Most of the nurses I speak with are nice. A few are kind of rude, but not enough for me to really care.
Today, the ED was beyond busy. I don't ever expect the nurses to chat with me or anything. I ask them simple questions(Can so-and-so have a visitor?), only when necessary. I also don't expect them to be chipper or anything. Just answer my question as good as you can. That's all I ask.
However, this extended triage nurse was just flat out rude. We (the ED visitor services employee and I) went into the extended triage area to try and locate a patient. This was only after 1 hour, and his family had been up every 15 minutes. They really wanted to know where he was or what was going on. Understandable.
Typically, patients don't get visitors in the extended triage. We wait until they get a room. But considering how busy we were, there was a good chance they weren't getting a room. Their triage room was going to be there room. So the nurses had been letting us bring visitors.
We never ask a nurse questions when they are with a patient, we wait until they are out of the room. We ask this nurse if they knew where Mr. Jones was. She goes, "What do you mean? Is he in triage? Is he in minor care?" My co-worker states that he was in triage, not minor care. She says, "Well I don't know. Are you sure he isn't in minor care?" She just had this real snarky tone. Just flat out attitude. Condescending and rude. She was clearly talking down to my co-worker as if my co-worker didn't know anything. My co-worker has been there for years. She knows what she is doing. We walked away. I know it's hard to see an attitude through text, but she was just beyond rude and nasty. I don't know how else to put it.
My co-worker is so sweet and beyond polite to this chick. The funny thing is, we were in the room next to this nurse before we asked her the question, and she was so polite to the patient, yet she talks down to us.
So my co-worker says that nurse is like that all the time. What the heck. Isn't there someone she can be reported to? I'm sorry, I just don't think it's acceptable to talk down to a co-worker. Ever. I don't think employees should have to put up with that crap. I don't care that we aren't nurses. We're all on the same team here.
How would you approach someone like that and what would you say to let them know you will not accept their condescending attitude? I think she needs to be approached before being reported. What would you do in this situation? It's obviously going to keep happening. She isn't going anywhere, and neither am I, nor my co-worker. She needs to act like a professional, not a b****.
