Patients who are too lazy to open their own splenda packets

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Good grief, some patients want to revert back to being 9 month old infants!!! They also like to ask requests one at a time. Then, after you wait on them hand and foot all shift with the patience of a saint, they turn on you in an instant when their latest trivial request is not immediately granted due to the fact that there is someone circling the drain in the room next door. :rolleyes:

This thread brings up a favorite memory from nursing school - a loooong time ago!

One of my classmates was assisting a doc with a trivial, non sterile procedure. He asked her for an alcohol swab. She handed it to him in the little foil packet.

He snapped at her: "well open it for me".

She replied: "okay, but watch carefully so next time you'll know how to do it yourself."

That got told around for a long time!

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Specializes in OB, HH, ADMIN, IC, ED, QI.
I was once on clincal with the public health nurse who told me when she was a rural nurse a 60 year old guy rung her up at 2.30 in the mornign to ask if she could come round and butter his toast.

Seriously.

That must have been my healthy brother-in-law. It makes me sick that my sister acts like a nursemaid to him, and all his demands, including buttering his toast - for over 60 years! She once told me that divorce would mean she'd have no one to take her to parties, or host theirs........:stone

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.
That must have been my healthy brother-in-law. It makes me sick that my sister acts like a nursemaid to him, and all his demands, including buttering his toast - for over 60 years! She once told me that divorce would mean she'd have no one to take her to parties, or host theirs........:stone

Which illustrates the fact that our patients come into the hospital with ingrained habits of having others at their beck and call.

How about the patient who really becomes totally helpless when their family comes to visit? That's a weird phenomenon.

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Which illustrates the fact that our patients come into the hospital with ingrained habits of having others at their beck and call.

How about the patient who really becomes totally helpless when their family comes to visit? That's a weird phenomenon.

They are probably manipulating their family. I wonder how fast they would recover if their family mentions the word "nursing home"?

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, home-care.

Had been taking care of a gentleman in LTC. He was spouting every morning about the "hired help" he had at home brought him coffee each day at 5 am and played scribbage with him until his breakfast was served by his wife.

Seemed to expect the same in the nursing facility.

I laughed my butt off when I found out the home care company, where I also worked part time, was his "hired help" paid for by the county.

I gently explained taking care of 38 residents with 2 aids and 1 lpn per floor did NOT include coffee and scribbage in the am on my shift

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For me it's always the infamous: "Can you hand me my tissue box???"

Arrrrgh ...come on -- reach on over there and get it yourself. You're able to do it!!

I can't even imagine ordering around anyone in my room, as a patient, if I was well enough to do it. NEVER. It would be a point of pride NOT to need help with the things I could do for myself. I'm sorry -- it would be My room, MY territory ...I just would not want some nurse going around doing everything and disturbing everything.

And the opening of the milk cartons, the juice cartons ..whatever needs opening -- I wonder how these people live on their own, honestly. By the looks of a lot of them, they seem to have no problem getting food packages open in their home environments. Sorry, but how do they live independently, ever?

Now, I did have one wonderful woman as a patient -- here we were big into the spiel of how we could "make her stay an excellent stay, " etc, etc. and all she says is, "Well, all I can think of is that I could use a good cup of black coffee." That was it -- she just wanted some coffee during her stay. That's all it took....I was ready to go down to Starbucks and get it freshly brewed for her!!

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I recently switched floors at the hospital where I work. I've found that, really, a lot of whether or not nursing is waitressing depends on management. I am finding (haven't been there long yet, though) that on my new floor, it's less about waitressing b/c mgmt on this floor lets you have some leeway in setting your nursing priorities as long as you explain yourself. The old floor did not, so much. Good management really does make a difference. Some managers are clueless, to the detriment of their units.

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For me it's always the infamous: "Can you hand me my tissue box???"

Arrrrgh ...come on -- reach on over there and get it yourself. You're able to do it!!

