How do you brighten your patients day?

[Brian]

Nurses do amazing and creative things to make their patient's day brighter.

My daughter was greeted with this wonderful artwork last week when she went in for a well visit ? It sure made her feel special! Kudos to creative nurses!

Please share your stories or cool things you have seen other nurses do to put a smile on a patients face ?

[BrandonLPN, LPN]

beckster_01 said:

I'm so glad many of these responses are sarcastic. While the OP example was cute, sometimes (like today) I just want to do my job. No more, no less. Just let me be a robot, do a little teaching, and make sure nobody dies.

Sarcasm brightens my day more than cutesy pictures. I know some patients feel that way, too.

[Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN]

I walk into the room.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

Stcroix said:

Dilaudid iv push

With a Benadryl IVP chaser.

[May Rceo, BSN, RN]

Greet my patients with my beautiful smile and appreciate what they are wearing and remind them that they are beautiful :)

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

[dancinglvn]

I give my patients hugs and smile. I offer to call over to different places to help them get their other appointments. As my boss calls it my patients leave the office with the whole package.

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

* By being my usual, goofy self ;-) I've found that humour is a GREAT help when dealing with patients in the ER. Witty wise cracks - sometimes about patients, sometimes about their conditions, sometimes about fictional patients but mostly about myself. I have zero shame and no problems making fun of myself if it makes other people laugh! I've used outrageous accents when speaking to patients sometimes (not when something serious is going on of course.) I've sometimes worn a clown nose when dealing with peds patients in triage - or even some adult ones sometimes! My next trick is to wear a mullet wig ... (it's funnier if you know me in real-life - I'm a non-caucasian immigrant :-p) Hey! Maybe I should combine the mullet with the clown nose??!

* Sometimes if patients get admitted and are still in house, I'll see if I can spare a few minutes to go visit them and make sure they're doing ok. Usually during these times, patient families are present (who weren't present when patient initially presented to the ER) and this gives me the opportunity to talk to/educate them. I give them that "missing picture" - of how ill or critical their loved one was when they were initially brought in and how we tried to take care of them (sparing the gory details). I'll usually add personal tid-bits I noticed (depending on the prognosis or circumstance) during my care for the patient: "Oh I could tell he was a fighter. Each time I asked him to squeeze my hand he'd squeeze the heck out of it!" or "He was just so brave! All he was worried about was his wife/dog/grandson" etc. And usually I've found these little stories seem to help families ("Yep! That's my Dad!") ... which ultimately help the patient, IMO.

* My favourite when dealing with appropriate aged peds patients is to let them borrow my stethoscope to listen to their own heartbeat, and/or mine and/or mommy. You should see the look on their faces!!

cheers,