Pet Peeves

Nurses General Nursing

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What is your pet peeve? With everything a nurse has to deal with in a day, the one thing that gets on my nerves is someone who takes the garbage bag out of the can but doesn't replace the liner. It makes me psycho. How bizarre is that?

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Filthy belly buttons, ears, teeth, and clogged O2 cannulas on total care pts.

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I am a home health nurse and I cover a lot of rural areas. I can get ticked off pretty easily when you go to a patients home only to find that they are out of gloves, or dressing change product or wound care supplies, etc, and here I am in the middle of Little Rabbit Australia where I have "turned off the paved road" to get to their home that is 30 miles from the nearest store,( not to mention my cell won't get reception and the office is paging me to call them) and when I took report from the nurse on call for the weekend she never mentioned they were out of anything. Needless to say, I stock a laundry basket full of supplies before I leave the office.

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My biggest is when a Dr. talks with a patient and the patient says that everything is fine and they don't have any questions for the dr. and as soon as the dr. leaves the pt starts complaining about the staff (houskeeping, nursing, ect...) they are having pain or trouble sleeping and need new meds becaus e"what I have is not working and my pain hasn't been below a ten"

I also hate when I have a patient who is sweet as pie and a joy to work with and the family seems angry, especiallty when they won't talk to me about the problem and whisper when i walk out of the room. I actually had a patient family complain (did not realize I was in the hall and could hear) about the fact that I assessed her mother's pain and did a quick head to toe assessment when they insisted that I give their DNR snowed sleeping mother morphine. I gave the meds but I guess they wanted me to just give it on their command. I almost feel bad complaining because most of my patients and familys are great, and God blessed me with the ability to smooth over most situations. I actually don't mind tangled lines and messy rooms if I am not busy because I know how slammed day shift can be and I enjoy "fixing" things and handing over a clean room in the morning.

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Medication "allergies" such as..."Ambien...makes me sleepy":rolleyes: ...I so wanted to ask the patient why she had taken it in the first place.

Visitors who show up at 0500 hrs and demand I go see if the patient is awake. Lemme see...pt was in labor the previous night and then was up all day "entertaining" the onslaught of visitors who came to see the baby and then was up last feeding the baby at 0300. No, I will not go see if the patient is awake and taking visitors. If she were at home would you be "just dropping by" her house at 0500? I didn't think so.

Co-workers who whine "I'm tired, my back hurts, I have a headache, it's too warm in here" all within the first hour of work EVERY night she works. She complains about everything. One nurse actually asked her if she would just tell us something that didn't start out as a complaint. I don't think she understood the message.

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Co-workers who feel the need to massage my shoulders. It's too weird for me. Paws off.

And does that co-worker that is constantly sick or whatever....have a good day?

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatric, Behavioral Health.

Aww..paws on, please...but, that is me.

Peeve?....when lab draws a stat and oh it is going in the machine an hour later.

This burns Wolfie very bad.

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LOL

Thunderwolf...

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Aww..paws on, please...but, that is me.

Peeve?....when lab draws a stat and oh it is going in the machine an hour later.

This burns Wolfie very bad.

The results for our stat labs are 1 hour, but then we draw our own labs.

Stat medication orders coming up 4 hours later despite repeated calls is my pet peeve. Any guesses as to how pleasant I am by phone call #3?

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Glad I'm not taking the call.lol

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatric, Behavioral Health.

"It's going into the machine" an hour later is what gets me...and I'm not even talking results here.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Finding old, dried BM on a pt.s scrotum!!!:angryfire

It is NOT that hard to pick it up, and look around it while cleaning it to make sure all BM is gone.

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My biggest pet peeve??? Is that I have no pet peeves today.

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