Nurse with a condescending attitude - rant

[happy2learn]

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****.

[happy2learn]

i wasn't there, so i don't know for sure, but it sounds an awful lot as if you're over-reacting.

if you just want to vent, that's fine. we all need to vent sometimes. but it sounded as if you wanted someone to help you do something about this nurse . . . that goes beyond venting.

i'm not saying it's ok for someone to be rude to you or your co-worker, but i'd much rather see the nurse be rude to you than to her patient. and while it's not ok to be rude or condescending, it happens. suck it up and deal with it. unless she routinely follows you around to put you down for no good reason, it's not horizontal violence or bullying or whatever. it's just one less than positive encounter with a nurse who may have been under too much stress to even know she was rude to you.

i don't know how asking for advice on here is the same as trying to get someone to "do" something about the nurse. how are people through the internet going to help me do something? i have to do something if i want to. none of you can help me do anything.

i'm not looking for what to do about something that happened yesterday, but what to do if it happens again. believe me, i'm going to avoid her at all costs, but sometimes that interaction is unavoidable.

i do appreciate your advice.

[happy2learn]

Simple solution: Don't ask the nurse dumb questions! When the pt. can have visitors, the nurse will come out and say so. The nurse DOESN'T know when the pt. will be seen, don't keep asking! Apparently, she gets miffed when you keep asking dumb questions! Don't go there! She is busy, and every time you interrupt her; she loses focus and has to regroup; causing further delays!

I know you have the families best interest at heart, but stop bugging the staff!

We have to. I can't not ask the nurse. It's hospital policy. I have to ask the nurse if a patient can have visitors. That's the job. We can't just bring them back. There is no way around it. If I didn't have to ask them, I wouldn't.

If you had read through the thread I had stated we were using the triage rooms as regular rooms. We never go into triage because we know they don't know when they are going to get into a room. But yesterday we were so busy we had to use the triage rooms as standard rooms.

[BluegrassRN]

And if this article had been published/peer-reviewed, I think someone would have caught the "different to..." Oh crap, nitpicking is violence too. Nascar Nurse is right, we're all abusing and being abused at all times.

Aaaaand this is what's wrong with our society today. Everyone's a victim, everyone's entitled to kid glove treatment, and if they don't get babied and treated with hearts and unicorns, they are not going to directly, nicely talk about it, they are going to get a lawyer and sue you.

(OP, this was not directed at you, this is a general vent and commentary on attitudes at large as well as the absolute stupidity of some of the complete crap that comes from the ivory tower so called nurses who do a lot of teaching and theorizing, but don't actually have any idea about working as a real nurse, as they haven't set foot in a hospital in 30 years and are just writing sh*t to justify their doctoral dissertations specifically and their existence in general. So don't sue me ).

[happy2learn]

And I should have added, the OP apparently just "grabbed a nurse" who had nothing to do with the pt. in question; which is anethema to ANY nurse. It is NOT OK to just grab anybody in scrubs who looks like a nurse to handle your problem!

I have been so accosted by Dietary, PT and Lab more times than I can mention simply because I am a 'nurse', and thats ALL they see in thier quest to "have somebody take care of this problem that I don't want to".

Think for a minute, and try to find the appropriate person to deal with the problem, ancillary staff! Don't just try to shove it onto the nurse!

You obviously did not read through everything or you really didn't understand everything. Otherwise you wouldn't be going off on this tangent.

I'm going to explain the POLICY AND PROCEDURES OF THE HOSPITAL one last time.

I am required to ask a nurse, and I have to ask one in the hallway, not one who is with a patient. I am not permitted to bring a visitor back without checking with the nurse first. Not any other hospital worker, I have to check with the RN.

I always call 2 numbers before I go back. The number for the nurse assigned to that room, and then if I can't ahold of them, I have to call the charge nurse. If I can't get ahold of the charge nurse, I have to go find the nurse. There is no way around it. I grab the nurse, not just anyone, because according to policy that is who I have to ask. They have RN on their badge in bright orange.

Anyways, that is standard procedure. Yesterday was not a normal day. We never go into triage. We never ask triage questions, we always just tell the visitors they have to wait until the patient gets a room. Visitors are not allowed in triage.

There is no whiteboard in triage. And there is no one we can ask to find out if a nurse is assigned to a specific person, otherwise we would have done that and tried to find that specific nurse.

Yesterday they ran out of rooms. 5 rooms in the TCU were completely blocked off because they were cleaning for bed bugs. We had a ton of patients. They were forced with using the triage rooms as regular rooms. Which means, visitors are allowed back. However, there is no number to call back there since it's not standard practice to need to go back there.

It's our job to prevent the family from complaining or needing to be escorted out by security. If we weren't going to help them you can sure bet they were going to hunt down someone who would.

We held the family off for over an hour. They were getting very upset. Their son/brother/husband had a room, but it was just in triage. No number to call, we had to go back there. She was the first nurse to not be in a patients room. So we asked her. We can't ask the patient if it's okay for their visitors to come back, it's up to the RN.

