what's your pet peeve?

Pangea Reunited, ASN, RN · May 21, 2016

It drives me crazy when people "move in" to their hospital rooms ....especially when they run out of room and start spreading out to the next bed in a semi-private. I had one patient use the bed next to her as a bookshelf for her hundreds of DVDs. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

westieluv · May 21, 2016

People who are admitted for abdominal pain and state that their pain meds are inadequate, then you walk into their room and find them pigging out on Taco Bell food that their family brought in for them. I mean, if I had true, uncontrollable abdominal pain, I don't know about you, but the LAST thing I would want is a chalupa or a meximelt! :sour:

thecrossfitrn, BSN, RN · May 21, 2016

I couldn't pass up replying to this one...

My biggest pet peeve is when a family member tells me something is "ridiculous" in regards to the patient's care. I must hear it at least a dozen times a day, usually in the form of an inpatient wife who thinks her husbands pseudo abdominal pain is a critical condition. My favorite use of the word this week was when a patient's wife called me after he had already been discharged to tell me they couldn't find the prescriptions I gave to them. When I explained I can't be responsible for them losing prescriptions she yelled, "this is RIDICULOUS! They should pull your license for being a horrible nurse". Yep... that was fun.

luvsltcrn · May 21, 2016

This is an easy one. Unrealistic family members!!

Anonymous865 · May 21, 2016

People who are admitted for abdominal pain and state that their pain meds are inadequate, then you walk into their room and find them pigging out on Taco Bell food that their family brought in for them. I mean, if I had true, uncontrollable abdominal pain, I don't know about you, but the LAST thing I would want is a chalupa or a meximelt!

FWIW - I was in the ED for severe abdominal pain. It was the worst pain I had ever experienced - 9/10. I had no nausea, no vomiting, no diarrhea - just horrible pain. Once they gave me some morphine and toradol and got the pain down to a 5/10, I was â€‹starving and so very, very thirsty. (For comparison -when I broke 2 bones at once, I rated the pain 2/10.) I was admitted for surgery for peritonitis.

I'm not saying this is the case with your patient complaining of abdominal pain and chowing down on Taco Bell.

It is possible to have severe abdominal pain and still want to eat.

chacha82, ADN, BSN · May 21, 2016

I couldn't pass up replying to this one...
My biggest pet peeve is when a family member tells me something is "ridiculous" in regards to the patient's care. I must hear it at least a dozen times a day, usually in the form of an inpatient wife who thinks her husbands pseudo abdominal pain is a critical condition. My favorite use of the word this week was when a patient's wife called me after he had already been discharged to tell me they couldn't find the prescriptions I gave to them. When I explained I can't be responsible for them losing prescriptions she yelled, "this is RIDICULOUS! They should pull your license for being a horrible nurse". Yep... that was fun.

This and all of the allusions lately about how "I pay your salary" (???) or throwing trash on the table, telling me "It's your job" to clean it up, etc.

Rexie · May 22, 2016

I'm with you regarding family members. The ones who think that you're not doing enough for their loved one, when you've been waiting on them hand and foot. Or the ones whose family member is totally non compliant but it's somehow my fault. Or the ones who follow me around while I'm trying to get things done to make requests. Or the ones who stand at the nurses desk until I drop what I'm doing to go fetch that drink. Or the ones that ask for a drink for themselves (especially after I've been up and down that long hallway 3 times for various requests!). Or the large families who refuse to appoint a contact person so that I end up having to take 6 separate phone calls asking how mom's night went.

I get annoyed when I'm working on a Sunday and supplies have not been restocked since Friday and we're running low on everything. Or I can't find an IV pump. Or when the scanners on the WOWs don't work. And that we have to call them WOWs (workstation on wheels) and not COWs (computers on wheels) because somebody thought it was offensive. Or when I get my canister of sanitizing wipes set up with the cloths threaded through the the dispenser and somebody comes along and rips the cover off so they can pull out a whole wad and don't fix the dispenser. Or when somebody steals the whole canister of sanitizing wipes or my scanner. Oh, I could go on and on. I guess it was a rough week or maybe I'm just cranky.

quazar · May 22, 2016

People who tell the parents of a newborn not to hold it "too much" because that will make the child "spoiled." Just one of many pet peeves, but that is a BIG one. The kid JUST GOT HERE for crying out loud. I always jump in and say as kindly and sweetly as possible that you can spoil a child with too many video game systems or too many toys, but not too much love. It usually nips that in the bud and the parents are grateful to not to have to get into a fight over parenting techniques with grandma/auntie when the kid isn't even 1 hour old.

brillohead, ADN, RN · May 22, 2016

Tangled lines.

On the vitals machines, the Pulse Ox and BP cuff lines do NOT need to be tied in multiple knots, people!

On IVs, it should not take me five minutes to figure out which tubing is connected to which bag because there are three pumps on one pole with more than one piggyback and the lines are all interwoven amongst each other. How does that even happen????

And then when you toss in the O2 tubing and the call light with the tangled IV lines, that's just the icing on the cake.

I swear I spend fifteen minutes on each patient just untangling everything so I can do my effing job already! How does that not bother anyone else? How does everyone chart that they completed a line trace on all previous shifts when the only way I could figure it out was to disconnect every line, untangle each one, and reconnect????

Yep, definitely a BIG peeve for me....

nutella, MSN, RN · May 22, 2016

When a staff member says "here comes the death lady" or "palliative care kills people" or "I am not going to take morphine because everybody knows that once you are on it you are basically dead" --- pointing to misinformation, bias, and uninformed populist announcements.

I like to say that while everything centers somewhat around end-of-life and serious illness, it is more about quality of life, how to deal with serious illness and how to take control over your life and the time left.

calivianya, BSN, RN · May 22, 2016

Lately it's ice. I hate the stuff! Too many family members hovering asking for FRESH ice as my post op is tanking. Or family hovering in general lately. Or, "i don't eat hospital food."

I am actually okay with the people who don't eat hospital food. 99 times out of 100, they are IN the hospital because of the food they eat. They can generally afford a little starvation.

Hovering family is the worst, thought. Especially healthcare illiterate family where if you say one word, it's going to require a 30 minute explanation, and they get all confused when you add a new "heart medicine" because the patient already takes "heart medicine." Nevermind that they don't even know what the "heart medicine" the patient already takes is, or what it does.