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?
Pt just died at shift change (expected DNR) and family rolls in several hours later. First they take off pt's wig and throw it in trash (I thought maybe they'd bury her in it) and then, a family member demands that I give the elderly demented woman she brought with her a B-12 shot. RIGHT NOW. Never mind that we don't just keep those in the closet for those saying last goodbyes--I can make an exception RIGHT now and make it appear out of thin air. You bet I documented that one.
a visitor who wrote "poems" and forced you to stop and listen to them, no matter what you were in the middle of (she would seriously block you or corner you). she walked into a code one noc and started screaming at everyone to stop what they were doing and listen to her new poem that she just wrote. she quickly discovered that we had security guards!
I love that part...
And Ruby, you've got some great ones, especially about the two idiots who didn't even know it wasn't their family member...
Please keep this thread going, it's always nice to be able to find some humor in people's idiocy
We had 2 residents....one res. son was married to the other res. dtr...well..the dtrs mom was with us for therapy...the sons dad was with us to die...had crisis care in with him ...the whole bit...well..apparently the son was having an affair and he and his wife were separated but trying to work it out....he had the NERVE to get his girlfriend to bring him some food....WHILE HIS WIFE was also there visiting her mom. Well...we're at the desk charting...the dtr comes out to leave as the girlfriend is coming in.....the next thing we heard was a swift POP ...she nailed the girlfriend..food went flying everywhere....then the 3 of them were going at it up the hall and out into the parking lot...we went after them and told the women to take a hike and not come back if they couldnt do any better than that...and we told the son he had 2 options...1. you go in and be with your DYING father while you still maybe have an hour left with him or 2. you leave and dont come back either. He chose to be with his dad....who died within the hour. We also told them not to bring in their private lives into our building....and sure enough! the next day we had multiple calls from visitors who saw this fiasco and thought that it was our staff out there fighting (that dtr also works at a LTC facility in management and had on scrubs)...It took weeks to get it straightened out and make those visitors understand that it wasnt any of our staff brawling.
so im new in nursing school starting this fall but we had to take a basic nursing course this summer. i was doing a clinical in the MICU and there were 2 patients to a room. one was a very old lady with respiratory/heart problems in Bed 1 and i dont know what the condition of the Bed 2 patient was. anyway, Bed 2 had visitors - one of which was a small child in a stroller. and the child was sounding OFF! so much so that the little old lady on the other side of the curtain went into respiratory distress and there was a mad rush of nurses and doctors. the old lady clearly said something like "its the child. i cant take all the yelling and screaming. please, i cant take it .. "
so after the visitors were allowed to come back in, the nurse told them about the noisy child and how it was causing distress to the next patient. and guess what?? they brought the child back in anyway! poor little old lady hooked up to the oxygen and rebreathers .. the only reason why the nurse let the visitors stay was because they only had 5 more minutes before visiting hrs were over .. (shaking my head)
Had a 70ish patient's grown daughter with a pencil and notebook. Wrote down EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING that took place with her mom.
10:14am nurse felt pulse, fluffed pillow
10:20am nurse unplugged IV pump, helped mom to bathroom, plugged IV back in. Other nurse changed mom's pillow case during this time
10:35am rang bell, nurse took 1 min 21 seconds to respond. Asked for pain med.
10:41am nurse brought morphine injection, states is 10mg and will be given "intramuscular". Swabs mom's hip area with alcohol swab, gives injection
I KID YOU NOT!!! This is how the notebook was! Her mom was with us for less than 24 hours and she must have had over 10 pages!!! Oh, and of course all of the entries had the nurses name and title.
I don't get it? Maybe they've had a bad experience in the hospital before, but COME ON!!!
I was doing a clinical in MedSurg and a patients son was in there alllll the time, watching and monitoring. ok so no big deal UNTIL -
i was helping the CNA do vitals and was watching her as she took the patients temp. when the reading came up as 99.something, the son said no thats wrong take it again. i looked at him puzzled. i mean its an automated temp machine! so the CNA took it again and to my surprise if was lower the 2nd time around. the son said "see, all your machines are wrong and their all broken" as a new student on the scene i just stood there not knowing what to say. but before i left, i asked - "what made u think the machine was wrong?" and he said to me "....experience"
This wasn't actually the visitor but the nursing staff who did this one.We had a pt who had a stroke,she was starting to come around and we were trying to get her to remember our names and the names of her visitors.One day I was in her room with a CNA and a man came in,we started saying"Mrs Smith,who is this?"She wasn't sure,so we asked if he was her grandson,still not sure,nephew,still not sure,we ran through a couple of other possibilities and she kept looking at him,asked him to come closer so she could see him better but she couldn't place him.She did say he looked familiar though.So we asked him who he was,turned out he had accidently come into the wrong room and had no idea who she was either!
Never seen anything quite like(the things nursing staff do)
Pt's mom dropped her pants for me to look @ a rash on her upper legs... NO THANKS!!!
Pt's mom who placed the pulse ox. probe on HER finger because "it was beeping on [the baby's] toe and woke me up!"
Several times with diabetic visitors... "I haven't eaten anything all day so you might have to give me something later" (Ok, I don't mind giving you crackers/juice, but if you are diabetic and knew you would be here for several hours, why didn't you eat BEFORE you got here?)
Complaining about our coffee "twice-boiled over and too hot!!" well, I'm sorry... I don't make the coffee... I was just being nice and bringing you a cup even though I do have a million other things to do...
OMG, just when you've think you've heard the best... I had to float to the ICU last noc and had a pt who had been there several weeks with multiple problems; VERY sick, but on the mend now.... Anyways, I'm talking to the wife in the rm and before I finished what I was doing, I asked her if she had any questions about her husbands plan of care for tomorrow, and this was her question.... "yeah, actually i do.... I am really worried about how we are going to pay for this when we get home, its going to be so expensive. He's been here for so long and had so much done, I just dont know how we are going to pay for it.' (OK, so i'm getting ready to offer the social worker to come in and talk with her in the AM to discuss this and offer help, and before I could even open my mouth to say anything...) 'so you know how stores and hotels and stuff are giving such good deals in this bad economy, well I was wondering if you guys do the same thing. You know, like stay so many nights and get so many nights free? Or is there some coupons I can get from somewhere to help us out?" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the best part, is she was COMPLETELY serious!
WOW!!!
I had to bite my tongue sooo hard to keep from saying, um, NO! We are NOT a Ho-Jo/extended stay/ or other type of hotel!!! IF.... IF we offered up something like that NO ONE would EVER want to leave!!! And in case you didnt notice it yet, this IS A HOSPITAL!! and yes, I will work for free on occasion and not mind it when you offer up your 'coupon' or by one get one sale offer!!!
I SWEAR I am a magnet to this kind of stuff!! .... no wait, its the area I live in... All that air polution from the factories around here are causing mental issues.
Sparrowhawk
664 Posts
ROFL!!!!