Tired of being labeled when I'm trying to save a life.

Specialties NP

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Specializes in Thoracic Cardiovasc ICU Med-Surg.

Oh, yeah. Thing is, we're not there to be friends with patients. We're there to help them become able to manage their conditions and stay out of the hospital! Sometimes, you have to be very firm with people so they understand exactly how serious things are.

Especially, to the OP, what if that lady took that metformin and then her kidneys went boom! I dont think you did anything wrong, I am glad your doc had your back, and it sounds like you are a damn good nurse.

Trauma Columnist

traumaRUs, MSN, APRN

88 Articles; 21,249 Posts

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Adults are just that; adults. I work with an indigent, at-risk, medically complex group of pts. Its all in how you approach people. You have to get them to buy in to the idea of health. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.

I've been an APN for over 5 years now and many, many of my pts are noncompliant. You fix the ones you can.

There is no reason to get upset - the pts are the ones that are sick. The providers must be able to separate themselves from the pts. Documentation!

Trauma Columnist

traumaRUs, MSN, APRN

88 Articles; 21,249 Posts

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Moving to the NP forum.

nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN

1 Article; 2,043 Posts

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

*pushing a chocolate bar slowly toward the OP*

You did the right thing. I see this kind of non-compliance all the time in ICU. With us, it's "well, it's getting to be the end of the month, and John's going to have run out of his check by now..." and sure enough, toward the end of the 3rd week of the month, we get our DTs. You talk to them, you tell them what they are doing to themselves, if they don't stop they are going to die and they come back in another month, same thing. Rinse, wash, and repeat. Thousands and thousands of dollars spent on rehabs that they check themselves out of, not to mention that they take the bed of someone who actually has decided they want help, want to stop. My cousin was like that, was in 16 different rehabs over the course of his life. Died from acute ETOH intoxication and aspiration. He always said he'd rather die than stop drinking. Well, he got his wish.

We get the folks wth GI bleeds all the freakin' time. Why? They have diverticulosis (not new onset by any means), and they decide to eat the "fruit and nut" diet they saw on TV/news/from a friend. The seeds get into the diverticuli, and kaboom. Or we have idiot docs who prescribe coumadin for alcoholics who are actively abusing ETOH. Nothing like the smell of a GI bleed mixed with beer.

Then we get the CHF/renal failure/dialysis folks, who absolutely refuse their diets and treatment regime. We had one guy that would go to dialysis, walk out to his car, and pull out a 2 liter soda and drink it before he left the parking lot, in full sight of the other patients/nurses. And then he'd end up with us, emergency dialysis because he'd go into pulmonary edema from fluid overload, and the same dialysis nurse he'd told "you can't make me do anything, B" is staying up until 0400 after working all day trying to get the idiot dried out enough to breathe. There goes more of the social security/medicare money I'll never get to use...

You can't fix stupid, and unfortunately, it seems to be a growth business. *hugs* to you and your little passenger.

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