Patients are always requesting not to have this nurse.

[Emma_H]

On the unit I work on, patients are frequently requesting not to have specific nurses on my unit. I can almost always guess who they will request not have before they tell me a name. I know of two particular nurses on my floor who have strong personalities and often have issues with patients or their families. It makes it awkward when you have to tell the nurse of the request but also necessary at times so that specific nurse will not be covering this patient while you go on a break or something.

Anyone else experience this?

[Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN]

We have a nurse like that. I figured someone in management would eventually notice, but instead they're making her a charge nurse. All I can do is laugh.

[Morainey, BSN, RN]

We have a nurse like that. I figured someone in management would eventually notice, but instead they're making her a charge nurse. All I can do is laugh.

Sounds about right! Where I work, they win awards!

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Patients at my workplace frequently request to not be cared for by a specific male tech/CNA. Although he is a nice person, he has a very difficult-to-understand accent because he is from another country. Patients claim that he cannot speak English and they feel he is 'forcing' them to perform cares. Several times a week we are having to swap assignments because one or more patients requested to not have him back.

Don't get me wrong, because half of my coworkers are from foreign countries. However, their spoken English is very understandable while his English is hard to understand.

[grandpaj]

Patients FREQUENTLY complain about the same two day shift nurses in particular to me and ask not to have them again. It gets old to follow those people and have to hear about it every time you go in the room, despite attempts at apologizing, redirecting the conversation, referring them to management/charge nurse, etc.

[SoldierNurse22, BSN, RN]

Yep, had that happen a few times. The nurse I worked with was brash, rude to patients and families, and outright ignored patient requests.

Let's call her Nurse D. I was charge two nights in a row when Nurse D was working on days. The second night, I was informed by the day charge nurse that the patient didn't want Nurse D back in the morning. I made up the assignments for the next day shift based on who had who the day before and acuity and went in for report.

We got out to the nurses' station, which was a very public location right in the center of the ward. Nurse D decided to challenge my assignment-making skills at that point. She approached me and said, "LT Soldiernurse, why didn't you give me back my patient from yesterday? Haven't you ever heard of continuity of care? What's wrong with you?"

She was loud, boisterous and ******. She had the attention of everyone at the nurses' station. I looked her right in the eye and said, "Nurse D, that patient requested that you not be their nurse."

That shut her up fast.

[dirtyhippiegirl, BSN, RN]

Yes. And then I'll pass it along to the dayshift charge, who will often LOOK ME IN THE EYE while making assignments -- as said charge nurse is assigning said nurse to said patient.

[CaitlynRNBSN]

We have one nurse who has been a nurse for YEARS AND YEARS. Very knowledgeable, but her health is really starting to....well...she looks like she could be one of our patients. One time I answered one of her patient's call lights. I took the lady to the bathroom and she says to me:

Patient: "Can I ask you something? And I don't mean it to be rude"

Me: "Sure, ask away"

Patient "Is my nurse Jane Doe,..is she ok to be taking care of patients?"

You just look at her from even down the hall and you know something is not good with her. i'm not talking hygiene,just health issues. Eeeek I don't know, but its scary sometimes.

[CaitlynRNBSN]

We have a frequent flier patient, who we all dread having. The wife is CRRRRRRRRAZY! honestly, craziest family member I've ever met. She takes the cake on craziest people in the world.

She has a list that she comes in with. A list of nurses and CNA's that are allowed to work with her husband (the patient) and a list of ones that are not. The list for nurses that are not allowed to work with him is much larger than the other list.

Well, one time there was a shift were no nurses on the "good list" were scheduled to work. So she was forced to take a nurse on her "bad list" She freaked out at the charge nurse, came up yelling/screaming about it.

The charge nurse explained that there was nobody on her list and even if there was we cannot always accommodate her wishes, but will do our best. Today was a day we could not....not that we really even wanted to try with this lady. We just did it to avoid confrontation.

Lady was having a heart attack screaming and yelling. She DEMANDED the charge nurse call someone in to work with her husband. The charge nurse was like "I'm not calling any of these nurses in for your husband. These nurses are at home with their families." She told the charge nurse "You all vowed to be a nurse. that means you put your patient's first, not you're "darn" families. Now get one of these nurses in here now" (She didn't say darn but you get it).and she shoved the "good list" in the charge nurses face and stormed off. She threatened to report all the nurses on the "bad list" to the state if we didn't get one of our "good list nurses" in within a few hours. We got ethics involved in the whole deal, they took care of it and got legal involved. Someone talked with her, and she said she was switching hospitals. Haven't seen/heard from them in a couple months. Its been a great couple months! it truly has.