I can't even imagine ordering around anyone in my room, as a patient, if I was well enough to do it. NEVER. It would be a point of pride NOT to need help with the things I could do for myself. I'm sorry -- it would be My room, MY territory ...I just would not want some nurse going around doing everything and disturbing everything.

And the opening of the milk cartons, the juice cartons ..whatever needs opening -- I wonder how these people live on their own, honestly. By the looks of a lot of them, they seem to have no problem getting food packages open in their home environments. Sorry, but how do they live independently, ever?

I can't imagine having someone do what I'm capable of doing, and the only way anyone else is feeding me or wiping my backside is if my arms were immobilized in casts.

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.

Originally Posted by aeauooo viewpost.gif

HA! I got one for ya:

I had two patients in the ICU, one alert & oriented, relatively stable. The other was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head who had blown out one of his eyes. I had to put lacri-lube on it then cover it up with half a styrofoam cup every couple of hours.

While setting up to put lacri-lube on the guy's eye I heard my A&O patient in the next room say, "
I want a drink of water
." Then I heard one of the visitors come out of the room saying, "
Where's that nurse? Where's that nurse?
"

I removed the styrofoam cup from the guy's eye and stood aside so that the guy's blown out eye could be seen from the door.

I heard, "
Where's that nur
..."

I didn't hear another word about a cup of water after that.

Ooooo, HIPAA violation.:yeah: Good on you.

It just occurred to me, this might have been a HIPAA violation, except that it occurred before HIPAA was enacted. You can't pop me for a violation that wasn't a violation at the time!

Motion to dismiss granted. Court adjourned.

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Specializes in Corrections, neurology, dialysis.
Originally Posted by aeauooo viewpost.gif

HA! I got one for ya:

I had two patients in the ICU, one alert & oriented, relatively stable. The other was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head who had blown out one of his eyes. I had to put lacri-lube on it then cover it up with half a styrofoam cup every couple of hours.

While setting up to put lacri-lube on the guy's eye I heard my A&O patient in the next room say, "
I want a drink of water
." Then I heard one of the visitors come out of the room saying, "
Where's that nurse? Where's that nurse?
"

I removed the styrofoam cup from the guy's eye and stood aside so that the guy's blown out eye could be seen from the door.

I heard, "
Where's that nur
..."

I didn't hear another word about a cup of water after that.

It just occurred to me, this might have been a HIPAA violation, except that it occurred before HIPAA was enacted. You can't pop me for a violation that wasn't a violation at the time!

Motion to dismiss granted. Court adjourned.

I think what you did was great. You didn't reveal his identity - just his eye, or the absence of an eye. Would the average person be able to identify this person by his eye socket? I have visions this guy sitting at a bus stop and someone coming up to him and saying "hey it's John Doe. I recoginize him by his eye socket."

Okay, I'm bored.

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.
I think what you did was great. You didn't reveal his identity - just his eye, or the absence of an eye. Would the average person be able to identify this person by his eye socket?

Oh, the eye was there, it just wasn't in the socket (I called him Popeye)

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Some patients are very experienced in playing one shift against another. Have you never noticed; as soon as see you (even though they don't know you from Adam), they say something like "thank god your here! Do you know what I had to live through because of the treatment of (fill in the blank) on the (fill in the blank) shift?"

These patients should have been Psychologists because they sure know how to 'psych you out'. They are setting you up to be their 'servent' for the entire shift so that they will not talk about YOU like that to the next shift. But guess what! It dosen't matter what you do for patients like this, their gamesmanship has nothing to do with you, they are working the system and YOU dear comapssionate Nurse, are part of their System!

Unfortunatally for us, many have as their allies in this game Patients Reps, who are not nurses, and sometimes not really people with a lot of education, but they do have power, and some have an ax to grind, on YOUR back!

You and I both know that not only is the patient in the next room 'circling the drain' the patinet in the next room after that is a long suffering 'salt of the earth' type person, who really could use some help with ADL's, or maybe just a little explanation or a kind word, but they have a different way of looking at the world. You know that old saying 'the squeeky wheel gets the grease!'

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