what's your pet peeve?

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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 CVICU CCRN.
1. Babies and toddlers visiting. Who, in his or her right mind, would ever let a baby crawl on the floor just cleaned from C. diff and washed with hypochloride? Who will allow an "exploring" toddler near vent???

2. Lines non-secured, not labeled and ethanol caps not in place.

3. Concealing poor prognosis under premice of "not robbing 'em hope".

4. Following policies for policies' sake. Including dutifully putting a call light within reach of a person who is cortically dead for the last decade.

5. Nursing notes which has all the info about patient wanting his bagel toasted and that call light within reach, but nothing about that the said patient had no bowel sounds and did not pass urine for the last 12 hours. That was at 8 am, now it is 3 pm and we're right somewhere in between SIRS and septic shock.

Oh Katie you're reading my mind here. I recently got a report and note that detailed exactly how much charting was done in the patient's room, how sweet the patient was, how many stairs in the home, how they needed a shower and Tylenol for a headache and smaller non-skids...etc etc but neglected to mention a very important fact about the patient's home medical equipment. By 0500, we were fighting to keep DKA at bay. [emoji106] I was seeing stars I was so peeved. Luckily all ended well but seriously, have we lost all track of prioritization in favor of this robotic following of policy and pillow fluffing?? Isn't critical thinking the damn buzz word of the moment?? Argh!

And don't even get me started on kids running amok on a transplant and VAD unit.

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Specializes in Cardiac, PCU, ICU.

I'd have to say at least one of my top contenders is the uncontrolled diabetic whose family brings in fast food, or junk - either way. A pt of mine one time was celebrating her birthday (which is always unfortunate when hospitalized...I can't imagine) and I remember her BG being in the 300s at HS. As soon as I return with her insulin, family had brought in a giant cake, cookies, the whole 9. Nearly 1/3 of the cake was consumed. Not trying to rain on pt's parade, but the family just didn't *get it*. I politely explained that the food was not the best choice at this time and proceeded to write BG: 3XX (whatever it was) on the whiteboard. All you can do is educate and try to advocate for the pt, but it was clear they weren't compliant from the get-go.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.
Oh!! Another one. People who document on auto pilot and/or don't actually read what they write.

Like the NP who documented that she instructed a patient to change position frequently and keep pressure off of her buttocks.

The patient had a Stage III wound to her left ischium.

She also had advanced dementia, was non verbal, no eye contact, and hadn't changed position independently in months...

And since I'm on a roll...

NPs who keep sticking their noses into the management of Hospice patients, order labs and meds without first contacting the Hospice team, and then have a "this is MY patient and I'll order what I damn well please" attitude when reminded by the Hospice nursing supervisor that one of the Hospice admit orders is always "NO labs, tests, procedures, meds without prior notification of and approval by Hospice team".

We have a form of "patient education" in which something needs to be written every 24 hours as per corporate policy. As far as I know, I am the only one who refuses to chart anything in there if patient us unresponsive/comatose/terminally demented. I write down "unresponsive, no visitors to teach" and close at it. The Powers tried hard to get me do what everybody else does, but I mentioned that, should something happens, it will be seen as blatant falsification, and every single word in that chart will be seen as false as well. The matter was dropped after it, but I still see others charting "teaching" because there's that policy, schmolicy.

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Specializes in LTC, Rehab.

Too many to list... and that involves co-workers, too, not just patients and family members.

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Coming out of a code and being reminded by a manager that I didn't update my white boards in all my patient's room. My jaw hit the floor, I then proceeded to pull out a marker, hand it to her and tell her if she's that concerned about it she could do it herself. I left that job shortly afterwards.

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Coming out of a code and being reminded by a manager that I didn't update my white boards in all my patient's room. My jaw hit the floor, I then proceeded to pull out a marker, hand it to her and tell her if she's that concerned about it she could do it herself. I left that job shortly afterwards.

I have one better. We were coding a patient's husband (he was found down) and the house supervisor threatened to write us all up for not following the policy. Too bad for her the policy was that anyone found down/without a pulse or not breathing was a code (staff, visitor, patient, etc). She stormed our unit during the code, and when it was done wrote down everyone who was working's name. Despite seeing that we were clearly running a real code and it wasn't a joke.

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My pet peeves:

People not answering the phone with any manners. I *loathe* having to ask people for their names. It greatly upsets the staff in the ICU I send patients to frequently. They act so imposed and upset to have to give out their name. I've just started laughing to myself about it. I mean, what else can I do? It clearly isn't going to change even our manager talking to their nurse manager. One of our surgeons called back a page from the ICU one day - he hadn't been scrubbed or anything, he handled his leash himself...and pretty clearly told the ICU staff member that it would be nice to know who he's talking to, having left his x-ray vision at home. LOL.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.
I have one better. We were coding a patient's husband (he was found down) and the house supervisor threatened to write us all up for not following the policy. Too bad for her the policy was that anyone found down/without a pulse or not breathing was a code (staff, visitor, patient, etc). She stormed our unit during the code, and when it was done wrote down everyone who was working's name. Despite seeing that we were clearly running a real code and it wasn't a joke.

Even better one. In one place I was once, every single 10 cc saline syringe had to be sign out as "charge". The person who was kinda obscessed with that particular issue threw herself into a room after almost an hour and a half long code and proceeded with throwing out trash and counting those empty syringes in front of the grieving family. After they asked her to please leave them alone for a while, one super-huge man just picked her up and not that gently removed from there, accompanying it with a good dose of very politically incorrect inner city slur. The question disappeared for quite a while after that incident.

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Having a manager who has never worked in my specialty. Sometimes it is totally impossible to explain why something can or cannot be done. There is a disconnect in communication which cannot be repaired if they will just not take my word for why we cannot schedule 3 a-fib ablations on the same day.

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Coming out of a code and being reminded by a manager that I didn't update my white boards in all my patient's room. My jaw hit the floor, I then proceeded to pull out a marker, hand it to her and tell her if she's that concerned about it she could do it herself. I left that job shortly afterwards.

I had a charge nurse (with an eyeroll and an "I have to do this") scold me for failing to sign the rounding log during my assigned hour with all my patients but one. I was with that one patient and addressing his hypotensive tachycardic instability during that hour.

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1. Family members walking barefoot in the patients rooms and down the hallways.

2. Coworkers licking their fingers during/after their lunchbreak. Gross!

3. Loud talkers surrounding my patients rooms when they are trying to sleep.

4. Some rooms in our PICU have nice couches to for the parents while others get a recliner. This always makes me feel uncomfortable when they ask me why some parents get the nicer rooms.

5. Asking an RT to run a blood gas at 0630 and they get angry because they have not finished their breakfast while on the clock.

6. Having an excessive amount of PTO and the hospital refuses to pay out what you have earned at the end of the year. I can donate PTO to the "pool" but not to a cooworker in need.

We must work at the same facility [emoji19][emoji19]

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I'm of the mind that small children (under age 10 I would say), unless they are directly related to the patient should not be visiting the hospital, and especially not late at night.
I was 12 years old when I visited my mother at the hospital in 1993. I recall large posted signs that read, "No children under 14 years of age are allowed on the unit."

It's amazing how the tide has turned with regards to visitation at hospitals.

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