Just Need To Vent

[king_of_the_hill_fan]

Ugh! I just got home from a crazy shift. I have a 30 patient hall and work the PM shift. Today was just one of those days...

But what was really getting to me was there is a patient who apparently has a cough. This phantom cough seems to only appear when the resident's daughter is visiting. Today she heard the phantom cough and requested his PRN cough medicine, then proceeded to tell me how stupid it was of us and our doctors to prescribe a cough medicine PRN. She thinks we should all take cough medicine round the clock until the cough is gone. I explained to her our policy is to give cough medicine PRN, especially since his chest x-ray came back negative/clear. She decided to call the doctor who's NP promptly called me to tell me to have a new order for cough medicine q6h. All my co-nurses haven't heard this cough and the PRN was only given once since this cough came to be noticed.

So that's mildly irritating. But since it was just one of those days, I had a resident hit another resident (incident report time!), 2 new skin tears, PRN pain med requests, etc and so on. I do my charting at the end of shift, which tonight included the 2 new skin tears. Well, 11pm is too late to notify the responsible party of the new skin tear, so I left a note for the AM shift to do it (and if they don't no biggie I can call when I get there tomorrow). Tell me why another nurse from a whole different station decided to come over and question me and my co-nurse for the night why we were there until 1 a.m. doing paper work? My co-nurse explained to her we were both really busy and had lots of "incidents". Different station nurse decided to lecture us about the need to call the RPs (resp party) on the spot for each new occurrence. Why was it any business of hers? I'm getting tired of the old "seasoned" nurses who have been there since the turn of the century lecturing me and "criticizing" the way I run my shift.

Am I being too sensitive? Yah, maybe. And I'm not really that bent about now that I'm home and off my feet. But, I was pretty irked earlier and wanted feedback from my fellow nurses.

[itsmejuli]

Sometimes a good vent is what we need to blow off steam. :)

[headinsandRN]

I can almost feel the pressure you were under from reading your post so I vote no, you are not being too sensitive.

Sorry about your rough day.

Hope your next shift is less intense and mike tyson md stays home.

[favthing, APRN]

With all the outside stressors like you experienced, and then to have that added stressor of a nurse who's your co-worker and should understand is just over the top! You'd think nurses would support one another, not tear down further another nurse's morale. It's so sad. Well, you've got support from your allnurses "collegues"! Good luck, and remember that unfortunately we've all been there and going to be more, so take extra care of yourself!

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

Venting is a good thing.

It keeps us from strangling the life out of the PITA people in our lives....

[steelcityrn, RN]

Yes a good vent is good. Phantom cough is difficult, as its hard to explain to the family that you don't believe its legit. Now if it was my mother and it was a true cough, I would want the cough med ordered round the clock for 2-3 days, then decrease to prn to make sure she got it. As far as calling family right away with a incident regardless of the time, I would make sure it was you that call, and to explain it was 11pm or whatever late time it was. Sometimes families want called regardless of the time. As far as nurses coming over to mind your business, a good line is "are you all caught up on your work already?". That always makes them nervous, seems uneven that one group has been so busy, the other has enough time to be nosey.

[king_of_the_hill_fan]

Thanks everyone! It sure does feel good to have support from my fellow allnurses nurses! I like that "are you all caught up on your work" line....I'll use that next time : )