1. If you are on a zillion medications, write them all down on a piece of paper and give the triage nurse the list instead of sitting there trying to remember what all you take. And no, "this little white pill" does not help, or "it is a medicine for hight blood pressure".
2. Know what your allergic too. Telling me "some antibiotic" is not a good answer.
3. Telling me you are allergic to tylenol, ibuprofen, ultram, toradol, all NSAIDS, and telling me only dilaudid works for your hangnail pain will not fly with me. Or the doctor.
4. If you think your cough you had for three weeks is now an emergency at 2am, PLEASE leave your 5 kids at home so they are not ripping and tearing through all the cupboards and playing in the garbage cans.
5. If you come to the ED with any complaint pertaining to your lady parts ex: itchy, discharge, rash, lumps, bleeding etc, or c/o abd pain PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE WASH THAT THING! Is it to much to ask to put a little soap on a wash cloth and clean down there!
6. If when I ask you in my primary nursing exam "any illicit drug use"? Be honest. Because if you tell me "no" and your UDS lights up like a christmas tree I am going to be really Pi&&ed. Just be honest. I will find out the truth anyhow.
7. If when I ask you "do you take any medications?" or "did you take anything for pain?" and you reply "No" and the UDS comes back positive for oxycodone and or opiates, I am going to be pi$$ed you lied to me. Just tell me.
8. Please for the sake of everyone around you, get a shower! I understand we all don't feel like dressing up in our Sunday's best when we are sick but for goodness sake when the bottoms of your feet are so crusty black from DIRT and there is lice the size of cotton balls jumping around in your hair and I am sure your skin hasn't had contact with a bar of soap in MONTHS make me want to barf.
9. If your motives are clearly to score narcotics for the simple fact to get high, at least be smart about it. If you are going to prick your finger with a safety pin to drip blood in your ua to make it positive for blood to help your kidney stone act, please at least make sure your finger is done bleeding before you hand me the cup with your tampered specimen.
10. Please don't lie to me when I ask you if you drove before medicating you with narcotics. Then when you lie to me and say "my friend dropped me off" don't get mad when I call the police and have them sit in your driveway and wait for you after you pulled your iv out and sneaked out of the er, into your car and leave after you got what you were looking for. I was outside smoking and saw you. And I got your license plate number.
1. When you are a frequent flyer and you are in my department to score a round of Narcotics. Hey its your life...if the provider orders its and your blood pressure and rest of the vitals are normal...i will gladly give it. Hey i love my job.
2. When you get those pain medications and can't get a ride to take you home. No i will not get a taxi voucher for you and if i see you drive off just imagine your surprise when you find the PD in your parking lot waiting to take you to jail for driving under the influence.
3. When provider orders don't care harm to my patients. I may have some suggestions for the provider and 99.5% of the time we work as a team and always have plan of care on what we shall do for the patient.
4. When you are a nurse from another department and want to tell me and the provider what we should do for you patient. Yes your family was involved in an MVA and he walked to the ambulance and didn't come on a backboard. Yes he has facial abrasions but that's not a worrying concern. And yes he waited for 1 hr because we were having 2 intubations back to back. Yes he has muscle aches but that doesn't warrant an EKG, Cardiac panels, MRI e.t.c. Yes he will get a Head CT and Facial CT at you insistence but we just gave the poor bastard radiation that he didn't need. Yes i know you are a nurse and i respect that but pedi and ED nursing don't mix. I took something called TNCC when i worked in a trauma center and this is not a trauma..wait till you see one.
5. When you come to the ER for you condition and you have not been taking care of yourself at home...Dang you have not taken your oral hypoglycemics for 1 year and you are worried your sugar is high...what made you wake up at 0300 and come to the ER? It seems you don't care about yourself....why should I? Yes you a 4'11 but dang...you shouldn't be weighing 400lbs...I'm not being mean but you need to take better care of yourself.
6. When i go above and beyond to provide learning information and yet you meet me 1 week later with the same symptoms...why the heck did you eat all that greasy food yet you have gallstone issues...i was your nurse last week for the same thing....remember all the diet handouts i gave you and tool an extra 15 minutes to go over them with both you and your significant other? What a water of time...i should have used that to go sit down and have a snack.
Oh well.....everybody needs somebody, and some-days it's me.
Happy to help.
ETA: well, now that thread is merged, and title isn't "I don't give a hoot" any more, my response seems a bit disorganized.
So, I will add my "please, for the love of God....
Yes- # 1- wash your darn hoo hoo or hoo hum. How can some people not notice that??
#2- same goes for your rank feet- if you don't have a raging fungal infection, or aren't homeless, don't wear your mildewed, stanky wet socks and shoes into my room and ask me to remove them for you, fold your socks neatly, or rub lotion on your feet.
I will evaluate your grasp on reality as absent if you do.
When I walk into your treatment room in the ER and you are standing up on your stretcher actively trying to pull the sharps container off the wall where it locked to keep things like that from happening in the first place. PLEASE don't even try to eplain your way out of this situation. Please don't -
--tell me you just want to see how it works.
--tell me you had a bet with your family member at bedside if you could get it off without getting caught.
--tell me you were digging for loose change;
--tell me "the devil made me do it".
I have a pretty good idea (duh!!) what you were doing, just please don't think I'm stupid enough to buy what youre selling in the way of excuses.
mmutk, BSN, RN, EMT-I
482 Posts
I have written "some pain medicine" on an allergy band before :)