the thread about strange patient requests is about seven years old now, so let's start a new one. what is the most inappropriate request a patient has ever made of you?
a patient once asked me to tell his girlfriend that he never wanted to see her again.
"let me get this straight," i said. "you want me to break up with your girlfriend for you?"
"yeah, that's it. i've been getting tired of the (bad word that means female dog) anyway."
and then there was the patient who asked me to toilet his mother, who was visiting. she was in her 80s and the patient was concerned because his wife, who had brought the mother in to visit, "doesn't like to help her out with that." guess what. neither do i, and it's not as if i could leave the icu to go out to the visitor's bathroom and toilet his mother anyway. even had i wanted to.
and then there was the woman who wanted me to babysit her children in the icu room because "granny always watches my kids when i go out to party. i'll just leave them here with her, and you can help her watch 'em."
sorry, but i don't want to see it or even know about it. and i sure as heck don't want to touch it! i know that sounds terrible and i really am a nice person. i was sexually abused for many years as a young child and i have a lot of trouble dealing with men. i like them fine, as long as everything stays on a professional level. i find it extremely hard to interact with men on an friendship basis, unless they are very careful to keep everything on the level (i am married, however. my dh did a lot of wooing and he gave me lots of time, for which i am very grateful.) i have tried to work through this in therapy, but its a very deep-seated fear and not easily overcome. it has been much easier to just avoid men altogether.
You make a great point; I did generalize. But I have to say that in 32+ years of nursing I have yet to be propositioned, felt up or flashed by a female patient. However, i have endured more than enough of that behavior from male patients(and doctors). Men have taught me that they're not to be trusted. Sorry, men. I like you well enough, but when you show me your junk or speak to me in a sexual way you just reinforce that core belief. Lucky for me there are plenty of nursing jobs that do NOT require me to work with naked men.
I hear you. If I pay too much attention to a man, look him in the eye, smile or otherwise acknowledge him in a friendly way, he will try to feel me up. I have to stay cool and distant when I take care of men and even that doesn't always work. That prompts them to ask me out on a date.
And please understand. I'm no prize. I'm an overweight, middle-aged woman. Maybe they feel like they're doing me a favor. Um, sorry. I'm not in the market for a shriveled up, chronically ill man on disability.
Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.
You make a great point; I did generalize. But I have to say that in 32+ years of nursing I have yet to be propositioned, felt up or flashed by a female patient. However, i have endured more than enough of that behavior from male patients(and doctors). Men have taught me that they're not to be trusted. Sorry, men. I like you well enough, but when you show me your junk or speak to me in a sexual way you just reinforce that core belief. Lucky for me there are plenty of nursing jobs that do NOT require me to work with naked men.
You should see them under the effects of anesthesia. Talk about no boundaries. The things some of these nasty (old) men say is enough to make you wonder what they are really like in the real world. Some of the young men aren't that nice either.
The EMS at the small county hospital where I work responed to a call one night from a woman who claimed she was having a stroke. When they got to the scene, she exhibited all the classic signs - weakness on one side, slurred speech, etc. They transported her to the stroke center in the next county. About two blocks from the destination she suddenly recovered and told them they could let her out right there since her house was right down the street. She had staged the whole thing to get a ride. She didn't make it home that night but she did get a nice comfy jail cell.
About two blocks from the destination she suddenly recovered and told them they could let her out right there since her house was right down the street. She had staged the whole thing to get a ride.
In 35+ years, I have has many strange requests. Many were of a sexual nature -'could you rub some of that lotion down there?' and many were not - like an earlier one to buy some cigarettes on my way in the next day.
But while I was a student, I had a request to shave the face of a young man who was NOT my patient. I was in my surg rotation, he was a patient in a room across the hall. Only a year or two older than I, he smiled and flirted with me every time I passed by his room. During a free moment, his mom stopped me in the hallway. He had come in because his neck was swollen, and he had some 'lumps' on his back. When they were turning him over in the OR to do the biopsies, something snapped. His right humerus was also apparently involved with his cancer. Fulminant lymphoma, with multiple metastises. He couldn't shave since his arm was in a sling, and the aide assigned didn't get to it x3-4days.
The dorm was next to the hospital, so I changed into street clothes and came back about 4 o'clock, well after shift change. (anyone remember 8 hour shifts?) I shaved him with a safety razor, managed to avoid nicking him, and sat with him and his family for a while. His dad practically ran after me when I left, insisting I take 10 bucks. I went out with this pt 2 or 3 times before my 4 week summer break. While I was on break, he passed away. The family sent me a card thanking me for making his last few weeks more bearable.
