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?
How funny! When I was little in the hospital my mom always said, "Don't use the call button, if they're not passing by they must be busy". I know better now!!!!:chuckle lol
I thought you were nice, being a cat person and all. People aren't necessarily dumb, they're just not all nurses.
For the record, I AM nice.
I am not saying everyone should talk/think/act like nurses, but it's not unreasonable to expect a patient to know what they're allergic to. I also have no problem telling a patient exactly what will happen to him/her if they are exposed to something they are allergic to over and over again.
It may make me seem like I'm not nice but I don't sugar coat stuff for my patients, and I've had quite a few patients actually come to me and thank me for telling them exactly what to expect when the doctor or someone else has downplayed something. (I just remember how I felt when I was little and getting a shot and being told it would not hurt.)
1. Other nurses who post to a Pet Peeve thread and tell the rest of us that we are whining and sniveling. As one who posted earlier said, this is THE place to vent. By venting here, we can "be nice" to our patients -- so that our attitudes don't "carry over" to them.
2. Doctors who gripe when called, for something important (I can understand if the matter is insignificant), in the early morning hours. If they wanted to sleep through the night without calls yet still be in the medical field -- be a nurse !
3. Others who leave the medication area a mess. Do they leave their houses that way ??
4. Patient families. ... I love the fact that the patient has support, but gracious! He/she "needs water, another blanket, the TV channel changed, etc." .. one small thing after another every ten minutes.
5. "Oh! You have 4 other patients than my mother (father, child, etc.)?"
I do love nursing but there are a couple of things that make me want to jump out a window sometimes.
How about when you are working on a weekend and there seems to be no towels, pillows, pillowcases, toiletries on your floor and you have to go jack supplies from another floor. Where are the people who stock these things?
Nights that have a full moon drive me crazy! Unfortunately some unknown powers convince all of the non-ambulatory, confused patients that they can walk and they end up on the floor. I feel so bad cause it's not their fault.
Last one. Why are hospitals so cheap with the Butterfly needles? I worked at this hospital in Miami as a tech once and we were only allowed like 10 Butterflies for the whole floor for the 7p-7a shift. 60 patients (most of them elderly with tiny veins) were to be taken care of and about 80% of them had blood draws ordered. I am really good at drawing blood but I want to see the administrators try to get a sample with a straight needle when the patient has microscopic veins!
I can't wait to finish nursing school so I won't have to deal with CNA/tech issues. But then I will have opened a whole new can of worms! Haha.
1. Other nurses who post to a Pet Peeve thread and tell the rest of us that we are whining and sniveling. As one who posted earlier said, this is THE place to vent. By venting here, we can "be nice" to our patients -- so that our attitudes don't "carry over" to them.
A very big DITTO. Actually I find it rather condescending and smacks of a "holier than thou" attitude. It's not necessary to pick apart posts on a venting thread just to prove TO YOURSELF how much better you are than another.
Let me put it this way: there are things that I do not talk about, there are things I do not joke about, and there are things I will not vent about unless it is to another nurse.
The reason being, my friends and family do not understand the way another nurse would. In fact a couple of co-workers and myself normally have an end of shift venting session. It relieves stress instead of allowing it to build up.
you know the more i read ( not ust these ones) but heck i hope i never have a friend or relative come work with the ones who are whining here - my pet peeve - nurses who are so inconsiderate and uncompassionate towards their patients regardless of wether they have family along ( to me thats great - good support system at home) or is concerned about about how and what of what will be after they leave therwe ( ever think they are scared crapless and need an gentle ear or maybe they have noone else to listen ) or doenst takea shower - ( sorry - when im sick i dont takea shower either - who the heck feels like it when sick) besides we are as you aid professionmal and itsounds pretty unprofessional and selfish a lot of the compliant on here. that is my pet peeve -
Where is your patience, what if that was you Mom or Aunt, memory problems start around age 50 and not everyone is medically oriented or organized.
