Patients family in the medical field

weirdscience · Jun 13, 2015

I've noticed that the most skilled nurses are the last to volunteer their profession. Usually if someone tells you they're a nurse, you can be certain they don't work bedside in the hospital.

I had a patient in oncology whose wife was a longtime flight nurse. She patiently allowed me to explain her husband's disease process and tx, nodding appropriately. But something she said minutes later tickled my brain, and I asked her how long she'd been a nurse. She cracked up, and I was mortified!

Twenty-five years this chick had done emergent and critical medicine nursing, and I'm explaining side effects of decadron and what to expect after radiation treatments. :-/

Jensmom7, BSN, RN · Jun 13, 2015

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As you MAY be able to tell, I am sincerely concerned when my fellow nurses are disrespected.
Do you anything constructive to add?

There's a world of difference between being genuinely concerned and being so prickly and confrontational that you yourself become part of the problem. If this is how you conduct yourself on a daily basis, you are not someone I would care to be associated with, either professionally or personally.

Disclaimer: I actually did not mean to thumbs up OPs previous post, but I can't figure out how to remove it.

Been there,done that, ASN, RN · Jul 14, 2015

Let me guess, you wouldn't want me for your nurse either.

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Jul 14, 2015

I'm not being snarky at all, but wouldn't a patient's parent or a family member who is a nurse know more than you?

Is it just me or does it bother anyone else when a patient has a parent or family member that's a nurse or something and they try to show you up and make it seem like they know more then you ot just as much. It's not a competition, just doing my job. Sometimes it's a blessing other times it a headache. Its like Ok I understand your in the field also...

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Jul 14, 2015

You sound a whole lot defensive about nurses "stepping on your toes"....

I work in Peds and we get mothers who are nurses and it's like...ok you can use medical terms good for you.

noyesno, MSN, APRN, NP · Jul 17, 2015

Had a patient family member who was a former Quality Department nurse.
Never left the bedside and made my life a living h*ll.

And the patient was a nurse manager.

Didn't add that before because I was so paranoid she was still watching me...

VAC · Jul 18, 2015

Like any patient, I try to meet them where they're at (educationally if possible), answer questions and provide explanations. I'm much more terrified if a family member is in the LEGAL profession, to be honest. I don't advertise that I'm an RN when I'm a patient, though they sometimes pick up on it by how I speak and the questions I ask. I've worked adult ICU and PACU, so I didn't have any input for my son's dialysis nurses, for example. (Thank God it was a brief acute episode that resolved in a few months. I drove myself nuts trying to understand the renal diet.) I am definitely no dietician either. Some people are just going to badger you and try to run the show no matter what their profession. It's usually out of guilt, need for control, or they're just plain mean.