Years later, I took care of his father at a different hospital. One of the daughters recognized my voice before she remembered my name, and thanked me all over again. It gave them comfort to 'know' one of the nurses taking care of their dad in his final days.
You should see them under the effects of anesthesia. Talk about no boundaries. The things some of these nasty (old) men say is enough to make you wonder what they are really like in the real world. Some of the young men aren't that nice either.
Kinda like the saying a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts.....
the ems at the small county hospital where i work respond to a call one night from a woman who claimed she was having a stroke. when they got to the scene, she exhibited all the classic signs - weakness on one side, slurred speech, etc. they transported her to the stroke center in the next county. about two blocks from the destination she suddenly recovered and told them they could let her out right there since her house was right down the street. she had staged the whole thing to get a ride. she didn't make it home that night but she did get a nice comfy jail cell.
:offtopic: sort of ...
i agree she should have gone to jail -- right then. she really makes it hard for the rest of us though.
six years ago next month, i had lunch out with my husband, went back home, walked our young puppy,
felt fine. i went back to the jeep to get a bag of cat food, and, all ... of... a ... sudden... blam! i knew
something was terribly wrong, just not quite what. i was having trouble breathing but had no chest pain at all. we live around the corner from the hospital and i drove myself and went to er triage, they had just hired a new clerk. you saw her and then saw the triage nurse. i had had some trouble parking the jeep but finally did it -- sort of. i felt weaker and weaker on my left side (the dominant side) and i was really huffing, puffing, and gasping -- i had done my usual 4x/week 2 hour vigorous exercise,so this was not usual for me. i pushed ahead of a woman with a runny nosed but alert and active baby and said i needed to be seen right now! she told me to wait my turn without bothering to look up. i said i really needed to be seen now. she ignored me. from the bowels of the er came a familiar voice, "bring her back stat or some heads will roll!" i recognized the voice but didn't know why. it was as though there was a fog between me and the world. it was our neighbor and good friend jim, a cardiologist. i was having a severe stroke. thanks to people like that woman and her kindred spirits have made all of us in the nursing/medical field skeptical and suspicious,
but we must not rule zebras either. we're out here and you may meet us. it was later determined that i had a very rare type of stroke caused by a defective gene. it usually strikes men, because the second x usually protects women. it s almost always a lethal gene and its victims do not usually survive it but i did. .... and she told me to just go home and watch tv or something so she could check in really sick people... o...kay...
Specializes in PICU now, Peds and med-surg in the past.
I work in Pediatrics had just finished setting up a cot for a baby's father to room in for the night. I later learned that mom always had dad stay with the baby when they were in the hospital (a frequent flyer asthma child) so that she was sure of where he was and that he wasn't out cheating. When I heard this later, it made perfect sense why he made the following request to me; I asked him if there was anything else he needed and he replied, "yes honey, you in this bed with me". I swear, the kids are never the problem, it's the parents!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i work in pediatrics had just finished setting up a cot for a baby's father to room in for the night. i later learned that mom always had dad stay with the baby when they were in the hospital (a frequent flyer asthma child) so that she was sure of where he was and that he wasn't out cheating. when i heard this later, it made perfect sense why he made the following request to me; i asked him if there was anything else he needed and he replied, "yes honey, you in this bed with me". i swear, the kids are never the problem, it's the parents!
how sad for the poor woman! i hope she gets it together and dumps this jerk!
I work in Pediatrics had just finished setting up a cot for a baby's father to room in for the night. I later learned that mom always had dad stay with the baby when they were in the hospital (a frequent flyer asthma child) so that she was sure of where he was and that he wasn't out cheating. When I heard this later, it made perfect sense why he made the following request to me; I asked him if there was anything else he needed and he replied, "yes honey, you in this bed with me". I swear, the kids are never the problem, it's the parents!
In a similar vein, I say all the time that I love my patients but hate their families. I am mystified as to why they think being a jerk to the staff helps their family member get better care.
last year a patient demanded that i give him a hand job. he said he was going crazy not being able to do it for himself anymore. no lie. fyi he was in for wrist surgery and his dominant hand was wrapped in a cast.
another time a patient demanded that i put a large condom catheter on him. i explained that the current one, the small, was just the right fit. he refused to believe it.
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Lucky for me there are plenty of nursing jobs that do NOT require me to work with naked men.
audacious, little rascal, isn't she?
sharpeimom
2,452 Posts
i'm sorry for what you've had to endure.
lots of hugs,
kathy
sharpeimom:paw::paw: