Recently at work a son of one of my patients has really taken the cake. He arrived to visit mom while I was finishing my assessment & medicating her for pain, and waited outside the room while I was doing so. I came out to tell him that she was all set & he could go in and visit. Son proceeds to go on about how he had diarrhea all morning (at this point I just ignored those comments, given that I don't care abt his bathroom habits considering he's not my patient.) I went on about making my rounds.
20 minutes later, I was down the hall in another patient's room doing my assessment & meeting the patient (as I had never cared for him before.) Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone inside the doorway, hesitating. I went to turn around and started to say "come in" as I thought it may have been a family member of this pt, and I was just finishing vital signs, so it was nothing too personal.
Once I turned around, I realized it was that son! I told him politely, but firmly- "I'm with another patient right now. You are going to need to wait outside please." He scurried out, looking absolutely shocked that I couldn't attend to his questions at that very second. Imagine the nerve of me assessing my patients!
I talked to the other nurse that was out at the desk when he had gone looking for me...she told me what his concern was about his mother---it was something I had already discussed with him MULTIPLE times, and told him that her MD was aware and the situation being looked in to. (Being purposefully vague, but the subject of his concern is not as high priority on her problem list as other medical issues are.)
Seriously--If he had walked into the room to say "Excuse me nurse my mother can't breathe/is dying.." that would certainly have been one thing...but this guy just has no boundaries! I promptly made social work aware because I have a feeling this won't be the first issue we have with this son.
What jaw-dropping things have you all seen family members do?
Specializes in Flight, ER, Transport, ICU/Critical Care.
Our opinions pointed to the dog drowning.
I suspect that the dog was a "ball fetcher" and would bring it back to his "dad" (family shared that the dog was a constant compainion and loved water).
The man had a Huntington's diagnosis and was to "check in" the care facility after the weekend.
I'd bet that the patient had spent great time with his friend that morning, playing ball and hanging out. When the "time" came - I like to think that the dog swam beside his loving owner and when he determined he was far enough out - he threw the ball to shore - the dog went to get it.
This is where it gets tough - I think the dog got the ball, looked frantically and just went back into the ocean to get his "dad". The dog must have gotten tired and unable to save self and drowned.
The family reasction over the dog was not suggesting that they did not love my patient - I like to think that keeping and caring for their loved ones devine canine would keep them connected to them. The dog was buried with his "dad".
I suspect that the dog was a "ball fetcher" and would bring it back to his "dad" (family shared that the dog was a constant compainion and loved water).
The man had a Huntington's diagnosis and was to "check in" the care facility after the weekend.
I'd bet that the patient had spent great time with his friend that morning, playing ball and hanging out. When the "time" came - I like to think that the dog swam beside his loving owner and when he determined he was far enough out - he threw the ball to shore - the dog went to get it.
This is where it gets tough - I think the dog got the ball, looked frantically and just went back into the ocean to get his "dad". The dog must have gotten tired and unable to save self and drowned.
The family reasction over the dog was not suggesting that they did not love my patient - I like to think that keeping and caring for their loved ones devine canine would keep them connected to them. The dog was buried with his "dad".
Sure, breaks your heart.
this is what i was thinking, that it would have eased their grief a little to have this "part" of the patient....at least for a few more years......
Recently at work a son of one of my patients has really taken the cake. He arrived to visit mom while I was finishing my assessment & medicating her for pain, and waited outside the room while I was doing so. I came out to tell him that she was all set & he could go in and visit. Son proceeds to go on about how he had diarrhea all morning (at this point I just ignored those comments, given that I don't care abt his bathroom habits considering he's not my patient.) I went on about making my rounds.
20 minutes later, I was down the hall in another patient's room doing my assessment & meeting the patient (as I had never cared for him before.) Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone inside the doorway, hesitating. I went to turn around and started to say "come in" as I thought it may have been a family member of this pt, and I was just finishing vital signs, so it was nothing too personal.
Once I turned around, I realized it was that son! I told him politely, but firmly- "I'm with another patient right now. You are going to need to wait outside please." He scurried out, looking absolutely shocked that I couldn't attend to his questions at that very second. Imagine the nerve of me assessing my patients!
I talked to the other nurse that was out at the desk when he had gone looking for me...she told me what his concern was about his mother---it was something I had already discussed with him MULTIPLE times, and told him that her MD was aware and the situation being looked in to. (Being purposefully vague, but the subject of his concern is not as high priority on her problem list as other medical issues are.)
Seriously--If he had walked into the room to say "Excuse me nurse my mother can't breathe/is dying.." that would certainly have been one thing...but this guy just has no boundaries! I promptly made social work aware because I have a feeling this won't be the first issue we have with this son.
What jaw-dropping things have you all seen family members do?
I was right...it wasn't the first issue we've had with this son.
Last night he called the unit to ask if I had "any girlfriends I could set him up with for a social life."
I told him straight up that I wouldn't answer such a question.