What do you expect us to do? Barge into every room asking to find someone? Don't knock me for following policy. There was no way around it.

[happy2learn]

I understand what some of you are trying to say with the "horizontal or lateral violence."

But I do agree that some of it is a bit excessive.

[happy2learn]

1. I'm not oversensitive or thin-skinned. I really don't care what people think of me. I know I'm a good person and that's all that matters. I just don't think it's right for someone to be talked down to. I am sensitive when it comes to people being in unfortunate situations, like the poor, people dying of cancer, the girl coming into the ED all alone terrified and crying, than man who looked me in the eye with tears in his eyes after he saw the condition his daughter was in, the man who came in covered in blood and died in the trauma room, which I saw as I was walking by. I'm not sensitive about how someone talks to me or what they think of me.

2. I actually do ALWAYS approach people with a smile on my face and a positive tone. I know some of you won't believe that, but it's true. That's just who I am. I never let my personal issues get in my way. I came into work 1 day after having a miscarriage and no one could tell I was hurting inside. Because no matter what I go through, I am still blessed to have a roof over my head, food in my pantry, and a man who loves me more than anything. I still keep my smile even when people are cussing me out. I still smiled at this nurse and said "Thank you" when we walked away. I smiled at the nurse and thanked her despite her clearly rolling her eyes at me a long time ago. I am also very aware of how my voice sounds. I have a naturally pleasant voice. I worked in phone customer service for many years and I know how to project my voice in a pleasant and professional tone despite what is being said to me which ranged from being cursed out, or talked down to in a very childish manner. That's just who I am. I am very good at keeping my composer in high pressure situations.

3. I don't care about rude, snippy, short, blunt, curt, whatever else you want to call it. I just don't agree with an employee talking down to another employee.

4. I know different levels of rude.

5. The reason I was asking for advice is because I got into trouble a few years ago for reporting someone who talked down to another employee. This story is long, but I feel like telling it.

I was a supervisor at a call center and I was at my desk listening to the calls of the new employees I had trained. One in particular had a learning disability and worked his butt of to learn everything, and he was good. He had done everything correctly, and he had called this department to locate an order. It was standard procedure to call 1 department (online orders) before calling the other(mail orders.) Reason being is because there are tons of more online orders than mail orders.

Anyways, my employee calls over to the internet department and after this gentleman looked for the order, he couldn't find it. So he decided to attack my employee by calling him an idiot and "retard." I got on the line and asked for this employee's supervisor name. Of course, he hung up. But since he pulled an account, I already had his data.

After this guy hung up, he called the manager on duty desk and told them they needed to fire my employee because he was an idiot and shouldn't be working there. The managers were mad at the guy as well. I emailed the guy's supervisor and explained what happened.

I got in trouble, twice. Apparently I was supposed to go to my supervisor, who would go to my manager, who would go to my director, and they would look at the situation. All of that red tape. I got reprimanded and didn't get a raise. Even though my manager and supervisor said they saw nothing wrong with the email and how I handled the situation. But because I didn't got through the red tape, I got in trouble twice.

My bad for being a bit apprehensive about how to handle this situation.

I appreciate all of the different advice.

[happy2learn]

Aaaaand this is what's wrong with our society today. Everyone's a victim, everyone's entitled to kid glove treatment, and if they don't get babied and treated with hearts and unicorns, they are not going to directly, nicely talk about it, they are going to get a lawyer and sue you.

(OP, this was not directed at you, this is a general vent and commentary on attitudes at large as well as the absolute stupidity of some of the complete crap that comes from the ivory tower so called nurses who do a lot of teaching and theorizing, but don't actually have any idea about working as a real nurse, as they haven't set foot in a hospital in 30 years and are just writing sh*t to justify their doctoral dissertations specifically and their existence in general. So don't sue me ).

I understand. I do agree with you. I've met plenty of those types of people.

[KyPinkRN]

I should've never started this thread because none of you will ever understand the level of rudeness. It just can't apply in text form. This wasn't an attitude. This wasn't snippy. This isn't rude. This is beyond rude.

This is talking to a person as if they are the lowest of the low or the scum of the earth. My coworker does avoid her at all costs because she always treats her as if she is below the bedbugs.

Have you ever thought there may be more to the story here? Why does you coworker feel the need to avoid this person? Did this nurse speak directly to you in this manner? If not, then I would say that it's your coworker's responsibility to handle the situation, not yours. Maybe it's not the nurse who has the problem, but that your coworker just doesn't like this particular nurse or has had a disagreement with her. I would think about things like that before I went up the chain of command. Especially if, as you said in your post, she wasn't rude to the patients.

[KyPinkRN]

You obviously did not read through everything or you really didn't understand everything. Otherwise you wouldn't be going off on this tangent.

I'm going to explain the POLICY AND PROCEDURES OF THE HOSPITAL one last time.

I am required to ask a nurse, and I have to ask one in the hallway, not one who is with a patient. I am not permitted to bring a visitor back without checking with the nurse first. Not any other hospital worker, I have to check with the RN.

