Parents Complained About Me To The Attending - Looking For Advice

[Nurse12390, BSN]

Hi everyone!

I’ve been a nurse for a little over two years now. I spent over a year on a medsurg/renal transplant floor and a year in the NICU. I recently relocated and started a nicu position at a different hospital. The floor is great and everyone is really nice/supportive. Yesterday I was taking care of a baby with PIE who we extubated from the conventional vent to CPAP. The parents were at the bedside after we got the kid stabilized on the CPAP. I spent a lot of time with the parents explaining everything I was doing. They would get really nervous every time the alarm went off so I took a lot of time explaining the alarms to them and I made an effort to go over everytime the alarm went off and explain what was happening and reassure them that everything was okay. I was changing out the interface on the cpap from the mask to the prongs and the baby started to desat into the 70s. I bumped up his O2 and proned him and gave him a few minutes to see if he would recover. When he didn’t recover I switched him back to the mask and put him back on his belly. I explained to the parents what happened and I felt like I alleviated their worries about the situation. 

After report my preceptor told me I think you kinda traumatized those parents in a joking manner. I thought she was just trying to be funny because she saw first hand how much time I spent taking to the parents and making sure they were okay. She told me they had complained to the attending that I was being too rough with their baby and they didn’t like how I was changing the mask on the CPAP too much and repositioning him. The policy at this hospital is to change out the interface on the CPAP every 3 hours to prevent skin breakdown and I always like to at least turn my patient’s head every set of cares if they are on their belly. My preceptor told me that I did nothing wrong and it’s all about the parent’s perceptive  of the situation and something there is just nothing you can do. I was very upset. I’ve never had a patient/parent complain about me before. I had spent the whole day running around and going above and beyond for this kid and his family. I really took the time to talk and explain things to them and I really thought I had provided a lot of support and decreased their anxiety. My preceptor told me that I will probably be talked to by management. I’m really nervous about this. Management has a reputation of firing new people on orientation and always taking the parent’s side no matter what. I’m nervous that my preceptor didn’t stand up for me when the attending told her about the complaint. She reassured me that I did nothing wrong but I’m worried other people won’t perceive it that way and that management will fire me or write me up.

I really wish the attending had come to me directly so that I could have address this issue directly with the family in that moment.  That way I could have heard them out and try to make them feel better about the situation. I really care about my patients and their families and always try to do my best for them. 
 

I guess I’m just here to vent and get some advice so that I can become a better nurse from this situation.  Has anyone else ever had an experience like this? If so what did you do to learn from it? Thank you so much in advance ?

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

You did a good job. Your preceptor told you, that you did a good job. 

You are beginning to learn... that parents of an unstable child... are at the most stressful times of their lives.  I have been there, done that. The attending knows this. 

[JKL33]

I could be way off base--but I have witnessed this quite a bit so maybe it'll be useful info:

On 7/16/2022 at 11:15 AM, Nurse12390 said:

so I took a lot of time explaining the alarms to them and I made an effort to go over everytime the alarm went off and explain what was happening and reassure them that everything was okay

On 7/16/2022 at 11:15 AM, Nurse12390 said:

I had spent the whole day running around and going above and beyond for this kid and his family.

On 7/16/2022 at 11:15 AM, Nurse12390 said:

I really took the time to talk and explain things to them and I really thought I had provided a lot of support and decreased their anxiety.

I believe there actually is such a thing as too much; trying too hard. I have seen it many times with new/newer nurses, my personal observation and opinion is that it does somehow make people feel less confident in what you are doing. At some point it is possible to spend so much time explaining every detail it can start to look like either 1) you're trying to convince yourself that what you are doing is correct or 2) there's something they should be worried about and you're trying to pacify them  or 3) you're uncomfortable about the situation in some way

People can pick up on this. There's a normal amount of explaining and reassuring and then there's some nebulous point where can appear kind of suspicious.

If people get suspicious they can come up with alllll sorts of concerns. They can pick up on the confidence thing and they smell blood in the water.

On 7/16/2022 at 11:15 AM, Nurse12390 said:

She reassured me that I did nothing wrong but I’m worried other people won’t perceive it that way and that management will fire me or write me up.

If you get fired **or** written up over this, it is NOT a place you need to work anyway.

If you are talked to about this, I hope it is in a professional manner, and I strongly suggest your reply not be much more than, "Feedback is important to me, thank you for letting me know."  Cause guess what? If you start giving a whole run-down about what you did and what was going on with the baby and how the parents were acting and everything that you wrote above....it'll be the same mistake that I suspect you may have made in the first place. ??

Lastly, not everyone is going to like everything you do. The time to get over worrying about that is yesterday.

Good luck and take care ~

??

[Robmoo, ADN, BSN, RN]

It is tough to add anything to what JKL33 said.  If admin is so casual about firing and they fire you I'd just see it as meant to be and move on.

Patient and parents are like sharks.  One of the important jobs of the nurse which they seldom talk about in nursing school is obtaining the confidence of the patient/parent.  Over explaining is one way to make this difficult.  Take it all with a grain of salt and move forward.  It sounds like you are doing well and this is just a little bump in the road.

Good luck!