sessions first and coordinate care).

The patient actually seemed quite hopeful when we said our good-byes that day. I know that she made it to both first appointments as I get that feedback after having written the referrals but patient privacy laws prevented me from doing any followup beyond that. But for the remainder of the time I worked in the ER (about a year or a year and a half), I never saw her as a patient again. So I’m hoping that she managed to get her diabetes under better control. I have however since then seen her outside of the healthcare setting and as far as I could tell, she looked well.

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Specializes in Operating room, ER, Home Health.
3 hours ago, By-a-thred, RN said:

I don't think you understood the question. Nobody asked how you performed superhuman, perfect control in the face of utter frustration and stupidity. Try it again after reading the question correctly. 

Love the response.  Better be careful since you might hurt some feelings.

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3 hours ago, By-a-thred, RN said:

I don't think you understood the question. Nobody asked how you performed superhuman, perfect control in the face of utter frustration and stupidity. Try it again after reading the question correctly. 

11 minutes ago, Jeckrn1 said:

Love the response.  Better be careful since you might hurt some feelings.

Why would anyone’s feelings get hurt? 

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Specializes in Operating room, ER, Home Health.

Because some people get their feelings hurt if you don’t agree with them. 

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4 hours ago, By-a-thred, RN said:

I don't think you understood the question. Nobody asked how you performed superhuman, perfect control in the face of utter frustration and stupidity. Try it again after reading the question correctly. 

1 hour ago, Jeckrn1 said:

Love the response.  Better be careful since you might hurt some feelings.

53 minutes ago, macawake said:

Why would anyone’s feelings get hurt? 

24 minutes ago, Jeckrn1 said:

Because some people get their feelings hurt if you don’t agree with them. 

By a thred’s post that you loved was directed at me. That would logically mean that I’m the only one who’d have reason to be hurt by it. If you think that I’m going to be hurt by it, why not say that directly? It seems a bit passive-aggressive to cloak it in a veneer of general concern. 

Of course I knew what you meant from the beginning. I’m just wondering what you get out of playing these games? 

I can set your (and by a thred’s) minds at ease. My feelings are not in the least bit hurt. I’m just slightly bemused by the fact that some posters find being generally content at work and not having some kind of angry inner dialogue going with my patients, so extremely annoying. First Emergent calls me Your Holiness Pollyanna ? and now we have by a thred, who also appears somewhat miffed. Bothered enough to post here. 

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