Nursing: Dangerous Career???

TazziRN, RN · Jun 19, 2008

Exposure to yucky bugs is more likely than an attack by a patient or relative.

ProLogic · Jun 19, 2008

Makes sense.. but hey, its a Hospital. There are bound to be germs in Hospitals.

allnurses Guide · Jun 19, 2008

Heck, breathing is dangerous. 100% of people who breath eventually quit :jester:

I've been verbally assaulted by patients, and threatened by a few family members. Got bitten once, spit on a fair number of times, smacked in face a few more, kneed in the ribs, but never knocked flat. The incidents are few and far between.

1TachyRN, RN · Jun 19, 2008

I work per diem in an adolescent/child facility, and was there when one of the adolescent males punched a tech in the face.

He was discharged to the custody of law enforcement and charges were filed.

Most of the time it's not that bad, though. But like I said, I'm only there per diem for a shift or two a week.

starsongRNnomore · Jun 19, 2008

Jeeez - how long do you have?? In no particular order or time sequence, I have had a patient who grabbed me by the hair and yanked me up to stare at eye to eye when I was kneeling on the floor trying to empty her foley.

I had a patient kick through the side rail and shove me hard enough to end up against the wall 2 feet away.

I had a patient take a swing at me with his above the knee prosthesis when we were trying to remove it from the room so we could maybe keep him stationary long enough to medicate him. This was after we escorted him back to the room (11-7 naturally) once from trying to get on the elevator, and 3 times from sneaking down the stairwell. When we finally (all 3 floor nurses) got him onto the bed, trying to get leathers on him and failing miserably, our security guard - a little woman all of 5 feet tall and a little chubby - entered the room, assessed the situation, took a flying leap over the first bed, landed on him and latched onto the bed with both fists and strongly encouraged us to hurry up. We did. Less than 30 minutes later, (many of you know what is coming! LOL) he was hopping up the hall on his way to the elevators yet again. At that point, his father exited the elevator, having been begged by the charge nurse to come and help calm him. The pt tok one look at daddy, charged him on his one leg, and they went down in a heap. This time, we just watched as the charge nurse called security again. Eventually, he was secured to the bed with 3 leathers, posey belt, posey vest and, for good measure, the old fashioned sheet restraint. Yeah, yeah, we knew all the legalities and didn't really care at that point!

I was helping a male nurse one night on a floor of a small hospital where my side of the hall was long-term, waiting for nursing home, patients and his side was substance abuse. This was a very nice man and an excellent nurse, but he had an unfortunate tendency to laugh and brush off our aggravation over being grabbed by the elderly men at various parts of our anatomy. He thought it was hilarious. This night, the 2 of us from the long-term side were helping him admit a rather hostile, delusional, hallucinating elderly woman who was clearly not about to cooperate in any way. As we turned her over so he could do a skin check, she grabbed the rail and before he could get her to loosen her hand, she reached out lightening quick and grabbed him by his family jewels. Well, the pained look on his face and the high pitched soprano tone of his voice made it very difficult to help him as we laughed until tears ran down our faces. Payback was sweet that night.

While working in a nursing home, I had a patient sling a bedside commode at me when I tried to convince him it was not a walker and he needed to go back to bed. (He snuck in under my "nursey" defenses and I ended up totally loving that elderly, usually pleasantly confused gentleman - broke my heart when he died.)

Just a few of the memories of a 35 year career starting as a nurses aide, then LPN, then RN.

Sometimes I miss it, mostly I don't. Wouldn't go back to nursing for all the money Donald Trump has in his checking account.

elkpark · Jun 19, 2008

There is a fair amount of violence (assaults) from clients and families in healthcare settings; mostly in ED and psych, I believe. I've spent most of my career in psych and have been injured (enough to miss a day or two of work) a few times over the course of my career. I've had first-hand knowledge of people who got injured (as a result of assault) much more seriously than that.

There are also a lot of back/orthopedic injuries in nursing just from all the moving/lifting of clients in a lot of settings; I wonder if the article mentioned that. I don't have any statistics, but would just guess that, probably, many more nurses are injured and/or disabled that way than as a result of assault.

ShayRN · Jun 19, 2008

I spoke to my insurance agent about getting disability insurance, JUST IN CASE of a back injury. It was something crazy like 20.00 a month. My husband, a mailman, pays only 5.00 for the same coverage.

I have been spit at, scratched and had my breasts grabbed as a nurse. But as a previous poster said, few and far between. The worst abuse I have suffered as a nurse is from the doctors who think they are god.

shellsgogreen · Jun 19, 2008

i've had a few psych patients swing at me, but so far my reflexes have been good and they've missed, plus one of them had such a strong gri p and grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go - can't describe how much that hurt:cry:

twistedpupchaser · Jun 19, 2008

82 year old man with Advanced Alziemers threw his used pad at me and proceeded to urinate all over his sheets. When the PCA, (Patient Care Assistant) and I tried to change him and his sheets he got violent and punched me several times, he only hit my upper arms because I blocked in time. The other 2 nurses on shift came in to help and one received a kick to the face, not bad with a #NOF.

What makes this stand out in my mind, he had Haloperidol and Diaz in his system and was considered calm. I wont get into the other incidents that also happened in the past week.

Flare, ASN, BSN · Jun 19, 2008

Most nurses probably have a war story or two (or many more than that) about getting assaulted in some manner by either a patient or a family member. I won't bore you with any of mine... as far as exposure goes nasty germs are a part of life - as a nurse the best we can do is protect ourselves. Universal precautions, proper handwashing, and basic common sense go a long way in keping yourself safe and healthy.

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Jun 19, 2008

I've been swung at, kicked at, and grabbed at, but was never seriously injured thank goodness.

The scariest incident that I was involved in was when I took a patient out to the 'butt hut' in the middle of the night once, so he could have a smoke. He was in a wheel chair. When a random crazed crack head came in, jumped over the patient, and cornered me (he had his fist reared back, and was ready to punch me in the face for some reason), the patient hit him in the groin with his vac-pac, and we escaped. The patient was a military guy, who had gotten injured practicing in the field. We did get a laugh out of it later, and he told me he was never taking me out to smoke again...LOL. Incidentally, there was a camera in the butt hut, but it had been cocked up, according to the security guys.

Funny, but if I had been getting the patient ready to go outside, I would've clamped his vac tubing, and would not have taken the whole unit. It was a good thing that he had just unplugged it himself and placed it in his lap. He saved my tail with that thing.