Lies my mother told me

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Specializes in Neuroscience.

Okay, so not my mother actually ???.

What is a big fat whopper of a lie you've gotten in report? Maybe not with any malicious intent, but because the nurse handing off had vastly different experience than you will...

I'll start:

"Patient X is Pleasantly confused" ??

30 minutes later...Walk into pleasantly confused patients room....

Pt completely ungowned, de-sheeted, & playing with their member. Turns to look at me with a rather interesting leer, and says "Mother says I've been a BAAAAAD BOY," licks lips in exaggerated manner and continues with their, e-hem, business.

?????‍♀️

(I should add here in my state, older folks will often refer to their wives as Mother)

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

Well, Merrie, I wouldn't call them lies per se- merely misconceptions as a result of amotivation due to apathy.

I was told in report that a geriatric psych patient was just attention-seeking, c/o GI distress. I noted that he was RX lithium, and after an assessment, consulting with an NP, etc. found he was toxic.

On the male psych unit, was told in report that a patient was a attention-seeking meth head. Once again, after an assessment, consulting with an NP, etc. found he was septic with a WBC count of 31,000.

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Specializes in Neuroscience.
3 hours ago, Davey Do said:

Well, Merrie, I wouldn't call them lies per se- merely misconceptions as a result of amotivation due to apathy.

I was told in report that a geriatric psych patient was just attention-seeking, c/o GI distress. I noted that he was RX lithium, and after an assessment, consulting with an NP, etc. found he was toxic.

On the male psych unit, was told in report that a patient was a attention-seeking meth head. Once again, after an assessment, consulting with an NP, etc. found he was septic with a WBC count of 31,000.

Wow! Those are some serious things to miss ?. I have a family member with a mental health dx who deals with the "its all in your head/this is attn seeking behavior" routine fairly often. 1x she needed her gallbladder removed. Another time she had gone to the Dr several times bc she thought she was in menopause and was having some issues, and they kept saying no you are too young. I gave her the name of the test to ask for and the phrasing to use with the Dr. They did the blood test the next time she went and sure enough, she's started the change at age 40. 

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Specializes in NICU/Mother-Baby/Peds/Mgmt.
On 4/5/2021 at 10:27 PM, Merrie82 said:

Okay, so not my mother actually ???.

What is a big fat whopper of a lie you've gotten in report? Maybe not with any malicious intent, but because the nurse handing off had vastly different experience than you will...

I'll start:

"Patient X is Pleasantly confused" ??

30 minutes later...Walk into pleasantly confused patients room....

Pt completely ungowned, de-sheeted, & playing with their member. Turns to look at me with a rather interesting leer, and says "Mother says I've been a BAAAAAD BOY," licks lips in exaggerated manner and continues with their, e-hem, business.

?????‍♀️

(I should add here in my state, older folks will often refer to their wives as Mother)

Well, HE was having a pleasant time! ?

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Specializes in Urgent Care, Emergency Department.

Was once told a patient was "pink, warm, and dry with no breathing difficulties". Walked in to find a blue-grey diaphoretic individual who was intubated less than 5 minutes later. Yikes! 

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Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.

When working agency, I, a critical care nurse, got a call one evening to see if I would go to the county hospital to give a unit of blood on the psych floor, because none of the nurses there remembered how or felt comfortable c it. So in I went, remembering to leave my ever-present pocket knife in my car because they wouldn't let me in a locked unit c it anyway.

Pt is a pale looking woman, lying in bed, crazy as a loon (told you I'm not a psych nurse) but she didn't give me a hard time, so I did the deed and sat c her. Later I asked the nurse why she needed blood. "Oh, she's been having some bloody diarrhea in her bed for a few days, but she's just acting out." Ahhh, OK.... so has anybody thought about calling the surgery resident for a consult? Well, no, nobody had, so I did. He arrived just as I was leaving.

Came in the next morning for a shift on a surgical floor, and there's my lady, crazy still, but on the schedule for surgery due to her big GI bleed.... but no, she's just acting out.

I guess that doesn't really qualify as an actual lie, because the nurse did tell me about several days worth of bloody diarrhea, but it was kind of misleading ...

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Specializes in retired LTC.

Hannah - WOW is all I can say. Uh, who ordered the blood without ordering the CBC first?

Weird, but crazier things do happen ....

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Specializes in Primary Care, Military.
On 4/10/2021 at 9:05 PM, amoLucia said:

Hannah - WOW is all I can say. Uh, who ordered the blood without ordering the CBC first?

Weird, but crazier things do happen ....

The really sad thing is that I've seen crap like this happen all the time in inpatient psych. Septic patients, patients actually having an acute MI/CVA, subdural hematoma, or in DTs and no one wants to actually see beyond their psychiatric diagnoses to the emergency in front of their eyes. I saw so many patients inappropriately admitted to psych that desperately needed medical admission or transferred to psych before they were well because the medical floors just couldn't handle them anymore and it caused poor outcomes. Many asked when I didn't go for PMHNP instead of FNP, and honestly watching my patients not get the medical care they needed is why I chose to go the medical route. Psychiatric patients desperately need allies in the general medical world. 

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Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.

When working psych I accepted a transfer of a  little old lady from the medical floor.  Despite several doses of perphenazine, she was still "psychotic".  Our psych resident even cleared her medically for transfer.

On arrival to the unit she demonstrated severe echolalia and was plainly delirious, not psychotic.  We raised a ruckus and she turned out to have neuroleptic malignant syndrome.  Needless to say, we didn't give her any more perphenazine for awhile.

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