I always call 2 numbers before I go back. The number for the nurse assigned to that room, and then if I can't ahold of them, I have to call the charge nurse. If I can't get ahold of the charge nurse, I have to go find the nurse. There is no way around it. I grab the nurse, not just anyone, because according to policy that is who I have to ask. They have RN on their badge in bright orange.

Anyways, that is standard procedure. Yesterday was not a normal day. We never go into triage. We never ask triage questions, we always just tell the visitors they have to wait until the patient gets a room. Visitors are not allowed in triage.

There is no whiteboard in triage. And there is no one we can ask to find out if a nurse is assigned to a specific person, otherwise we would have done that and tried to find that specific nurse.

Yesterday they ran out of rooms. 5 rooms in the TCU were completely blocked off because they were cleaning for bed bugs. We had a ton of patients. They were forced with using the triage rooms as regular rooms. Which means, visitors are allowed back. However, there is no number to call back there since it's not standard practice to need to go back there.

It's our job to prevent the family from complaining or needing to be escorted out by security. If we weren't going to help them you can sure bet they were going to hunt down someone who would.

We held the family off for over an hour. They were getting very upset. Their son/brother/husband had a room, but it was just in triage. No number to call, we had to go back there. She was the first nurse to not be in a patients room. So we asked her. We can't ask the patient if it's okay for their visitors to come back, it's up to the RN.

What do you expect us to do? Barge into every room asking to find someone? Don't knock me for following policy. There was no way around it.

You can explain this as many times as you want to, but it won't change the fact that you can't just ask the first person you see with orange on their badge about a patient they very likely know nothing about. If it's not my patient I can't give you an answer without finding the nurse who is actually taking care of them (which sounds an awful lot like what YOU were supposed to be doing in the first place). That takes time away from the 50 things that I have to right at that time. You couldn't get ahold of that patient's nurse or the charge right that minute? Well wait until you can... that visitor isn't going to die if they don't see the patient in the next 5 minutes.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Happy2Learn - I've been on the internet a LONG time, and I have to say, what Pedicurn is saying is not flaming or attacking. If you are interpreting it as such, then I have to question whether the RN in the story was really being verbally abusive, or perhaps you're just a bit too sensitive? Just a thought...

But I agree with others - next time it happens, politely address it with her. I don't understand why people have such a hard time doing that.

[happy2learn]

Have you ever thought there may be more to the story here? Why does you coworker feel the need to avoid this person? Did this nurse speak directly to you in this manner? If not, then I would say that it's your coworker's responsibility to handle the situation, not yours. Maybe it's not the nurse who has the problem, but that your coworker just doesn't like this particular nurse or has had a disagreement with her. I would think about things like that before I went up the chain of command. Especially if, as you said in your post, she wasn't rude to the patients.

This particular situation I was a witness to. I was right next to my coworker when it happened and the nurse did make eye contact with me a few times, but her words were not directed at me.

My coworker had said it happens all the time. I had advised her that if it did then she should say something to her or report her. Of course, I don't know if it does, or if she's just rude in other instances, or if she really is condescending all the time,which is why I'm not going to say anything to the nurse based on past incidences. They very well may not just like each other, that's a good point. I didn't want to get into details with her on the past incidences.

I don't think she's said anything to her because I can tell she doesn't like confrontation. She said she avoids her because she always talks to her like that. She also said she doesn't think confronting or reporting her will do anything, but I had told her that it's worth a shot. Not saying anything won't help either.

I'm just preparing and getting advice in case I am in that situation with the nurse (as in if she speaks to me like that and if what my coworker says is true) then I know what to do or say.

I wouldn't ever go up the chain of command on hearsay. I also wouldn't confront her on hearsay either.

[happy2learn]

You can explain this as many times as you want to, but it won't change the fact that you can't just ask the first person you see with orange on their badge about a patient they very likely know nothing about. If it's not my patient I can't give you an answer without finding the nurse who is actually taking care of them (which sounds an awful lot like what YOU were supposed to be doing in the first place). That takes time away from the 50 things that I have to right at that time. You couldn't get ahold of that patient's nurse or the charge right that minute? Well wait until you can... that visitor isn't going to die if they don't see the patient in the next 5 minutes.

You really don't get it, actually I don't think you care to get it. You'd rather just assume the nurse was in the right and we don't know what we're doing. You don't know how to do my job and you don't know how procedures in my hospital works. I never said I agreed with hospital policy, but this is the way it is people. You also don't understand how violent our visitors can get. It's my job to prevent the need of security. And yes, a visitor has died because they became irate and violent and security took action. They died as a result. The hospital came under fire. Which has only contributed to taking care of the "needs" of the visitors as well.

There was no other way. Period. End of story. Say what you want. I don't give a crap. I know we did the right thing, you don't. You weren't there.

I love how so many of you are quick to "take sides" and be judgmental or make assumptions of myself (whom you've never met, stating I am picking on her because she is an easy target, I am judging her, I am not doing my job correctly...), but so vigorously defend this nurse (whom you've also never met.)

I bet if I were an RN talking about a nurse talking down to me most of your opinions would be different.

But since I am lower on the totem pole, I MUST be in the wrong.