I have two doozies for you. I was working on a very busy and desperately understaffed general surgical ward. We had a patient come back from major abdominal surgery (excision of a bowel ca and formation of a stoma) who almost immediately started to go down the tubes BP of 60/30 HR 140 you get the picture. I fast-bleeped his team then escalated to a crash call. We worked on him a good two hours, got him stable then transferred him to HDU (he came through just fine) I was three hours over my shift time dealing with this critically sick patient.
Arriving for work the next day the Ward Manager calls me into her office and gives me a right royal telling-off for not doing a toe dressing on the patient in the opposite bed (hernia repair, slight graze on toe) When I said I'd had a full-blown crisis situation to deal with her response was "Well you could have asked someone else to do it" Words failed me at that point.
The second delightful occasion (on the same ward) was a lady in diabetic acidosis. Full on emergency. As we were working on her a relative of another patient in that bay opened the curtains around the bed and yelled at us "My mother wants a cup of tea". The medical registrar basically read her the riot act. Result? Official complaint against that doctor.
HEADDESK.
Can anyone top these fine examples of human tolerance and decency?
I had a patient in a 4 bed room. She did not have a nightstand to put all of her belongings in but I told her that her roommate was getting discharged and she could have it. When the other pt left, the husband wheeled it over... leaving it in front of the bathroom door. Being the considerate person I am, I moved the nightstand to the other side of her bed so that the other patients would be able to get to the bathroom. Of course she had a hissy fit, saying she was going to file a complaint because she wouldn't be able to reach her stuff.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
One of my patients was complaining because his chef salad contained iceberg lettuce instead of romaine lettuce. This same guy was also whining about the fact that the facility didn't serve sirloin steaks. He was a very picky eater.
starzburst
80 Posts
I had a patient in a 4 bed room. She did not have a nightstand to put all of her belongings in but I told her that her roommate was getting discharged and she could have it. When the other pt left, the husband wheeled it over... leaving it in front of the bathroom door. Being the considerate person I am, I moved the nightstand to the other side of her bed so that the other patients would be able to get to the bathroom. Of course she had a hissy fit, saying she was going to file a complaint because she wouldn't be able to reach her stuff.