My recent experience as a "family member" in the hospital

cwazycwissyRN, RN · Mar 10, 2004

ainz,

Sorry you had a negative experience. I also had a family member in the hospital........it was interesting watching the different care levels provided by each nurse. Most were very great at what they did. Awesome even. There were the few that were not.

I do think it is apparent why you are not on here often anymore.

I am not administration...management. I am a nurse. I enjoyed the thought provoking posts that you have made in the past. Definitely makes one think.

Hope your wife is doing well.

People will always move toward anyone who increases them and away from others who devalue them.

You have increased my value by challenging my thoughts. Never been a defencive player where you are concerned....never really saw you as management or administration, always tried to treat you like a person with an oppinion...just like the rest of us.

Don't find fault; find a remedy

I enjoy John Maxwell and his quotes needless to say. Good luck ainz

watersnake · Mar 11, 2004

Hi-

Sorry, I'm new to this board, and sent a duplicate...snake

watersnake · Mar 11, 2004

watersnake

Join Date: Mar 2004

Location: Texas

Age: 50

Posts: 2

It's all about money

AINZ,

Texas is a different world as they would have you believe. I'm from the St. Louis area, and last I worked there healthcare is just a bit better so far as an opportunity to pocket a few bucks. But anyway, there is no excuse for shoddy care or rudeness, period. I am worked to the max of my abilities, too, and I always try to find a way to make my patient's experience and level of anxiety better. I get called down on this on a regular basis, though I am not wasting time, but incorperating it into the care.

Let's put it country simple: 3 things the "healthcare industry" fears:

1.) Ethics: We, (or 'they') finally managed to get most of the nuns out of a Catholic hospital. I am on an ethics committee which exists only on paper, and has never met. If biomedical ethics were somewhere near the top of the list, the hospital and physician lose time and money meeting standards.

2.) Staff cohesiveness and regard for one another: In any given unit,this is more threatening than a union to administrators. They don't know who to target, staff is in a more powerful position with regard to administration, and the threat of losing a good staff on short notice hangs over their head. Ergo, they try to keep the staff as disgruntled as possible. Lao Tzu pointed out that employee vs employer is the most unproductive positition that can exist. However when problems arise, money is thrown at the problem which ends up somewhere, and the problem is seldom resolved in a rational manner.

3.) Attendence to patient and family psychosocial needs: Takes up time, and it is easier to dismiss the patient and family in need as "nuts", especially when they want to participate in their own care and decisions. Funny that if Psychiatry is a valid field of medicine, and a patient is "nuts", there is no consult. A diabetic is not spoken of disparagingly, and they get consults. But look through the DMS VI and amaze yourself with some of the criteria of mental disorder. Malingering by faking mental disorder is classified as a mental disorder.

I have never heard of the "Legal industry", "Political industry", "Law enforcement industry (watch that speedometer after the mid month)", and I could go on and on. The term "Health care industry" is an obcenity, especially when you consider that people come to us and willingly ask and trust us to assault them in hopes of getting better. We have a sworn mission that we are often prevented from fulfilling.

Perhaps after 23 years I am a dinosour, I don't know. I know I could never be anything more than a trench soldier in this field. I have too often seen that the higher you go, the worse you must treat your fellow man to maintain that position, no reflection on you as administrator.

So my advice is to raise a ruckus about the care you were party to, and a saccharine little lady will come and blow sunshine at you, and you may even get a fruit basket at some institutions. That will make it all better.---snake

p.s.---A noted jurist was famous for following the following principle; "Que Bono..(who benefits?)

labree · Apr 14, 2004

:crying2: all nurses should read your observation. i lost my father to chf and my mother to alzeheimers, and i had to file a complaint with the hospital my father was in because of the way the nurses treated us and my father as he was dieing. the night he died, we were urging the nurses to call the doctor (he was sob, diaphoretic, and filling with fluid) they told us to leave and turned all the lights out in his room... he layed in a totally dark room, struggling to breathe. we contacted his cardiologist ourselves...but he died that night. all during his stay, their attitudes sucked everytime we asked them to do something. they were negligent and irresponsible with his care the whole 4 days he was there. it was a nightmare for us all, and i will never forget it.

now i know not all nurses are like that...but what's up with that? where is the compassion? when my mother was dieing, shortly after that (a different hospital,) it was a similiar situation...it's not all that uncommon. we were losing our father and mother...and they behaved like they were annoyed with us!

i don't care if your tired, overworked and under paid. if you've lost your ability to feel compasion as a nurse that move on to another profession. we need compasionate nurses. nurses need to know, it is not about them. this proffession is about helping people who are sick. that's what a nurse does.

i am close to getting my r.n. and have worked in the medical field for 15 years. i will never forget what those experiences felt like, and i vow to never be that kind of nurse, and to always try to practice kindness, compassion, dignity and respect towards all my patients and their families. even the difficult ones. every nurse (and doctor) should experience what it is like being on the other side of the story. maybe it would change them for the better.

