Just Because You're a Nurse

Flare, ASN, BSN · Nov 10, 2008

I work as a school nurse - where a great deal of my day is spent having kids come in saying "mommy told me to let you listen to my lungs - i'm coughing a lot" or "mommy wants you to look at this rash and call her and tell her what it is". I get irritated, because 99% of these kids should have been kept home. The parents of my students expect me to be able to do everything short of writing out a prescription. I tell them over and over that I am not allowed to make any diagnosis - which usually falls on deaf ears.

Tait, MSN, RN · Nov 10, 2008

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.

I had to chuckle at this because I do this a LOT to my charge nurse/hypochondriac best friend.

I also got my dad to stop asking for BP's when I would go home by telling him it was $25 per check.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Nov 10, 2008

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.

you might buy a couple of copies of "what to expect when you're expecting" or something similar. keep one and send one to your girlfriend. read up on the stage of pregnancy she's in now. then you'll have the answers (or at least some of them) and she'll have them, too. she's probably still going to call you, but then you can refer her to the right chapter to answer her questions and still sound like an authority. besides, aren't you really dying to know what she's going through with your son or daughter?

deyo321 · Nov 10, 2008

Yes I get this alot too and it is frustrating.

The flip side for me is when my BF is sick. He wont even take motrin on my advice, but if his mother says to....

'Course thats probably more a relationship issue...LOL

Gr8Dane · Nov 11, 2008

I just shrug my shoulders and tellem to call their Doctor in the morning if they want.

gentlegiver, ASN, LPN, RN · Nov 11, 2008

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?

I usually tell them to look it up on a website (I'll find it for them) but caution them not to panic over what they read. And they are so used of me telling them "it's outside my scope of practice to diagnose" that they now repeat it to me ver-batem. But they still call and ask questions. I advise them to see a Dr., use the website info to ask questions, and call me if they really don't understand what the Dr says and I'd try to explain it to them in normal people talk not medical speak.

teeniebert, LPN · Nov 11, 2008

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

...did he LIVE?!?

MzMouse · Nov 11, 2008

Yes I get this alot too and it is frustrating.
The flip side for me is when my BF is sick. He wont even take motrin on my advice, but if his mother says to....
'Course thats probably more a relationship issue...LOL

:lol2: My husband has the same issue. His mom, coworker or any person on the street gives him medical advice he believes it completely. He puts no faith in what I tell him.

Jaybird310 · Nov 11, 2008

you might buy a couple of copies of "what to expect when you're expecting" or something similar. keep one and send one to your girlfriend. read up on the stage of pregnancy she's in now. then you'll have the answers (or at least some of them) and she'll have them, too. she's probably still going to call you, but then you can refer her to the right chapter to answer her questions and still sound like an authority. besides, aren't you really dying to know what she's going through with your son or daughter?

oh i'm dying to know everything, and i hate being ten hours away and missing it all. and i actually had a co worker make the same suggestion to me, only she suggested jenny mccarthy's book on pregnancy. she said it'll help her understand that it's all normal. which it is. but the honey i'm pretty sure that's normal, is not the answer she ever wants from me. she wants firm reassuring medical advice from me, and ob and maternity just isn't my thing. i guess i'd better make it my thing though. of course watch by the time i make it my thing, she'll stop asking me for medical advice.

sxybuttrfly · Nov 11, 2008

agreez wit husker... it d0ez g0 wit da j0b! but alth0ugh we may n0t be able 2 dx friendz/family- we can pr0vide pertinent questi0nz 2 ask thier pcp:twocents:

Bortaz, MSN, RN · Nov 11, 2008

My grandma asks me, "Look at this place on my arm. What is it?"

Haha. "This place" sounds just like east Texas and makes me miss home.

Just the other day, I left school and went to the barber shop (in my scrubs) and spent a half hour telling the barber girls that I was just a student, and couldn't really diagnose all their ailments and those of their entire family.

I finally did what my mom always did when we were kids. I told them "Put some aloe vera on it. Just break the plant and rub it on the spot!"

allnurses Guide · Nov 11, 2008

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.[/quote
2 possible answers to this:
"no, tonight I'm not a nurse, I'm a (party goer, boy friend, brother)
or
"yeah, I am. Consult fees start at $60 an hour, when do you want to start?":yeah: