Pet peeves!

[ADN 2002]

I am sure this has been addressed along the way, but what are your nursing pet peeves?

A couple of mine:

How many times have you been taking a medication history on a patient, only to have them tell you they have no idea why they're on a particular med. Hello?! It's kind of an important thing to know

Or, when a patient calls on the call bell asking for the nurse to "come here" and I ask if there's anything I can bring with me (trying to save a few steps and a little time) and the patient says no and then get to the room and they give you a laundry list of things they want. (this will almost always happen when you have five other things you're trying to do at the same time..) :smackingf

Okay, I need to quit now..I can actually feel my BP rising...LOL. Any others?

[onarie]

Pet Peeves

~ Patient's who ask for sleeping pill because they haven't slept since they've been in the hospital. You finally get the doctor to call you back to get an order for something, because the patient didn't want to bother the doctor about it when he made rounds. Then you finally are able to get the pill, you go into the patient's room and they are SNORING!!

~ Following a nurse who says that this patient has had NO complaints all shift. Once you step into the room, the patient tells you their IV hurts, they are having back/neck/abdominal (whatever) pain, they are constipated or have had diarrhea all day - can they have something?, and of course I need something to eat/drink, and I only saw that other nurse twice today.

~ Patient's who not only don't know what their home medications are (and I thought maybe it was only a local thing) but they also don't know the name of pharmacy/drug store where they have their prescriptions filled.

~ And the patients who just happen to forget to mention to the admitting doctor that they are diabetic and want to know when they are going to get their insulin and bedtime snack.

That's a good start. Time for some deep breathing exercises LOL

[Spritenurse1210, BSN, RN]

2 Words: Non-Compliant Patients. you know, the kind where you say "ok Mr. Jones, you know that if you eat a rice crispie treat once a day and that's all your blood sugar is going to bottom out, especially since you're on enough insulin to choke a horse!" or "now Mr. Smith you need to stay off your broken foot, and use crutches instead of working 14 hours a day where you only sit down once!" and then want to sue the s@#$ out of the doctor because the foot doesn't heal!

[Happy-ER-RN, RN]

"I hate it when family members come in not to see the patient but to inspect and see what the nurse has or has not done."

Sorry, but if I had a loved one in the hospital, you can be d***ed sure I'll make sure they are getting the care they should. Just read these forums and see how understaffed most hospitals are. Read about the mistakes that get made by even the most well-meaning nurses. Read about missed meds. Read about new graduates getting little or no orientation. Wouldn't YOU double-check if it was YOUR mother in the bed?

I spent a week in the hospital on IV antibiotics for cellulitis. I was supposed to get them every 4 hours, and have a hot-water heating pad on my foot (site of the infection). Well, the IV had problems and needed to be replaced. Had to wait for a Phlebotist or IV tech or some such thing (I am not anurse, am thinking about going to nursing school), so I went 8 hours without getting a new IV. Had I not been well enough or aware enough to keep after the nurses to find the IV tech, Lord only knows how long it would have taken. I also had to badger to get the IV switched to another arm when phlebitis developed in the first site. Then the heating pad malfuctioned: again, ahd to raise holy-old what-for to get a new one (which also dodn;t work!). Had I been elderly, young, or confused or sicker, I would not have been able to look out for myself.

Families do not need to be obnoxious about how they do it, but I surely can't fault them for keeping an eye on their loved one!

Not trying to be rude, but perhaps the nurses were busy taking care of the patients who were elderly, young, confused, or sicker.

[DusktilDawn]

Huge pet peeve: people that are perfectly capable of using their call light, that are not confused, yelling "NURSE" everytime they see one pass by their room. Invariably it will be for something like a blanket or water.

1. If I am breezing by your room, chances are I am busy at that time, however the staff that may be at the nurses station not doing much BECAUSE their patients are not using the call light will continue to be there not doing much. If you would push your call light, someone who is not busy at that immediate time will answer it.

2. When someone yells "NURSE," I don't always know where it's coming from, I also don't like playing hide-n-seek in the workplace, especially for non-emergent situations.

3. When someone yells "NURSE," it should be for an emergency, not for water, or a blanket, or to complain about your food. Please use the call light, that's why you have one.

[scrmblr]

the "unwashed" I understand poverty. I understand that soap costs money...I do not understand how people can afford cigarettes, but not soap.

Part of our triage assessment includes "do you smoke?" and I always ask the parents of kids "anyone in the household smoke?" and I ALWAYS get the same "we smoke, but we always smoke outside" AND THE KID SMELLS LIKE A FREAKIN BOWLING ALLEY!