(sorry...i still have some resentment left as you can see)

labreez

being a rn, hospital administrator, and relatively healthy, it has been quite some time since i experienced being in the hospital as a family member where no one knew me or what i did.
what an eye-opener!! i just spent 3 days with my wife while she was a patient. i sat back and observed and was the "family member." i could go on and on but will make some general statements about this experience. it started with the nurse who was starting my wife's iv and dropped the sterile iv site dressing on the floor, she picked it up and proceeded to place it on my wife's iv site. when i kindly and gently asked her not to do that her reply was "well we do clean our floors." i thought she was joking but she was not.
generally, the nursing staff was rude. all but 2 of the nursing staff that worked with us behaved in a way that communicated to us that we were an irritant and a bother. i was appalled and disappointed in my chosen profession. everything was about the nurse, how busy they were, how overworked they were, how short staffed they were, how they insisted we must follow the hospital policies that no one bothered to explain, etc. etc.
during the few explanation of procedures that we received, when we attempted to ask a question the nurses would talk over us and seemed annoyed that we had interrupted their lesson to us. they talked down to us. i could go on and on.
nurses--it is not about us, it is about the patient. it costs nothing to smile, have a good attitude, and focus on your patient's needs and not your own while you are at work. what is going on with healthcare in this country?

labree · Apr 14, 2004

i know nurses are overburdened.....i know we are underpayed..and under appreciated...this whole system sucks...that's why hospitals are going under everywhere ....but the quality of care we do give should still be good, and we still need to be compassionate...if you cannot handle the pressure, and you feel like a broken nurse...and i do understand where you are coming from, in a situation like yours, maybe the liability is to high and you should quit. i refuse to take on more patients than i can handle, and my nursing manager knows it... but being rude and aggitated with patients and/or their families who are in crisis already...is maybe an indication you need a break...or maybe just should not be in this profession.

some people really cannot handle the pressure, it's not in their psyche...so be a librarian, or work in a nursery... change your circumstances ..because nursing will always be stressful. people will be irrational, irritable and difficult (sometimes down right mean) when they, or their loved ones are sick and/or dieing. you kind of make it sound like the patients should suffer, if you are overworked. not the way it should be. you should try to do something about why you are in the position you are...overworked, under appreciated, and not respected....go to your administrator....lobby for nurses....but use your frustration to do something about it...not snapping at patients and/or patients families. that's an indication you should take a brake! it never was only about the nurse and it never should be!

by the way i am in no way stating there is not a problem with the heirarchy and the bureaucracy in our hospitals..i for one have lobbyed for nurses and written letters to our assemblymen. not enough money goes to nurses. we have to continue to try to change that!

labreez

very sad, indeed.

do you not think that nurses, too, are saddened, even heartbroken that it has come to this? do you not think that they would far prefer to be and do all that they had envisioned while still in school?

what you saw was the very direct result of being overburdoned. it will show in our everyday interactions with our patients... you can feel the heavy air, the stress crawling on your skin.

no.. it is not the patient's fault. no, the patient should not have to be the victim.

rather than telling us, the everyday floor nurses, what you experienced, you should be sending a wake-up call loud and clear to your fellow administrators... how their practices are affecting the nurses who are to provide kind, compassionate, and competent care to the hospital's "clients".

ainz, in the end, (sorry to diappoint you) it is about the nurse... if the patient is to receive the care which he or she deserves. a broken nurse cannot repair a broken patient.

a content, satisfied, and respected nurse is able to give of herself because she has something left of herself to give.

happy nurse=happy patient.

not that it is ever acceptable to be rude... but we might as well be prepared to expect it, given the current conditions.

fergus51 · Apr 14, 2004

Labreez, with all due respect, that is exactly the type of argument that contributes to the problem. (Don't like being overworked? Just quit then.) Where does that leave the rest of the unit? Even more short staffed and the quality of care gets even worse. If you think nurses should still be able to provide great care if they are completely overburdened, you must not have been in that situation before. It is physically impossible for me to be in 2 or 3 places at once, so reasonable staffing levels are necessary for me to maintain good patient care. Jnette pointed out clearly that the patient should not have to suffer because of a bad working environment, but logically what do people expect to happen? Everyone suffers from it, including the nurse. Have you ever met a nursing student who said "I want to provide substandard care when I graduate!"?

