Patient Death Experience.

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I love to hear stories of memorable patient deaths. Sometimes it's just eerily cool to watch the process unfold (not to be a creep about it). Im still a nursing student so I only have 1 experience so far. Patient had stage 4 cancer with mets to the liver, brain, and a completely occluded left lung. Patient was a super goner, but family was in complete denial and believed she would "pull through." Patient finally expired during one of my clinical rotation and I felt SO relieved for her. Such a crappy way to leave this world. Thats all I got so far..

Please, share a memorable patient death experience that you have had.

Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Well, Thats you.

No, I think it's most people. I wouldn't describe any of my pet's deaths as "eerily cool" either.

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You misconstrue the differences between boundaries in reality with the boundaries of an anonynous online forum.

You keep saying this as if it's somehow been clearly established that we don't have to respect professional boundaries simply because we're "anonymous." Clearly not everyone here agrees.

You were insensitive to have referred to any real person as a "super goner." People have pointed this out to you and you had the opportunity to say "You know, you're right. That was inappropriate and thoughtless and I won't make that mistake again." Instead, you point to some imaginary, unwritten cop out that because this is an anonymous online forum, no harm no foul.

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Well, Thats you.

No one who is a professional HCW should be referring to their patients going through the death process as a "super goner." It's incredibly disrespectful and unprofessional.

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
You misconstrue the differences between boundaries in reality with the boundaries of an anonynous online forum. Also, if you have cancer, "a bad kind," and you are well aware that there are things on AN that upset you or trigger certain emotions within you, then why would you click on a thread about death when you KNOW it would disturb you??

This has to be one of the most insensitive posts I have ever seen on this forum. I am truly horrified.

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Specializes in L&D.
Many people don't find the topic disturbing, it's how you word it. You are coming off as weirdly attached to death. Many people have told you.

Again, you cannot have the title BSN-RN in your name if you have not graduated & passed the NCLEX.

Well if I have already apologized for not using the politically correct terms then why are you harping on the way I worded it so much? 4 pages later, and you are still mad. Why are you acting so bitter? To go out of your way to attempt to irritate someone else is rather.... petty.

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Specializes in L&D.

I have contacted administration in regards to my username, but I WILL be a BSN-RN in December. So excited! Can't wait:)

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I've taken care of more patients than I care to admit who were dying (I mean, in reality, we're all slowly dying - each day is one day closer to your inevitable death). Not all of them have died while I've been involved in their care. Many times - working in the OR of a Level 1 trauma center - we have patients who arrive after sustaining some horrible accident/injury/random event that is precisely why we get them as patients. Sometimes we know it may not make a difference but that doesn't mean we don't try. We treat them the way we'd want ourselves or our family treated. It's sometimes tempting to say something was someone's own doing, but the reality of it is, even if that is true and even if we have a gut feeling what the outcome may be, that person is still someone's family - someone's parent, someone's child (even adults are someone's child), a sister, a brother, a cousin, someone's spouse...

It really sucks when providers share with you outcomes and you find out that interventions we provided because the patient was unidentified and/or unaccompanied were against a patient's wishes in a life and death situation. Patients who didn't want intubated or coded if their prognosis was poor, etc. But we had no way of knowing. We were doing what we always do, and unless we have identification or family to provide it and an advance directive or family/friends as a HCPOA who would choose the same way as the patient? We're going to proceed and pursue life sustaining treatment. Often we get them from an outside hospital per EMTALA and they arrive in the OR on arrival to our facility (often the OSH will scan them and we'll know what their injuries are and they'll bypass our ED).

You see some of the worst in humanity working in the OR - the things people do to others? But at the same time, you see the best in humanity. It's really hard to explain and may just be a personal opinion I hold. I found it was true in a slightly different sense when I worked stepdown/floor (the situations aren't the same you can't quite compare the OR to the floor/stepdown/ICU - it's an apples to oranges kind of thing).

I've had 3 patients die while I was caring for them. They're all memorable for various reasons. Those situations are cemented into my memory, and I will carry them with me until I myself am dead. I have other situations I've been involved with that are cemented in my mind. The reality of it is - the only people who will ever fully understand what I felt and experienced in those situations are the other people who were involved in that situation(s).

I think it's natural to have some curiosity about something we're, as a society, detached from until it happens to someone close to us. I do have to agree with other previous posters - the way this was presented freaked me out a bit (and I don't get freaked out easily).

Also, nothing irritates the crap outta me more than people using degrees and claiming to possess licensure they haven't earned. A coworker did this this year at work - and claimed to have their BSN already despite that classes for their last term weren't finished (s/he wouldn't have bothered me if they'd denoted that their BSN was expected in (Month, year)...but they were acting as if it was finished and it wasn't).

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I have contacted administration in regards to my username, but I WILL be a BSN-RN in December. So excited! Can't wait:)

Really? You're 100% positive you'll graduate as expected? And you're 100% positive you'll not only graduate but have approval from the board of nursing in your state to take NCLEX in December, AND you'll get a December test date AND that you'll pass on the first time?

You expect to graduate in December. You will be eligible to test once your BON processes all of your paperwork. And you still won't be an RN until you pass and have a license.

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Well if I have already apologized for not using the politically correct terms then why are you harping on the way I worded it so much? 4 pages later, and you are still mad. Why are you acting so bitter? To go out of your way to attempt to irritate someone else is rather.... petty.

I'm not mad. It's a public forum, you posted a question, so here are the responses. If you are irritated that's on you.

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Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
I have contacted administration in regards to my username, but I WILL be a BSN-RN in December. So excited! Can't wait:)

*When* you graduate (should everything go to plan), you'll be a BSN graduate but you still won't be an RN. You will have to take the NCLEX to officially be an RN. You can call yourself a Graduate Nurse but not an RN.

I don't know any school that sends out the information to PearsonVue to get the ATT that fast. You might graduate in December but you'll have to wait to get your ATT. Plus will you be ready to take your NCLEX as soon as you graduate if you really should receive an ATT that soon?

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You have been challenged about two different issues in the course of this thread: your perceived cavalier attitude toward death and the process of dying, and your co-opting titles that you have not yet earned, a BSN or RN. In your responses, you keep digging in your heels and sticking to your guns, but I can't help but notice that you have changed not only your user name, but your avatar as this thread has progressed. Why the desire to go into the equivalent of the AN 'witness protection program' if you're so convinced that you're standing on the right side of both issues?

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Specializes in Hospice.
I have contacted administration in regards to my username, but I WILL be a BSN-RN in December. So excited! Can't wait:)

You will only be an RN if you pass NCLEX. And that isn't a given.

And why do you have to contact the mods?? YOU changed it from Bea-whatever to the name you have now, not them. So change it back yourself.

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