Nurses and students: What have you learned from your patients?

[E.Renez]

Part of a nurse's role is to educate patients about their medications, diseases, disease-management, etc. However, in turn, patients can teach us a lot as well.

Oftentimes, I learn a lot from the patients themselves during my clinical rotations, whether it is related to their disease process, emotions, patient care, or about life in general. I really enjoy learning from them.

What are some important things you have learned from your patients?

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

From a patient admitted with a GSW in the buttock: If he cheats once, he'll cheat again. (Wife caught him with new girlfriend only weeks after telling him if she ever caught him cheating again, he'd get acute lead poisoning.)

Never assume that the 20 year old girl accompanying the 80 year old man to the hospital is his daughter. Or granddaughter.

From an acute leukemia patient: Live right up until you die. That positive attitude served me well when I had cancer.

From a nasty, ornery old man that no one wanted to take care of: Everyone has someone who loves them, everyone came from a family somewhere. (I didn't find out until after he died that he was my family. My grandmother, his first cousin, was listed as next of kin.)

From a coworker admitted to the ER: You never know what goes on in a home unless you LIVE in that home. Her husband, the world famous surgeon, gave her two black eyes and a broken arm on Christmas.