I don't know if you can understand how demoralizing it is to be doing everything in your power for your patients and their families only for it to never be enough and to hear, "Well, if you can't cut it, quit". Unfortunately a lot of nurses do.

askater11 · Apr 14, 2004

Sorry about the care.

I tell you I was in your stance. My dad was hospitalized in the hospital I worked at. (at the time) I bragged about my hospital experience--we had staffing better than most hospitals on MY unit.

Than I urged my dad to come to my hospital--his 1st experience wasn't bad at all. The care he said was good. Hated the food both experiences though. He lost a lot of weight because he didn't like the food--also he was being difficult and won't accept "outside" food.

Stay number two was so pathetic. Nurses were not happy--I could see it in their faces. They were abrupt. His roommate was moved out--the gentleman had an N.G.--some of the bile was on the wall. I thought after the housekeeping cleans that room there will be no bile on the wall. Nope the following day the bile was still on the wall. My dad asked for pain medication it took 1/2 hour to receive it.

After being at that hospital I learned the differences in staffing. The 1st unit my dad was on had better staffing matrixes than the other unit. I learned with his stays what a different staffing matrix can do for patient care. It was a learning experience for me.

askater11 · Apr 14, 2004

I'm sorry you don't like your hospital experience. You were obviously not at my hospital--most of our nurses bend over to do their best to help family and patients with any questions. Most days I don't get a break--because I'm helping my patient/families to the fullest I can with the staffing matrix I have. Luckily I enjoy Zone bars because that's usually my meal.

I love being a nurse.

Someone mentioned not telling patients about staffing matrixes. I've been asked that and I do tell people. I do tell my family and friends about the experiences I have endured at different hospitals. I do urges my family and friends to do research before they enter the hospital--one thing is looking at nurse patient ratios. A better nurse patient ratio = better hospital outcomes.

I've learned a lot about hospitals since I've been a nurse. I've had to switch through 3 different hospitals to find the "optimal" hospital to work at. I went on interviews to all the local hospitals and got job offers at all hospitals and denied them all--but now I'm working at the hospital with the best conditions. Believe me--it is by far not perfect. But the public must be aware of hospital conditions.

I'm not a nurse, but, if you don't mind, I'd like to put in my two cents.
(By way of background, my mother-in-law had a massive CVA on January 1, and I found this site while researching strokes, analgesics and hospices on line. As I say, I'm not a nurse, but a number of my family members are doctors, nurses or pharmacists. I'm 43, and I've been to college and grad school).
That being said, I'm afraid that I had a similar experience with the first posting, in a well-regarded hospital in New York City.
I tried very hard to be respectful of the hospital staff, but they were consistently non-supportive and non-communicative, often to the point of rudeness. Questions about my mother-in-law's care or meds, or even asking the nurse's name, were met with suspicion, and this posed a serious problem when the hospice staff later asked the most basic questions which we could not answer.
As a previous post said, it wouldn't have taken one extra second to have been polite, or to have let us see the file (my wife and I are familiar with medical records and my wife was the health care proxy and entitled to know the facts in order to make decisions).
Most importantly, the nursing staff did not bother to hide the fact that they disagreed, often quite strongly, with our trying to honor the terms of my mother-in-law's living will, and this at a time that we needed support more than ever.
About the difficulty in obtaining pain medication, the less said the better.
I understand that the staff was very busy, and I understand that they could have used more help. But we really didn't want the Hospital Director's letter of apology, received after the funeral: we needed support when it counted.