Nevermind that I am 23...and he is older than my parents!!
Coding a patient, patient from another nurses group came in and demanded coffee for his family now, he didn't care what kind of BS going on in here. In fact he even pushed the MD who was at the head of the bed. Had to get security to walk this moron out. Even worse, administration apologized to this fool, THEN told us we should have found a more sensitive way to resolve this. This admin idiot no longer there, thank goodness.
Also had a patient die a while back, family blocked the door and refused to let staff in to take him to the morgue. They had called a faith healer to bring him back from the dead. It was sad, and they blamed our non-believing attitudes for keeping his life from coming back. It was really sad.
Just when you think you've heard it all, something else comes along!!! That ADMIN came and told you that and apologized to him is just NOT right! People just never stop blowing my mind! (we need THAT lil' icon...a mind being blown~he!he!
i wish it wasn't common for admin to kiss the butts of everyone who makes a scene. this sure seems like an extreme example, but this sort of thing happens every freakin day. we even give out gas cards and walmart cards to anyone who expresses displeasure. we had one woman who was dumb enough to admit that she knew if she wanted a gas card all she had to do was make a scene in the waiting room.
How about the visitors you catch in bed w/ your patient having "relations" during their stay -- sometimes at night, OR, in the daytime -- never mind there's another patient on the other side of that curtain -- 2 feet away.
We have this resident's wife who has us on a strict schedule for everything she wants done for her husband. What time she wants him up, what time she wants him down, and up again. He doesn't want to go to bed and get up when she says. She calls and hassles us about if he went to church or not. He doesn't want to go. He would rather watch baseball. I'm not going to make him go. He's a grown man! 80! Hello! He has Alzheimer's, but he can still let us know what he wants. This wife calls us, and calls us, and makes us crazy.
She's always calling me to accuse my staff of doing all kinds of ridiculous stuff.
I was short staffed one day, had a fall. Had a woman on the floor, bleeding. While I'm dealing with that, and five other things, this wife is calling us wanting to know if we got he husband up at 2 PM like she told us to.
Someday, I might tell her how selfish, attention-seeking, and neurotic I think she is.
I hope you are documenting this...and also telling the patient's doctor. Maybe he/she can intervene and stop or curb this foolishness.
I was working teh pm shift on a monitored epilepsy unit when a code was called on an adjacent hall at about 2 am. When the code is called, an alarm goes off and continues to go off over the loudspeaker until the code is cancelled. I had to stay at the nurses's station and watch the monitors while everyone else atteneded to the code.
A Pt.'s family member came up to the desk to demand that I turn off the code alarm because they couldn't sleep!
I simply told them that when the pt. started breathing again, we would turn off the alarm and they could get some rest. That pt. ended up coding for about 30 mins and then passed away.
How about the visitors you catch in bed w/ your patient having "relations" during their stay -- sometimes at night, OR, in the daytime -- never mind there's another patient on the other side of that curtain -- 2 feet away.
We've had a rash of that lately. :chuckle
Once had the boyfriend of a patient ask if we could remove his girlfriends foley for half an hour.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
patient comes back from surgery about 10 liters up in fluid, and he's puffy all over. wife flings herself across the bed, shrieking and carrying on about how we've "destroyed his beauty" and how "he's so swollen we hardly recognize him." daughter comes in, commences to shriek and carry on about the same thing. then they look for his glasses (even though he's still post anesthesia, intubated and unlikely to be awake for a few hours), find the glasses and throw a fit because we've lost dad's glasses and have some other patient's glasses here instead. ditto the dentures. "i know these aren't dad's dentures because he has a gold tooth right up in front here."
it gets so bad, i can barely get to the patient to care for him.
finally, at the peak of the shrieking and carrying on, another woman in about the right age group walks into the room and wants to know who all these women are and why they are lying across her husband's bed.
you guessed it -- the drama queens could barely recognize dad because dad was actually two beds over.
That ADMIN came and told you that and apologized to him is just NOT right! People just never stop blowing my mind! (we need THAT lil' icon...a mind being blown~he!he!
Medic/Nurse, BSN, RN
880 Posts
Our opinions pointed to the dog drowning.
I suspect that the dog was a "ball fetcher" and would bring it back to his "dad" (family shared that the dog was a constant compainion and loved water).
The man had a Huntington's diagnosis and was to "check in" the care facility after the weekend.
I'd bet that the patient had spent great time with his friend that morning, playing ball and hanging out. When the "time" came - I like to think that the dog swam beside his loving owner and when he determined he was far enough out - he threw the ball to shore - the dog went to get it.
This is where it gets tough - I think the dog got the ball, looked frantically and just went back into the ocean to get his "dad". The dog must have gotten tired and unable to save self and drowned.
The family reasction over the dog was not suggesting that they did not love my patient - I like to think that keeping and caring for their loved ones devine canine would keep them connected to them. The dog was buried with his "dad".
Sure, breaks your heart.