Patient compliments and feedback

I would not worry.  Maybe they didn't remember your name. Do you talk with your patients about other things? Just writing your name on the communication board might not  be the only way to remember your name.  Don't overthink it, it likely has nothing to do with your care. Patients in a hospital or health care setting are often stressed with their own thoughts. Maybe your co-worker did something very different that they remembered.

Hello. I know recognition feels good. We all like a kudos now and then. It's good for your morale and overall it makes you feel good. But it sounds to me like you're doing a great job. The patients recognize that and sometimes the recognition happens (albeit not officially), but when you're not there. For example, the nurse that follows you may hear how great you were or patients might even request you. That's sometimes the strongest recognition of all. Just because you don't hear about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. 
 

In my department, the staff gives their patient the Daisy form and asks them to fill it out. I have never done that. It sounds too "Here, tell people how great I am". I always think the patient should want to do that instead of you trying to get it out of them. Plus, it can make people wonder if you did a great job for its own sake or if you just wanted them to recognize you. So I don't recommend the self-promotion and  being self-serving. 
 

Keep on doing the great job you do. While recognition is a good feeling, patients may remember you more than you realize. Plus, yes there could be an element with popularity and favoritism that governs this type of thing. But there is nothing that you can do about that. Sometimes cliques are there and management has its favorites. You just have to know who you are and what you are meant to do and take pride in the fact that you have chosen to do it well. 

I worked at a hospital where the ANM nominated the night charge nurse for a Daisy award. This particular nurse had a sense of self-importance and always patted herself on the back and blamed others when she made a mistake. Most of us were convinced that she got the award because she always said yes to OT.  The ANM did not know or did not care that she slept on the job from about 2-5 a.m. every night she worked, a firing offense.

These awards are for sure a popularity contest rather than rewarding those who are truly hardworking and go unnoticed in the background. I've bent over backwards at my previous hospital and never received a daisy award but watched a coworker get one and a nurse excellence award shortly afterwards, not to say she wasn't a good nurse, but having worked with her, I've seen her get frazzled very easily and miss things because of that. Even with my own excellence award (staff nominated), specialty certifications, and a "signed" letter from the CEO, none of it made a difference or even came up during my interview for my next job at a different hospital either. It definitely feels good to be acknowledged, even for a split second. If the patient or family ever asks how they can thank you, just casually say they could e-mail your manager or write a card to the unit, etc. At the end of the day, you know you work hard and still love what you do (I question my career choice on a daily basis). Your feelings are valid, and at least here, we understand and acknowledge you.

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Meanwhile I sat there feeling so slighted because the same patients also thanked me and it felt like they appreciated having me as their nurse yet I received zero compliments. I feel terrible for feeling this way but it is starting to get to me and making me feel inadequate. 

I can't say I have never felt this way, but it was in passing and thankfully has never really become a means of judging myself. 

It might have to do with our personalities whether this kind of thing is important to us as individuals or not.

In patient comments, I have been one who is sometimes mentioned, but not nearly as often as others. At the place I worked the longest, there were less than a handful of nurses who were mentioned repeatedly. VERY repeatedly. I will say that I considered most of them to be above average as nurses. Two of them had multiple community connections and were well known/by many patients (a fact at most certainly affected the number of comments received) - but at the end of the day it isn't like they didn't deserve the comments.  It's just that other people probably did too. 

Another separate factor is that sometimes the things that make customers happy are not directly associated with actual quality of care. We probably all know someone who manages to get lots of patient compliments despite not knowing what they're doing, not really caring about excellence or maybe even delivering observably poor nursing care.

Regardless, this issue of feeling inadequate because of all of this is a "me" (not an "everyone else")  problem. My personal opinion is that life is too short to judge ourselves by these means, therefore if we are overly bothered by something like this, we have some personal work to do to move away from that. Assuming that we know internally that we are doing good work, we should not feel inadequate merely because some other person did not compliment us.

I have seen management keep quiet or not let nurses know about complements or recommendations for some employees while being vocal about others. I can only guess why management do things like this, so you might be getting more good feedback than you know.  

Beats the hell out of getting petty BS complaints...be grateful...

offlabel said:

Beats the hell out of getting petty BS complaints...be grateful...

I am not complaining or being ungrateful I am expressing a genuine emotion. It can be difficult to feel as though you are providing great care for your patients, yet continuously lack any form of recognition while everyone else around you is constantly praised in some way. 

JKL33 said:

I can't say I have never felt this way, but it was in passing and thankfully has never really become a means of judging myself. 

It might have to do with our personalities whether this kind of thing is important to us as individuals or not.

In patient comments, I have been one who is sometimes mentioned, but not nearly as often as others. At the place I worked the longest, there were less than a handful of nurses who were mentioned repeatedly. VERY repeatedly. I will say that I considered most of them to be above average as nurses. Two of them had multiple community connections and were well known/by many patients (a fact at most certainly affected the number of comments received) - but at the end of the day it isn't like they didn't deserve the comments.  It's just that other people probably did too. 

Another separate factor is that sometimes the things that make customers happy are not directly associated with actual quality of care. We probably all know someone who manages to get lots of patient compliments despite not knowing what they're doing, not really caring about excellence or maybe even delivering observably poor nursing care.

Regardless, this issue of feeling inadequate because of all of this is a "me" (not an "everyone else")  problem. My personal opinion is that life is too short to judge ourselves by these means, therefore if we are overly bothered by something like this, we have some personal work to do to move away from that. Assuming that we know internally that we are doing good work, we should not feel inadequate merely because some other person did not compliment us.

 

Thank you. All good advice. I understand this might stem from a little insecurity but I think you're right that sometimes we just have to believe that what we do is appreciated and remembered more than we realize.