I make sure that my mother, my older Aunts and I wear our medic alert bands, clearly indicating medical issues. And we all have intact memories, even the 88 year old.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
where is your patience, what if that was you mom or aunt, memory problems start around age 50 and not everyone is medically oriented or organized.[/quo
my pet peeve is people who post to a vent thread and then blast us all for venting! if you haven't walked a mile in our shoes (and it doesn't sound as if you have) you aren't entitled to an opinion on our vents!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i thought you were nice, being a cat person and all. people aren't necessarily dumb, they're just not all nurses.
this is a vent thread. people are posting about their pet peeves. feel free to read and contribute if you like, but it's not fair to blast anyone for venting to a vent thread.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
you know the more i read ( not ust these ones) but heck i hope i never have a friend or relative come work with the ones who are whining here - my pet peeve - nurses who are so inconsiderate and uncompassionate towards their patients regardless of wether they have family along ( to me thats great - good support system at home) or is concerned about about how and what of what will be after they leave therwe ( ever think they are scared crapless and need an gentle ear or maybe they have noone else to listen ) or doenst takea shower - ( sorry - when im sick i dont takea shower either - who the heck feels like it when sick) besides we are as you aid professionmal and itsounds pretty unprofessional and selfish a lot of the compliant on here. that is my pet peeve -
my pet peeves include poor spelling, grammar, punctuation and unclear writing.
another pet peeve of mine is someone who posts to a vent thread about how inconsiderate and "uncompassionate" toward their patients all the other nurses who post to the thread must be. (if they weren't, they wouldn't be venting, i guess.)
and yet another pet peeve is someone who posts to a vent thread, defending all of the behavior nurses are venting about. (ok, so you don't take a shower if you don't feel good -- i trust you see the value of washing your crusty old pubes that haven't seen soap or water in a month before you haul yourself in to the er to ask someone to look and see what's wrong "down there."
if you haven't worked as a nurse (and i don't believe you have), why in the world are you commenting about nurses having poor attitudes. you have no idea what sort of things we're expected to put up with on a regular basis. therefore, you aren't entitled to an opinion about whether we're whining or selfish or inconsiderate or uncompassionate. if you really must post to a vent thread, try not to be so judgemental! post about something you actually know something about!
1. Nurses that somehow think that nightshift is ALWAYS slow, so if night shift nurses get behind it's due to laziness.
2. Sharps boxes that are overfull. I hate walking out of a pt's room into the nurses station with a used needle, I dont' care if it has a safety shield, I like to use the sharps box in the room I used the needle in.
3. Family members of pt's that "nurse shop". Such as Room 333 hasn't had a bm in 2 days, so THE PATIENT and I agree to try MOM and if no bm by 0600 the next day we will try lactulose, and if no bm by 1900 which is when I come back for my next shift we will do an enema. Well the SON of the pt gets upset, because "my mom hasn't had a bm in days and her nurse is not doing anything about it" so he talks to the charge or another nurse and gets that nurse to call the MD for a stat enema.
4. Family members who medicate the pt with OTC meds WITHOUT telling the staff so that staff can a.) suggest an alternative that will NOT INTERACT with pt's prescribed meds. b.) obtain order that it is ok to medicate with the OTC meds.
5. Family members of pt A that instead of asking one of my coworkers to have me come over to talk to them track me down in a different pt's room and then get upset when I gently kick them out of the room to protect pt B's privacy.
6. Pt's trying to place a used kleenex in my hand, that's just gross. I often wonder why to spit on someone is a major insult, but to spit in a kleenex and then place the mucous covered kleenex in someones bare hand is not??
You come in at 1900 to find a pt with c/o constipation X 5 days, to find out nurse rec'd report on it at beginning of their shift and they decided to finally give supp at 1845!
Hello, if you are so busy to not wash someone's butt, then allow me to give it to my patient so I can at least get through report, assure iv's are taken care of, and ect before I have an explosion to take care of!
You can tell how good a nurse is by what time into their shift they give prn constipation meds!~
transducen, BSN, RN
68 Posts
How funny! When I was little in the hospital my mom always said, "Don't use the call button, if they're not passing by they must be busy". I know better now!!!!:chuckle lol