labree · Apr 14, 2004

Fergus,

Also, with all due respect....you can continue what you are doing, continue to be overworked, overwhelmed, and continue to give substandard care because you can't be in two places at once. You can continue to be short tempered with patients and families......and what does that solve? I think it hurts everyone. You are not working effectively or even efficiently. Have you ever had a loved one in the hospital who was dieing..and felt so out of the loop, because the nurses won't answer your questions or tend to your family members needs? Talk about demoralizing! You feel helpless not to mention angry. As a nurse, it is harder than ever...because you know what is happening...but they cont to treat you like s____. Patients and patients families need you to be caring and attentive. I have worked in units that are understaffed and the only thing that prompted change was nurses speaking up, quitting and/or orgainize and striking. Unfortunately those are the only things that will likely promote change eventually. The administration should absorb the liability and should take the heat, not you, and certainly not the patient. I know it is not an easy thing to do... Sorry, I don't have any easy answers, but nurses who are negligent, and short of compassion and tolerance with patients because they are stressed do more harm than good.

Labreez

Labreez, with all due respect, that is exactly the type of argument that contributes to the problem. (Don't like being overworked? Just quit then.) Where does that leave the rest of the unit? Even more short staffed and the quality of care gets even worse. If you think nurses should still be able to provide great care if they are completely overburdened, you must not have been in that situation before. It is physically impossible for me to be in 2 or 3 places at once, so reasonable staffing levels are necessary for me to maintain good patient care. Jnette pointed out clearly that the patient should not have to suffer because of a bad working environment, but logically what do people expect to happen? Everyone suffers from it, including the nurse. Have you ever met a nursing student who said "I want to provide substandard care when I graduate!"?
I don't know if you can understand how demoralizing it is to be doing everything in your power for your patients and their families only for it to never be enough and to hear, "Well, if you can't cut it, quit". Unfortunately a lot of nurses do.

fergus51 · Apr 14, 2004

Fergus,
Also, with all due respect....you can continue what you are doing, continue to be overworked, overwhelmed, and continue to give substandard care because you can't be in two places at once. You can continue to be short tempered with patients and families......and what does that solve? I think it hurts everyone. You are not working effectively or even efficiently. Have you ever had a loved one in the hospital who was dieing..and felt so out of the loop, because the nurses won't answer your questions or tend to your family members needs? Talk about demoralizing! You feel helpless not to mention angry. As a nurse, it is harder than ever...because you know what is happening...but they cont to treat you like s____. Patients and patients families need you to be caring and attentive. I have worked in units that are understaffed and the only thing that prompted change was nurses speaking up, quitting and/or orgainize and striking. Unfortunately those are the only things that will likely promote change eventually. The administration should absorb the liability and should take the heat, not you, and certainly not the patient. I know it is not an easy thing to do... Sorry, I don't have any easy answers, but nurses who are negligent, and short of compassion and tolerance with patients because they are stressed do more harm than good.
Labreez

Just for the record here, I don't provide substandard care and I am never rude with families. Never. Believe me, I have eaten some s**t from families and not let my tongue go. Unfortunately, a nurse can bend over backwards and still have families become offended by something. I work in an environment where I do have good ratios, but that doesn't mean I can be in 2 places at once, can you? I had one mother b*tch me out for not being right there to pick up her child and hand it to her when she walked in, nevermind the fact that I was involved in a CODE!!! This woman apparently expected me to stop doing chest compressions to come over and hand her the baby. She felt I was providing substandard care. I feel I was prioritizing and even if she is offended, I wouldn't change what I did. I am human, I can only be in one place at a time and I was where I needed to be. I was innatentive to that other mother for a good 45 minutes and that's not ideal, but I couldn't help that. Why should I be made to feel guilty for that?

I have been in the hospital with sick and dying family members. And I have dealt with some rude nurses, which I adressed at the time. I just find that they are not representative of the majority of nurses out there.

Most nurses want to provide good care. We don't sit at the desk dreaming up ways to screw families over. It is only natural for family members to be focused on their patient only, but if the nurse has 12 patients she can seem inattentive when she is only trying to get it all done in the time she has. Telling her to quit is just insane to me (even if we ignore the fact that many nurses don't have the luxury of being able to simply quit a job). It needs to be dealt with at the administrative level. Nurses who are just rude should be fired, but in my experience if ALL the nurses are being short tempered it probably has something to do with the working conditions. I mean, what are the odds that a unit would ONLY hire evil uncaring meanies? Many nurses are working to improve their work environments, but that doesn't mean things are there yet or that they should quit because they haven't solved all their unit's problems.

