Is There a Room on Your Unit That Always Seems to Attract the Worst Patients?

[RN-PA, RN]

I worked last night 3-11 shift, med-surg, and in my patient assignment was what is becoming known as our notorious room 315 where a patient was going through narcotic withdrawal, but had been in the hospital for a few weeks with a variety of serious physical problems. I know she was going through hell and had to be on 1:1 supervision, but her anxiety and outbursts were very difficult to handle. She had numerous psych problems before all this and the withdrawal has just intensified them. (There is a psychiatrist involved in her care and we unfortunately have no psych unit since administration closed it two years ago to make more med-surg beds.:stone )

In this same room 315 in the past year I have had three other patients who had the most challenging psych issues to deal with in my 10 year career. They were admitted for various medical reasons, but their incredible psych problems made for the most demanding, time-consuming, and nerve-wracking patients I've ever cared for. It made me wonder if there is a certain room on your unit where you seem to get the most challenging patients (or where codes or deaths frequently occur, for example) more than in other rooms.

[fergus51]

Ours is a certain bedspace. All the kids there eventually die. Well, not all, but enough that I think we should have an exorcism or something.

[MelissaRN]

Well we have rooms that are assigned to our most difficult patients as they are in closer proximity to the nursing station and makes it easier for us to keep an eye on them.

We have one particular room (516) that seems to make our confused patients even more confused. I figured out that our tube system runs through that wall. One night I was in there with a patient and she kept saying "what's that noise"? I listened and it turned out it was the tube system. It's louder there than any other room. Also we have trains that run right near the hospital and some of the rooms get a louder exposure to it than others.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Room 46, seems to be the one where we get the DT pts. Did i mention it's 10 ft from the elevator?

Room 54 seems to have the fine-right-now-5-minutes-later-they're gone curse. Last 6 pts. in there were found dead 5 minutes after talking to them.

[zambezi, BSN, RN]

We have one room that patients in it seem to get combative at night...I don't know what it is...We also have another room that patients seem to get sick quick and usually die...Of course, we have nurses that get stuck with the same curse!

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

Oh Yeah!!! They are world wide. Rooms that just have a curse. Feel like hiring someone to exorcise them but who??? In these politically correct days we would end up with a procession - picture it - First the priest with the swinging incense thingy, then a new ager throwing flower petals then an American Indian singing and drumming then and Australian Aboriginal "smoking" out the spirits Oh! and don't forget the chinese dragon with the fireworks!!!! ....................:chuckle

[RN-PA, RN]

Oh Yeah!!! They are world wide. Rooms that just have a curse. Feel like hiring someone to exorcise them but who??? In these politically correct days we would end up with a procession - picture it - First the priest with the swinging incense thingy, then a new ager throwing flower petals then an American Indian singing and drumming then and Australian Aboriginal "smoking" out the spirits Oh! and don't forget the chinese dragon with the fireworks!!!! ....................:chuckle

I'm ready to hire the whole bunch of 'em if they could exorcize room 315!

[unknown99, BSN, RN]

Ours is room 210. We are a subacute unit, but every patient we get in that room is either there for 3 or 4 months or they end up dying.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Yep, we have Room 223, where it seems even stable patients crash.......if anything bad is going to happen to anybody on a given shift, it'll happen in there. I once had a perfectly stable 40-something diabetic pt. who was supposed to be discharged the next morning; he happened to be transferred to that room, and when I went to check his blood sugar at 0700, he was unresponsive with a FSBS of 23. Even after glucagon and an amp of D50, he was still comatose, and his sugars never got above 40 before we shipped him to the ICU. (He made it, but only by a whisker.)

Among some of the other patients I've had go south on me while staying in that particular room included an elderly gentleman who was in for pneumonia and suddenly had a massive lower GI bleed while sitting in up in a chair (egads, what a mess THAT was---his entire side of the room looked like the scene of a homicide); a frail 80-something lady who'd already been discharged when I came on and was just waiting for her family to pick her up when she suddenly vomited a glut of bright-red blood and God knew what else; a man who'd come in with what he thought was a bad stomach-ache that turned out to be a triple-A that had ruptured. He bled out into his belly and was dead within 2 hours. That room is CURSED, I tell you. :uhoh21:

[at your cervix]

Room 6 is no longer called room 6, it is offically "the Springer Room" That says it all!

[Krissy NY]

I am a CNA in LTC. It is funny that I read your post because tonight one of my co-workers said "isn't it funny how the new guy looks and acts just like George"

Our new admit seriously looks and acts just like the man b4 him, who passed away.

[kimmicoobug]

well, there is a room where I had two patients in two days have problems. Day one, low BP's, ARF, delusional...she sure got quiet after 0400. I went in there at 0700, to get a BS and she was pale and unresponsive with a blood sugar of 26. She got sent to ICU for BP's, and the next lady admitted was a patient with a 0300 BS, and a BS of 32. Plus, she was going into heart failure....God, what a week that was and those were my more easier problems to deal with that week.