Patient/Family Rage

grannynurse FNP student · Dec 25, 2005

i think we've already established, by virtue of the fact that you haven't worked as a nurse in nearly two decades, that you haven't the perspective to encounter the "customer service mode." your credentials as a patient, frankly, don't count for much in that respect, especially when you're posting on a nursing board to nurses who are actively practicing their profession.
this board is where we nurses come to share viewpoints, and sometimes to ventilate about patients and their families. this thread was started to discuss the inappropriate sense of entitlement and the deplorable behavior that some patients and their families exhibit, and how it seems to be on the increase in recent years. you admit that you haven't been working as a nurse in recent years. it seems that you have quite a bit of anger toward nurses and the nursing profession, and seem to lack empathy for nurses. it makes me wonder why you choose to come to a nursing board and post your venom about nurses. just trying to stir the pot?

no, i am not trying to stir the pot. but i have never believed that a nurse was always right and a patient was always wrong. i have had to deal with patients and families that were abusive. and the ones i could deal with i handed over to another peer who could. you claim taht the attitudes have changed. i really don't think they have. there have always been abusive, threatening patients and families. it seems the attitudes towards dealing with them has changed. and i do not lack empathy for nurse. i do lack empathy for nurses who feel they must always be in control. and that the patient and family is always wrong.

grannynurse:nurse:

fergus51 · Dec 25, 2005

I just came home from the hospital, after having suffered a severe asthma attack yesterday morning. My daughter to me into the old St Joes, the same ER where an experienced nurse keep digging in my arm. The volunteer was very nice, getting me a wheelschair, getting the triage nurse to come out and take a look at me, and taking me back for treatment. The two RNs, who helped me, were professional and hit a vein on his first try. The doctor was excellent as well. Because I was in status I had to be admitted. The staff nurses, on the floor, treated me professionally and met my respiratory and diabetic needs. Because I was on IV Solu Medrol, my blood sugars were running 400 and 500 plus. I was taken off it this morning but as a good nurse knows it will impact my blood sugars for two to three days. At 5pm my blood sugar was 405 and the covering physician wanted me to stay another two hours. We had discussed it when he had seen me and he knew I would sign out AMA, which I did. I have gone home with high blood sugars before and my respiratory status has been all right. I am sure that some will question my singing out AMA but it was my decision. I am more concerned about my respiratory status and it is all right now. I will manage my blood sugars with the covering physician's help. My blood sugar is 350 and I have covered it. And called his service to let him know.

Sorry to hear that you were sick over the holidays especially, but I'm glad you had a better experience with the staff. Hope you have a nice Christmas at home

SFCardiacRN · Dec 25, 2005

Grannynurse, Happy holidays and I hope you do well. AMA is always risky but you are in a position to make that decision rationally. I glad you were treated better this time. Good luck!

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 25, 2005

Sorry, but no one has the 'right' to threaten, be it pt. or nurse.

casi, ASN, RN · Dec 25, 2005

As and aide I've been threatened, smacked, and occassionally groped. Most of these incidents I did not report, because I work on a dementia unit. Chances are with these residents, I"ll go into their rooms two hours after agitation lead to violence and they are just so happy to see me. I have no problem with this kind of occassional behavior from someone who isn't oriented.

If you are alert and oriented and you try any of those things, it's UNACCEPTABLE. I really like the idea of making pts. and visitors sign a code of conduct. If they can't behave themselves, they can go someplace else. Sounds cruel, but health care workers deserve to be in a SAFE environment.

Visitors acting out due to stress and visitors getting violent are two completely different things. I've had a family member raise their voice a little to me, they were mainly just ventting. I knew there was no danger of it escalating.

Some people have brought up persons right to refuse care being denied. Look at the nursing shortage. Let's say I can't get a resident out of bed in the morning, because they refuse. "No, just let me sleep." I report off to the day shift that they need to get an extra person up, they are already extreamly busy. They report to our manager that we aren't doing our job and we get yelled at. So administration is pushing us to push our residents to do what we want them to. Nurse A can't get an IV started and the pt has no pacience to help the nurse learn, so Nurse A gets Nurse B to start the IV, what are the chances that Nurse B is going to get upset, because she is already behind on her pt. load.