I guess I just think nurses shouldn't ever be rude, but family members also need to be realistic about how much time the nurse can spend with them and that the nurse has little choice in that. Most of us aren't private duty nurses.

I also think family members shouldn't be rude. I don't think anyone should be rude. There is no reason for it.

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Apr 15, 2004

I have had relatives dying in the hospital.

And I have to say prayers for ANY nurse that has to have contact with them. Because the StepWitch and Dad's siblings are rotten spoiled pains in the derriere, for whom nothing is right.

If I had one more braindead family member that got mad at the "nurse" (frequently actually a dietary aide, EKG tech, or RT) that wouldn't give them private info, I would say something that would get me excommunicated (which really wouldn't be a bad idea).

When one is sick, "nothing" is going to be right to anyone involved. But try to put some of the blame on the right cause: cheap administrators, red tape, and paperwork, rather than those that now bear the brunt, frequently unfairly so.

labree · Apr 15, 2004

Fergus,

I'm not pointing fingers @ you... or anyone specific...but we all know there are just mean snottty nurses out there...not the majority (I believe) and we know there are just mean snotty people out there too (patients and their family members) ...hopefully, not the majority either. I am aware it can be difficult to deal with some of the patients and their families. But I think that as a nurse, part of our job is learning how to let it roll off your back......if you take everything, everyone says to you personally, you will get very resentful and defensive. The b____h mother you refered to was clearly out of line....but you explain calmly where you had to be ("Sorry, one of my patients was dieing and it had to be my priority, what can I do for you now?") and you may not get an apology....but still you try to understand (get into the mind set) that she probably knows she is not being fair to you, in fact her attitude probably had really nothing to do with you...her rudeness and irrationallity comes from: Her fear and worry about her little girl who is sick and in the hospital.... we have to try to block it out of our psyche (not let it affect us)...because we know we are good at what we do...we know she is an emotional b_____) so we detach...as nurses often have to do for many reasons) I have a much harder time with detaching if I start to care too much about my patients...I mean sometimes we are with certain patients for months...and if they are terminal...as they are dying, they become like friends sometimes! we get to know them and we start to care a lot about them...but we have to get in the mind set to detatch...do what we can for them while they are alive, and then again detach .....because we can't be good nurses if we fall apart everytime someone dies now, can we?

Like I said before...I certainly don't have all the answers and maybe this won't even make sense to you...but it is what I try to do.

Labreez:rolleyes:

Just for the record here, I don't provide substandard care and I am never rude with families. Never. Believe me, I have eaten some s**t from families and not let my tongue go. Unfortunately, a nurse can bend over backwards and still have families become offended by something. I work in an environment where I do have good ratios, but that doesn't mean I can be in 2 places at once, can you? I had one mother b*tch me out for not being right there to pick up her child and hand it to her when she walked in, nevermind the fact that I was involved in a CODE!!! This woman apparently expected me to stop doing chest compressions to come over and hand her the baby. She felt I was providing substandard care. I feel I was prioritizing and even if she is offended, I wouldn't change what I did. I am human, I can only be in one place at a time and I was where I needed to be. I was innatentive to that other mother for a good 45 minutes and that's not ideal, but I couldn't help that. Why should I be made to feel guilty for that?
I have been in the hospital with sick and dying family members. And I have dealt with some rude nurses, which I adressed at the time. I just find that they are not representative of the majority of nurses out there.
Most nurses want to provide good care. We don't sit at the desk dreaming up ways to screw families over. It is only natural for family members to be focused on their patient only, but if the nurse has 12 patients she can seem inattentive when she is only trying to get it all done in the time she has. Telling her to quit is just insane to me (even if we ignore the fact that many nurses don't have the luxury of being able to simply quit a job). It needs to be dealt with at the administrative level. Nurses who are just rude should be fired, but in my experience if ALL the nurses are being short tempered it probably has something to do with the working conditions. I mean, what are the odds that a unit would ONLY hire evil uncaring meanies? Many nurses are working to improve their work environments, but that doesn't mean things are there yet or that they should quit because they haven't solved all their unit's problems.
I guess I just think nurses shouldn't ever be rude, but family members also need to be realistic about how much time the nurse can spend with them and that the nurse has little choice in that. Most of us aren't private duty nurses.
I also think family members shouldn't be rude. I don't think anyone should be rude. There is no reason for it.