Nurses as patients??

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Specializes in Neuroscience/Brain and Stroke.

I will give an example with my line of work at the moment:

I'm a phlebotomist at one hospital and just accepted a job as a Nurse Intern at another so I'm looking for an answer to this:

I walk into a patients room, I start getting all my tubes, needles, tourniquet, ect... ready and verify the patient is the right one when they tell me "I'm a phlebotomist" in there "so you better not screw this up voice" I automatically get irritated because I sure as hell wouldn't do that if the tables were turned.

Do nurses pull this crap too? How bad are they? I have had doctors as well, some not so bad but many just pompous as hell, one actually asked for the supplies so he could draw his own blood, yea, over my dead body, lol. My needles dude, back off!

It just makes me mad becasue they KNOW what we go through on the floors and they themselves go through it as well, so why would they become just as bad as the patients they complain about?

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

You are making me chuckle.

Some of us are nasty and entitled because we really hate being on the vulnerable other side of the needle. Some of us were so doped up with morphine you could have done anything and we (I!) wouldn't have cared. Sometimes we let you know so that you don't feel you have to explain every little thing. Sometimes we hide it, for fear you will think we don't need any teaching but this problem is not my specialty and I need you to review things with me. Or I don't want you to feel threatened.

There just isn't anyway to generalize it. One of my students ended up with a patient who was a specialist MD, and his wife one of our instructors (no, I didn't make that assignment, the one who did didn't realize who they were). He actually helped her prioritize her problem list.

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Specializes in Oncology.

When I had surgery the nurse had a very hard time starting my IV (third time was the charm). I let her know I was a nurse, not to be rude but to sympathize because I hate when you can't get the vein! I hope she didn't take it wrong... I think I was pretty nice about it :lol2:

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