what's your pet peeve?

Published

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."

Specializes in Med Surg, ICU, Infection, Home Health, and LTC.
I had a patient peering at me from her doorway, trying to catch my eye, while I was clearly involved with explaining to the husband of my suicide watch patient what was going to happen once she was transferred to the behavioral health unit of another hospital. At one point, she interrupted, saying, "Um, excuse me, can I have my benadryl and dilaudid?" *smh*

I have to bite my tongue.....HARD....to not ask "and Do you want fries with that?"

Parent who under medicate their kids for fevers and stop giving it altogether "because I was coming in today". OK. :sarcastic:

Or the parent with the kid in the ED with a fever of 104 and you ask them if they gave the child any tylenol or anything for the temp and they look at you like they are shocked you even asked such a thing and say "No I wanted you to see they were sick and really had a fever." Like you are kidding me right?!

Families, families , families...... In the ideal setting I would take care of friendless orphans with a GCS of 3. Maybe I should work in the morgue?

ROTFLMAO:roflmao: Too funny. I have decided that living up in the mountains and being a hermit is a life long dream since I became a nurse. No TV, no cell phone or call bell, nothing that rings, buzzes, or beeps.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiovascular recovery unit/ICU.

Hate when the anesthesiologist IVP neo then dashes out of the unit after stating "their BP is stable". Really?!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

When the pt's family moves in... We have no set visiting hours at my hospital. Visitors come and go as they please.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.
Pet Peeve's? We nurses have a few....

i have already posted a couple but I just HAVE to say this one more: I cannot find the original post from the one who talked about tangled IV lines etc..., but that is a BIG ISSUE! Especially in Critical Care, where there are piggy backs on piggy backs. Nurses, please label your lines. It is a huge safety issue. You might know where such and such is because you are the one who connected them, but I don't. The time it takes to figure it all out is wasted and if I have to give a STAT med all of a sudden, the minute after I get into the room, I look like an idiot fumbling around trying to figure out where the push port is. Then there are the post-op patients....

In PICU ( and other critical care units, I'm sure), we do the recovery. So, patients come back from OR, and simultaneously we are to get the patient on monitor, transfer them from bagging to vent, assess the patient, zero the art line, CVP, ICP monitors. When they return with EVERYTHING, all tangled up, how am I supposed to handle this? Often others are around to help, but the tangled mess is uneccessary and I cannot believe for the life of me why the OR nurses and the Anesthesiologist cannot foresee how difficult this is for us.

Okay, I'll shut up now!

I swear OR takes a class along with anesthesia "How to return the patient to the ICU with tangled lines 101, 102, and 103". :bag:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.
When the pt's family moves in... We have no set visiting hours at my hospital. Visitors come and go as they please.

We had a visitor that was going to stay with her mom over night, but was barely ambulatory, had a rolling backpack full of stuff. This family member had such swollen feet she took her shoes off and was sitting in the room barefoot. :scrying:

I swear she thought she was a patient too. Good grief.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
We had a visitor that was going to stay with her mom over night, but was barely ambulatory, had a rolling backpack full of stuff. This family member had such swollen feet she took her shoes off and was sitting in the room barefoot. :scrying:

I swear she thought she was a patient too. Good grief.

Not all that uncommon, unfortunately. We had a 36 year old guy, a huge, strapping specimen, who requested that his mother stay in the room with him post AVR. Turns out that "Mommy" was really his grandmother, in her 80s. She raised him, what can you say? She used a scooter chair and came up to the ICU towing a red wagon full of stuff: Depends, bags of meds, a suitcase and the contents of the snack racks of at least one convenience store. She got confused in the night and wandered off. Patient was on the call light de,a ding that we find her, threatening to sue if harm came to her, etc. She was found wandering naked down the hallway of out neighboring unit covered in feces. Screaming.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med Surg/ICU/Psych/Emergency/CEN/retired.
Not all that uncommon, unfortunately. We had a 36 year old guy, a huge, strapping specimen, who requested that his mother stay in the room with him post AVR. Turns out that "Mommy" was really his grandmother, in her 80s. She raised him, what can you say? She used a scooter chair and came up to the ICU towing a red wagon full of stuff: Depends, bags of meds, a suitcase and the contents of the snack racks of at least one convenience store. She got confused in the night and wandered off. Patient was on the call light de,a ding that we find her, threatening to sue if harm came to her, etc. She was found wandering naked down the hallway of out neighboring unit covered in feces. Screaming.

I am howling with laughter. Forgive me.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.

Wow! ...and demanding you find her? She is not the patient, so how are you responsible? One of the craziest demands I have ever heard.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
As a recent patient knowing what RNs are dealing with:

1)hovering family members who are loaded with questions. I'm forever telling my hubby to lay off the nurses and just go home and let them do their job.

2) nurses who follow protocol for the sake of following protocol. They always tape a million of those cloth butt pads to the side rails of my bed because of my "seizure history" even after I tell them my last seizure was 9 years ago when I was off meds. After they leave the room I remove all the pads, fold them up and put them in the closet then no one even notices they are gone. Durrr.

