Patient behavior that ticks you off

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I'm a long-term dialysis patient (ten years so far!), and I'm interested in what nurses and techs find annoying about patients. I think if patients knew what aggravated staff, they might be willing to change their behavior so that their time at dialysis would be more pleasant. Patients in my unit really enjoy when the staff are smiling and in a good mood, and would like to keep that going.

I'm part of my unit's support group, and a lot of our elderly patients truly don't understand why nurses get aggravated with them. I'm hoping to bring this subject up at our next meeting, which is why I decided to ask this question of the renal nurses and techs on this board. I'd appreciate it if you would share your thoughts or experiences in dialysis patient care... thanks!

Also in another post you made a statement that is not true. The DON or CM in some units DOES NOT need to have a BSN .. If that were true many units wouldn't have a DON/CM. It is true though that in order to have CNN behind a nurse's name that nurse does have to have a BSN.

And I believe the OP asked specifically about elderly patients.

Thanks

The manager does not even have to be a nurse. I worked in one unit where the clinical/unit manager was a tech w/ a bacheler's in art.

Of course, she had no clue and was very ineffectual.

What bugs me most is when pts drink a ton of water and expect us to just take it all off like it's nothing.

Large goals make a treatment much more time consuming for staff, and also makes it much more likely that a pt will crash or have other problems.

Pt's who are chronically non-compliant are making a lot more stress and work for staff, not to mention taking staff time away from other pts.

I worked with elderly pts (LTC, hospice) for many years before I went into dialysis. The problems some pts bring to the unit are generally not age related.

The thing that bugs me most of all is when pt's take no responsibility for their own well being.

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....I would guess that staff really don't have time to even teach patients what they would like to considering all the factors coming into play, esp short staffing.

Not so. I spend 9-12 hrs a week in the same room with each pt. The other nurses, the dietitian, the social worker, the techs, the clinical manager and myself all do continual pt teaching with them over and over and over again.

Some of them know so much about dialysis, they could teach it themselves.

The pts who wish to comply with their treatment do, and the ones who don't want to, don't. It's as simple as that.

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Not so. I spend 9-12 hrs a week in the same room with each pt. The other nurses, the dietitian, the social worker, the techs, the clinical manager and myself all do continual pt teaching with them over and over and over again.

Some of them know so much about dialysis, they could teach it themselves.

The pts who wish to comply with their treatment do, and the ones who don't want to, don't. It's as simple as that.

Exactly. You can lead a horse to water ( or a dialysis patient for that matter) but you can't make em drink..... Well I should have left out the ( ).:trout:

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Or as I like to say, you can lead them away from water, but you can't get them to not drink.

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Or as I like to say, you can lead them away from water, but you can't get them to not drink.

Some of them.. Some of them are bigger than me..;)

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Specializes in Tele, Dialysis, Med-Surg, ICU,GI.

Its funny, I have pt who wants to drop his edw, so he can drink more, and his MD agrees, and through out his tx, he has a systolic no greater than 80, we are all worried this patient will go into cardiac arrest on the machine.

Pts should try to be more understanding about the chairs, sometimes the machine malfunctions and previous patients are sick and they are not ready. Also pts should try not to move their arms, I know it is hard especially when u are sitting their for 3.5 hours, but it causes the machine to go off with these new Fresnius machines we have it stops the clock as well. Sometimes, everyone clots on the machine, it is not the nurse's fault, especially if she has done everything possible to prevent it.

I want to thank you Medical Zebra for your advice a few months back. Thank you!

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Specializes in LTC, FP office, Med/Surg, ICU, Dialysis.

Honestly, I hardly have a patient that irritate me. There's this one dude who always come in like he's always high on crack. He's loud and always pretend that he's a "playa." Lay off the pipe, Tyrone Biggums!

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Unfortunately, the original poster died and in order for continuity of this subject - I would suggest that another post be started. Thanks for your understanding.

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