Family. Family that can see you have 18 things in your hands for another pt and still track you down for ice. Or the LOL who has to get up every 5 minutes to use the commode chair. They usually have that family member standing outside the curtain with her arms crossed tapping her foot saying "grandma needs to go...and when she needs to go she means NOW"

[rnsrgr8t]

I have many pet peeves, but this is my biggest one.

When I worked in a Primary care Pediatric office, we had this one pre-adolescent girl with pretty severe asthma. You could smell the cigarette smoke on her mother a mile away. We fussed at her for years to quit, and every time she said she would, or at least smoke outside away from the kids. Well, don't ya know this poor kid comes in with a severe asthma attack, reeking of smoke so bad that you know the mom had a smoke in the car, with the window's up as she was driving her to the office with a severe attack. I was so incredible mad!!!

[NHavenRN]

maybe this is specific to my floor but....the pts who are admitted with all sorts of pain, demanding pain meds every 5 minutes, then go downstairs every hour to "smoke" and use their IV/PICC/TLC to shoot up heroin, or whatever other street drugs one purchases these days. When your protocol is all about "pain is whatever the pt says it is" where are you then???

Also - managers who REFUSE to properly stock equipment on the floor. Our ID med/surg floor has 2 sets of VS equiment. 2! on a floor with about 3/4 contact precaution pts! Of course, we suddenly get new shiny equipment the week before JCAHO comes calling....then it disappears as suddenly as it appeared.

[whoamiRN]

Some pet peeves from LTC:

1) Not cleaning up after your self on the med cart or in the med room., and leaving it empty and unstocked for me when I come on duty.

2) "Forgetting" that someone fell or that the MD is away and the PA is on call this weekend.

3) Finding the eye drops I put in the cart on Friday still there unopened on Monday.

4) When the Charge nurses complain to me that so and so's behaviors are out of control, yet NO prn meds have been given for months. It's really fun to try to explain to the MD why we should start it regularly scheduled when it's NEVER been given prn.

And I totally agree with the not writing BMs down comment. Poor residents getting enemas when you know damn well they went but no one bothered to write it down.

Well, I certainly feel better now :thankya: .

[michelledlrn]

I graduated in December and Passed my boards in February. I bartended my way through college and I noticed in my rotations that people would treat me like a waiter.."can you get this...Can you get that" and they were perfectly capable of doing it them selves.

Or when they treat you like crap all shift long, and you will ask them questions and they act like you don't know anything. Then the doctor walkes in and they are just so happy to see them and tell them things they wont tell you. So then the doctor gets all flustered like "Uh, Why didn't you tell me or chart that."

Or the Family member with the pen and your name and a stop watch...we all know them.

[emeraldjay]

Some of mine as a CNA are other CNA's charting small BM's as medium or large; RN's that report pts at "day 2 on the BM list, MOM given" when the pt was charted as having passed stool a mere 48 hours ago; MD's that won't order a flat plate when a pt hasn't passed stool in a week; CNA's that don't report that the large BM a pt had was all liquid; Head Nurses that figure reporting a problem makes them look bad; stage fours that become unstageable after shift change; staff not recognizing a male pushing to urinate thinking it's pushing to defecate; psychiatrists that think their patients are on the chart racks and not the screamers in the halls; pt's who ring to ask for fresh ice water when there is still ice floating in the cup; pt's who rang for fresh ice water and when you bring it to them they tell you they wanted it fresh; pt's who think that being told you will be back in a moment means to ring again by the time you make it five steps out the door.

[Warpster]

"Hate the patient who calls for their pain med, which you bring in less than five minutes, and you do not give because they are sleeping so soundly. Then the patient proceeds to tell the doc that they didn't get their pain med when they called for it."

Well, I've been on both sides of that one, and I can tell you from bitter experience that people in pain do sleep, especially when they are exhausted or sleeping off residual anesthesia. WAKE THEM UP to give that med.

I went 10 hours as a fresh appy without pain medication, then they woke me up and told me I had to walk. Bad idea. I have never forgotten that experience.

People in pain need their meds, whether or not they're capable of sleep. Obviously, you'd hold meds for patients who are not easily aroused. However, if they've asked for a pain med and you come back to find them snoozing, GIVE IT.

Oh, and my pet peeve? Nurses who thought postop patients could get by on Tylenol, so that when I came on the poor people were ready to tear their skin off and I'd spend the first three hours of the shift playing "catch up" to get their pain under control. Remember, timely administration of pain meds generally means a patient will use less, not more.

[babiesX2]

Pts who when asked if they have any allergies to food or medication, say pollen, cat hair, mold, dust, grass, etc. Is that a med or a food? Let's stick to things there is the possibility we might actually give you!