They also put me on a bed alarm because of my low BP even though I tell them a systolic in the 90s is my norm. So, before I go to the bathroom I have to remember to climb to the top of the bed, lean over the bedrail, turn the alarm off, then walk myself to the bathroom. For 3 days straight no one ever asks why they haven't had to take me to the restroom even though I'm freshly showered each morning. Double durr.

I can only imagine how ridiculous it would seem to have to use the seizure pads and a bed alarm, but unfortunately a lot of patients don't always answer questions honestly or try to do things without asking for help and hurt themselves. We can't just assume the patient will be fine because if something happens, the nurse is considered responsible. Falls are a huge deal in the hospital and if you were to fall, the nurse would be in trouble for not giving you a bed alarm. I just read an article about a young woman who fell and hit her head-- she's suing the hospital and the nurse was fired for not giving the patient a bed alarm, even though she didn't seem like a fall risk.

As far as the seizure pads- people will come in tell you inconsistent stories. For example, the patient will say they haven't had a seizure in years- and then tell the next nurse they had a seizure last week but forgot to say anything. That nurse could write a safety report because there were no seizure pads and then the original nurse would be asked why she hadn't placed them. Telling your manager "she had a history of seizures but said she hasn't had one in years" wouldn't fly- they would say the patient has a history of seizures and should've had the pads on. Also, if the patient removes the seizure pads themselves and next nurse notices they're not on- they could write a safety report that there were no seizure pads, once again getting the original nurse in trouble with management.

You obviously know yourself and that you feel fine with lower Blood pressure, but we see so many patients who don't always comply and are really at risk to hurt themselves. Sometimes a bed alarm and seizure

Pads keeps the nurse from having to spend their entire shift worrying if that person is going to hurt themselves-- because it would be the nurses fault.

I'm sure the nurses noticed you were getting up by yourself, but I'll admit sometimes when I notice a patient keeps getting up out of bed without telling anyone, and they seem fine, I'll look the other way because I'm just too busy to worry about it.

We do have a lot of annoying protocols as nurses, but hopefully that sheds a little bit of light on those

Particular ones :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
With 24/7 visitation, which currently seems to be in vogue, you still get families on night shift. You get fewer visitors, but the ones you do get are chemically altered or crazy.

Yes. I always wonder how 5 family members are walking in at 1 AM to visit the patient. Don't you have to go to work tomorrow? Don't you think your family member might want to rest a little bit because they are sick? Don't you think it might be a little bit rude to turn on all the lights and talk ridiculously loud when your family member has a roommate in the next bed?

Also.. Patients having their bf/gf sleep in bed with them even after you asked them not to 25 times

Family members who lay in the empty beds of semi-private rooms

Family members who order double the food the patient actually wants so they can eat off their tray too... And the patient is a carb count of course

And patient satisfaction (x 100000)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
I can only imagine how ridiculous it would seem to have to use the seizure pads and a bed alarm, but unfortunately a lot of patients don't always answer questions honestly or try to do things without asking for help and hurt themselves. We can't just assume the patient will be fine because if something happens, the nurse is considered responsible. Falls are a huge deal in the hospital and if you were to fall, the nurse would be in trouble for not giving you a bed alarm. I just read an article about a young woman who fell and hit her head-- she's suing the hospital and the nurse was fired for not giving the patient a bed alarm, even though she didn't seem like a fall risk.

As far as the seizure pads- people will come in tell you inconsistent stories. For example, the patient will say they haven't had a seizure in years- and then tell the next nurse they had a seizure last week but forgot to say anything. That nurse could write a safety report because there were no seizure pads and then the original nurse would be asked why she hadn't placed them. Telling your manager "she had a history of seizures but said she hasn't had one in years" wouldn't fly- they would say the patient has a history of seizures and should've had the pads on. Also, if the patient removes the seizure pads themselves and next nurse notices they're not on- they could write a safety report that there were no seizure pads, once again getting the original nurse in trouble with management.

You obviously know yourself and that you feel fine with lower Blood pressure, but we see so many patients who don't always comply and are really at risk to hurt themselves. Sometimes a bed alarm and seizure

Pads keeps the nurse from having to spend their entire shift worrying if that person is going to hurt themselves-- because it would be the nurses fault.

I'm sure the nurses noticed you were getting up by yourself, but I'll admit sometimes when I notice a patient keeps getting up out of bed without telling anyone, and they seem fine, I'll look the other way because I'm just too busy to worry about it.

We do have a lot of annoying protocols as nurses, but hopefully that sheds a little bit of light on those

Particular ones :)

A nurse should have the critical thinking skills to recognize that VS that are asymptomatic and stable to the patient's baseline do not increase fall risk.

Furthermore, any a/o patient has the right to refuse seizure pads and bed alarms. If the patient comes to harm because they refused safety precautions, you are covered if you charted a discussion of the reason for those precautions and the patient's refusal.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med Surg/ICU/Psych/Emergency/CEN/retired.
A nurse should have the critical thinking skills to recognize that VS that are asymptomatic and stable to the patient's baseline do not increase fall risk.

Furthermore, any a/o patient has the right to refuse seizure pads and bed alarms. If the patient comes to harm because they refused safety precautions, you are covered if you charted a discussion of the reason for those precautions and the patient's refusal.

Makes huge sense to me.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion