Odd interactions

Nurses Relations

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Some interactions are just plain odd. What's one that will stay with you forever?

Mines is I had a 34 y/o female pt. She would always put her light on to tell us that she had just used her diaper. She had been there about a week using diapers. She has also been DEMANDING us to put in a foley. So early on in my first day with her as I'm changing her I ask her how she uses the bathroom at home. "I just walk" She was in for a lap chole. So I ask her if she can use the restroom right now and she just jumps right out of bed and goes to use the restroom. Turns out she just really really really didnt want to get out of bed. After that she was still very insistent on getting a foley.

Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Had a hospice patient once whose daughter was sleeping in the room with her. Patient passed while daughter was sleeping. I removed her oxygen, and then woke up daughter to tell her. "I'll give you a couple minutes alone" Returned to find daughter back in bed, sound asleep AND the oxygen back on. Remove oxygen again, wake daughter again and ask for funeral home info. She rolls her eyes, gets up, opens her address book and lays it on deceased mother's chest while she flips through it. I get info, go to call funeral home.

Return to room to find (you can see where this is going)daughter back in bed asleep and the damned oxygen back on.

Now, this was literally the last room we had in the hospital. I once again wake daughter and tell her funeral home is en route and she will need to vacate. She is pissed "I was planning to stay through breakfast". (It's currently around midnight) Inform her no can do.

Funeral director arrives, and daughter brings two outfits on hangers out into hallway and asks us which she should wear to the viewing and which she should wear to the graveside.

Funeral directs beats a hasty retreat. Daughter then holds out her car keys and tells me I can put her luggage in her car now! I decline.

The CNA who was working with me that night lives in the same town as I do. Every now and then, we run into each other- and immediately burst into hysterics remembering this 'odd interaction'.

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Specializes in Internal Med, Primary Care, Ambulatory.

Good gosh, people never cease to amaze me with their bizarre behavior, responses, and requests! Every day presents something new...

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.
I was trying to place a Foley in a "turtled" old man, and he grabbed my hand, looked lovingly into my face and said "You remind me of my granddaughter!"

:eek:

Ugh! Where's the Phenergan when you need it!

Anne, RNC

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Okay, folks. Here's a couple for you.

My old job had an outpatient sickle cell clinic. My floor was the go-to spot for the clinic patients when they were in crisis so the Dilauded was a-flowing! 10, 12, 14mg q2H. On the dot. With IV Benadryl. The most I gave was 16 but that's beside the point.

Anyway, we had this patient who came relatively frequently. Outside the hospital walls, she was a totally normal, functioning person. Job, kids, out and about in the community. Once that Dilauded hit her veins? Game. Over.

She was like a completely different person. Once, we walked into her room and she was flinging baby powder all over the room. Just waving the open container all over the room. It looked like Christmas.

Another time, I found a pork chop in her bed.

Once, we had to place her with a roommate. We usually wanted her in a private but if none were available we had to subject a poor sucker to her craziness. Her roommate was an 89 year old deaf Greek lady in a neckbrace. It was ideal that she couldn't hear or turn to see the rest of the room because on this admission our Dilauded princess decided to wrap herself up in the curtain that divided the room. All while humming patriotic tunes and masturbating. God bless America, indeed.

Your writing is priceless. I can picture this woman so vividly. Probably the funniest description of a patient I've ever read on this forum. If nursing doesn't work out, you could be a comedy writer :-)

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Specializes in Reproductive & Public Health.
ActualNurse said:
Well when I took my nursing diploma course many years ago at a Catholic hospital, we were told that sexuality is one of the basic "needs" and we should respect and recognize that. So masturbating patients are not an issue for me. I just view it as the patient fulfilling a basic need. No big deal. It is their body not mine.

I had a patient in nursing school with end stage pancreatic cancer. Semi-lucid, overall an agreeable patient. Sometimes, when a wave of pain would hit him, he would instantly reach for his genitals. I was like a deer in the headlights the first time it happened, but it was so clearly NOT sexual that I got over the shock quickly.

A very different situation happened when I was in orientation at my current CNM job. I had a male patient, and as I walk into the room he is vigorously going at his junk. He says to me, " I thought I should work up a stiffy so you can see where it hurts."

I had another patient recently who had a yeast infection or something similarly minor, and we were sitting across from each other as I am putting her RX into the computer etc. She's scrolling through her phone as we talk (all too common, sigh), and then all of a sudden holds up a picture of her boyfriend's member and starts telling me about how "unusually large" he is and could that be why she got this yeast infection? I just looked her in the eye and said his member looked perfectly average.

Once had a father ask me, literally minutes after his partner had given birth, when she would be able to "you know, do it."

Or the guy who asked if he could have "a few extra" RX's for the chlamydia infection he was just diagnosed with. Which reminded me of the patient who's boyfriend tried to get her to take some "vitamins" that were really azithromycin, because he didn't want to tell her he picked up chlamydia. I am all for expedited partner treatment and readily write prescriptions for my patient's partners, but COME ON PEOPLE.

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Oh my God. :facepalm: :unsure:

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Yes I totally agree that doing these activities to attract the attention and handling by staff is inappropriate and disgusting. I had a male patient who was always asking for suppositories. He would refuse oral laxatives and say he was constipated even when he wasn't just to get the female nurses to give him a supp. Then the staff decided to give this task to a male nurse. The latter agreed. Patient took oral laxatives after that. But the old nuns where I trained would not have considered this inappropriate. They would tell us the patient had unmet needs.

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I do think this behavior to staff is abuse of the staff.

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Once we had a patient who wanted to discharge AMA, but she couldn't get a ride home. She called 911 to come drive her home in an ambulance. Over. And over. And over.

When I worked in memory care, there was a little lady resident that was getting agitated. One of the other residents was trying to calm her and he said "If you don't learn to mind, we're going to have to put you in a home!"

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Okay, folks. Here's a couple for you.

My old job had an outpatient sickle cell clinic. My floor was the go-to spot for the clinic patients when they were in crisis so the Dilauded was a-flowing! 10, 12, 14mg q2H. On the dot. With IV Benadryl. The most I gave was 16 but that's beside the point.

There are people who can still breathe with 16 mg of Dilaudid AND Benadryl coursing through their bodies?!

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
Yes I totally agree that doing these activities to attract the attention and handling by staff is inappropriate and disgusting. I had a male patient who was always asking for suppositories. He would refuse oral laxatives and say he was constipated even when he wasn't just to get the female nurses to give him a supp. Then the staff decided to give this task to a male nurse. The latter agreed. Patient took oral laxatives after that. But the old nuns where I trained would not have considered this inappropriate. They would tell us the patient had unmet needs.

The best solution to a creepy male patient with semi sexual requests is to bring in a male care provider. Funny how often that request then gets taken back by the patient!

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The best solution to a creepy male patient with semi sexual requests is to bring in a male care provider. Funny how often that request then gets taken back by the patient!

We were having a conversation about how he treats the female nurses and the male nurse stated he did not do this with him, how he was appropriate and didn't ask for supps from him, so he offered to help the female nurses out so we would not be subjected to his inappropriateness and abuse. I think the management should have dealt with it and confronted him about it but they did not. The previous CEO would have taken it head on and confronted him, but not the current management who will not stand up for the staff.

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