Team work is stressed, but team work is hard to accomplish when everyone is overworked, and barely able to keep up with their load, and when administration is pushing their employees to get things done, even when a pt. may refuse.

The violence really needs to get looked at from an administrative standpoint. There need to be no tolerance policies for abuse. They need to have safe staffing levels, so nurse aren't being pushed to get work done without reguards to their patients. Patients may complain that their nurse or aide doesn't seem to care, but their nurse or aide could have the biggest heart in the world, but they don't have time to stop to show it.

sjrn85 · Dec 25, 2005

Instead of threatening to clock the nurse who wouldn't stop digging for an IV, you could have yanked your arm away, as someone else suggested, or told her if she didn't stop you would file assault and battery charges (since that's what she was doing). Threatening physical violence just diminished your credibility, at least with many of the people who have read your post.

And I'm sorry, but the climate in hospitals has changed a lot since 1988. Those of us who are out there on the front lines get to see it on a daily basis. It's irresponsible to say you know what's going on when you've been clearly out of the mix for a long, long time.

sjrn85 · Dec 25, 2005

i think we've already established, by virtue of the fact that you haven't worked as a nurse in nearly two decades, that you haven't the perspective to encounter the "customer service mode." your credentials as a patient, frankly, don't count for much in that respect, especially when you're posting on a nursing board to nurses who are actively practicing their profession.
this board is where we nurses come to share viewpoints, and sometimes to ventilate about patients and their families. this thread was started to discuss the inappropriate sense of entitlement and the deplorable behavior that some patients and their families exhibit, and how it seems to be on the increase in recent years. you admit that you haven't been working as a nurse in recent years. it seems that you have quite a bit of anger toward nurses and the nursing profession, and seem to lack empathy for nurses. it makes me wonder why you choose to come to a nursing board and post your venom about nurses. just trying to stir the pot?

i agree with this. i'm also troubled by people who aren't nurses (lay people, in other words) weighing in on this topic. this is a board for nurses and nursing students.

hipab4hands · Dec 25, 2005

People most certainly have changed.I'm sure as a health care consumer you have seen a decrease in quality of care, as have myself. But the public as whole has changed too. As another poster above went into, a sense of entitlement, rudeness, etc. Not just in health care, but everywhere we see it.

One of best rages I got from a patient, was a person, who threaten to get my license/ swore at me/ and threaten to sue everyone and then had the nerve to tell me she worked for the head of a state agency. She thought that by dropping this person's name, she was going to get what she wanted.

I'm lucky in that our phone calls are tape recorded. I told that she was free to file any complaints she wanted, and I'm sure that her boss would LOVE to hear the recording and hear how the boss's name was being used to get "special treatment".

The patient hung up immediately and never did file any complaints.

LoriAlabamaRN · Dec 26, 2005

and yet you are so proud of having threatened physical violence to a nurse that you've boasted about it on at least two threads now.
i would say, having practiced continuously since 1978, that if you haven't been active in nursing in almost 20 years, your opinions are much less pertinent that of someone who has been practicing during that time. the climate has changed quite a bit since 1988. patients and families seem to be less polite and respectful of hospital staff and have an enormous sense of entitlement that wasn't there even ten years ago. there is also a move toward "customer service" in hospitals, which seems to mean that deplorable behavior is tolerated and even rewarded.
i must say, i've read a number of your posts and wondered where in the world you were coming from. knowing that you're inactive in nursing explains a lot!
ruby

i've wondered the same thing... and i could not have said it better, ruby. anyone who is new to the boards should do a search of her posts, they will see exactly what we are talking about. i think that the threat of violence was inexcusable. the fact that she was a nurse a long, long time ago does not justify her position. and i, too, now understand why her attitude is what it is and will take all future posts with the appropriate considerations.

Nurse Ratched, RN · Dec 26, 2005

Closed for moderator review.