Published
Anyone else have the issue where just because you're a nurse, your friends and family expect you to know everything about anything having to do with medicine? It's been happening since I was in nursing school and still continues. My family or friends will get sick (or their kids will get sick) and they'd call me describe symptoms and expect me to be able to tell them how to fix it or what was wrong right off the top of my head. And when I don't know the answer or I tell them "Why don't you go see a doctor?" Seven times out of ten the response I get from them is "Well you're a nurse, i figured you'd know..." Now it's even worse because my girlfriend just found out she's pregnant, so she's constantly calling (we're currently a long distance relationship) with questions she expects me to know the answers to when I've told her numerous times OB and maternity was and is not my thing AT ALL. And she actually gets upset when I don't have answers.
And while I like that they have the confidence in me to expect me to have the answers, it does tend to get old after a while. So who else has the issue with their loved ones expecting you to know anything and everything about medicine and nursing?
Is the grocery store nurse, or the neighborhood nurse I have heard so much about. I have been in school for three years, and have been working in health care for eight years, I get the same thing. Some people however, think that I have xray vision and can see if a bone is broken for sure. I also get asked questions about pregnancy, and other general health questions. My favorite however, is the questions that require a specialist to see.
Yeah, and how about when family and friends introduce you to their friends as she is an RN, so now you have even more people calling for advice.:uhoh21: Oh yeah, and how about when family members introduce you to any and everybvody as a nurse? I really hate that because although I love nuring,that is not who I am, its a job !
Oh I didn't even think about that one. I hate that. My sister used to tell all her friends I was a nurse so before I even met them they'd know and the first thing they'd say to me would be 'so you're the nurse?' My girlfriend did the same thing when we first started dating introducing me to her friends like this "This is Jay, he's a nurse." That used to really annoy me because then I'd have to spend half the night talking about being a nurse and answering their questions.
I play an online game and the other day one of the people that play with (of whom I don't know other than over the internet) sent me a message telling me he had been self medicating a tooth ache with his fathers oxy/vicodin. In total he took 60mg of Oxycontin and 2 vicodin back to back. He also said he was having chills, weakness and vomiting for about 12 hours.
I spent 30 minutes telling him EMPHATICALLY to go to the ER. To which he responded "I don't have insurance, so I am just going to go lay down" and promptly logged off.
That is the part of the "health questions". Don't ask me if you aren't going to follow my advice! GO SEE YOUR DOC!
Blah.
Tait
i've said that a time or two or ten, won't do it ever again though at least not anytime soon. i was having a day where i went from work to class and then back to work, with only about 4 hours of sleep fit in there, and on top of that both nights at work were awful, and i actually told my girlfriend to stop asking me and call the doctor (i'm sure it didn't come out sounding quite as nice) and it sent her into tears.
presumably if your girlfriend just found out she's pregnant, you have something to do with that. maybe she's calling you and asking you these questions because she thinks you might be interested.
I too have had this problem since I first entered nursing school and it's even worse since I finished. I was only second semester when I got a call from my grandmother about my mom at about midnight. Thank God I was right next door at the time b/c she was having a TIA. I tried to tell them to call the paramedics, but I had to go over there and do it myself b/c they asked then wouldn't listen. I'll get calls at 2am from my sister b/c her baby has a high temperature....and then she gets upset when I tell her to give him tylenol and motrin...so I tell her take him to the doctor or the ER. Her oldest one had a temp last year and was seizing and she called me first!!!....I screamed at her to call 911....finally she listened and he spent 6 days in the hospital. My aunt has cancer and my grandma is ALWAYS calling me asking me about this treatment and that drug that she is trying out....everytime I get these calls and I say I don't know, I get "why not, you are the nurse" It gets very frustrating. I am not a doctor and I can't give a diagnosis.
I would always give them what I thought it was, together with the most frightening fatal diagnosis possible - "well, Mom, it could be your sinuses, or you could have ruptured a cerebral aneurysm. Are you having any trouble moving your left arm?"For some reason, I don't get those questions nearly as often as I used to.
rofl, good advise, I never thought of that one! You also get the one "she USED to be a nurse" if you no longer do floor work. I first heard it when I started working in UM/CM.
Do some of you pre-nursing students get this? Even when you're not a nurse yet, some people still expect you to know things that you haven't even learned about? I'm not in nursing school yet, and one time when my mother-in-law was in the hospital, she thought I would know how to fix her IV! It kept beeping, and we didn't know why, so she told me, "Fix it for me." As much as I would like to know how, there was nothing I could do. Geez!
I'm excited about becoming a nurse, but I'm not even in nursing school yet!!
my neighbor approached me yesterday and said "I fell off my bike and hit my rib. It hurts so bad. Whenever i breathe, the pain just gets worse and worse. I can barely move without extreme pain. Can you tell me what's wrong?"... Me: "Uh, I recommend you go to the emergency room" Neighbor: "oh, ...ok"
presumably if your girlfriend just found out she's pregnant, you have something to do with that. maybe she's calling you and asking you these questions because she thinks you might be interested.
yea i had a alot to do with it. i didn't mean to sound insensitive about the whole thing. i'm extremely excited and interested about her pregnancy. i drove ten hours back home to go to the doctors appointment and hear the heartbeat. i'm as inviolved as i can be while we're living so far apart.
but being interested still doesn't give me all the answers and it makes me feel bad when i don't have them for her. everyone else i can blow off whatever reaction they have to my i don't know style answers.
Jaybird310
116 Posts
See the that's not my field doesn't seem to work with anyone I know. I guess because I'm in the ER I'm suppose to know absolutely everything, I mean we don't have doctors or consults or anything like that. Half the time when I shrug and inform them I have no clue, I get the response of "well haven't you ever had to deal with that before, surely you have it's the ER." Just because I work in ER doesn't mean that I have any idea why your eye won't stop twitching and you're stomach is cramping. I'm not a textbook.