I had something happen today that really bothered me. l lost my voice. I lost it in the name of patient satisfaction.
I listened to a male patient yell at me for something completely out of my control and then demand a new nurse because he didn't like my attitude.
My attitude consisted of explaining to him a certain policy and why it couldn't be broken. I then asked him why he was so mad and not to raise his voice at me. I said it in the most even, professional tone possible.
The bottom line and what bothers me most is he can treat me however he chooses. He can yell at me and if I say one word I am replaced. I am disposable. Who sticks up for me?
In what world is it ok for a grown man to speak to a woman or anyone for that matter in such a way? I feel like I have no voice or rights as a nurse sometimes.
He should have been. Did anyone call the police and have him arrested? As long as nursing is reluctant to call the police, and have these people arrested, it will continue.
If administration gets their knickers in a wad, call HR, and a lawyer, and the hospitals law firm, and inform them of what happened. Be sure to tell them that they will be hearing from your lawyer about the incident. No other profession puts up with being assaulted at work and the PTB turn a blind eye to it, and blame the victim.
This will continue until nurses start to bill for their services. As long as nursings' professional practice is rolled into the room rate, housekeeping, and the complimentary roll of toilet paper, nursings' professional practice will forever remain on the negative column of the financial balance sheet.
I have heard all of the comments, on why it is not practical for nurses to bill, but it is more of a refusal to work with the system, borrow from other departments, who do bill for their services, and implement this with the billing department.
For instance,a standard rate for med surg, would be $$$. This would include basic things like bathing,medication administration, vital signs, etc. Then you start to add things like, IV's, dressing changes, (simple or complicated), oxygen treatments, other treatments.
The charges would be for things like, ICU/ER, care, Swan Ganz catheters, Arterial lines, dialysis, CVVHD, hemodynamic drips and titration, etc. You can just look at the usual day, and go on from there. OB care- labor and delivery, surgery post op-pacu, etc. The charges would reflect the patient population, and patient care needs. Just like doctors do, and PT, RT, SP, etc.
I do not mean, that patients, insurance companies, would pay us directly, or that we would have to do be responsible for some complicated billing system. We would just fill in a customized billing sheet,(check off the boxes), and turn it in to the billing department-an in-box at the nurses station. RT fills out a charge slip when they did an arterial blood gas, but if nurses did it, it was part of the room rate. Nice?
Gone would be the days, that nurses in high acuity/intensive areas, receive the same rate of pay as units who care for standard med surg patients. Yes, you may have more patients to care for, but the patients are all receiving standard med surg care. More education and training deserve higher rates of pay for nurses, just like doctors do. A GP earns far less than a cardiac transplant surgeon. If you have more patients to care for, then you just have more patients to charge for their nursing care.
There is NO reason this cannot be accomplished. Again, there is no desire/push, in nursing to be autonomous, and get paid for what we do. With the more complicated hospitalization, the higher the charges, just like doctors receive, and all other departments do. There is also no desire/push from administration, because even though it would mean more income for the hospital, hospitals have NO desire to have to admit that the nursing staff has worth.
CEOs want the nursing profession to remain barefoot and pregnant. In other words, powerless, and invisible. Until we push to make the changes, we will forever remain on the negative side of the balance sheet.
JHMO and my NY $0.02
Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN, (ret )
Somewhere in the PACNW
I don't think critical care nurses, especially individually, are necessarily more educated or highly trained than floor nurses. Floor nurses, for example, often do far more education and teaching that is just as important for preventing bounce back as keeping the patient's pressure up with phenylephrine titrated from a continuous monitor. Lots of focus on tasky baloney in this post.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Gone would be the days, that nurses in high acuity/intensive areas, receive the same rate of pay as units who care for standard med surg patients. Yes, you may have more patients to care for, but the patients are all receiving standard med surg care. More education and training deserve higher rates of pay for nurses, just like doctors do. A GP earns far less than a cardiac transplant surgeon. If you have more patients to care for, then you just have more patients to charge for their nursing care.
Linda, for someone who is all about nurses banding together, this is more about pitting nurses against each other. Critical care nurses don't have more education; they get ​different on the job education. Pay should be based on years of experience, seniority, and other truly measurable criteria. Saying critical care nurses deserve higher pay will not serve nurses well; it will only serve to divide. Please, take critical care nursing off the pedestal you have apparently placed it on and realize that all nurses are worthy.
I once had a patient state that he would "strangle me if he could" (granted he weighed 650lbs and definitely could not get to me) but regardless our hospital supposedly has a "no tolerance" policy against verbal/physical abuse towards staff so I called security and my nursing supervisor. After about 10 min no one shows, so I called security back and they told me "well your supervisor canceled us and told us not to worry about it." I was livid. I called her right back and said that security best be on their way to document this or I'm going above your head and calling someone who takes this seriously. I also printed off the policy for her to read and handed it to her as she walked by. Of course nothing happens with the patient and I was told to be more understanding and professional. Seriously?!
Linda, for someone who is all about nurses banding together, this is more about pitting nurses against each other. Critical care nurses don't have more education; they get ​different on the job education. Pay should be based on years of experience, seniority, and other truly measurable criteria. Saying critical care nurses deserve higher pay will not serve nurses well; it will only serve to divide. Please, take critical care nursing off the pedestal you have apparently placed it on and realize that all nurses are worthy.
I need to maintain five different certifications to keep my ER job, so the educational demands are different. We also need to be minimally competent in every specialty the hospital serves, as admitted patients often stay for several days, and require the same education and tasks they get on the floor.
I recently had a patients mother (pediatrics) complain that the room was TOO large!
Some people can never be happy!
We recently received complaints from family members that the patients weren't getting bathed for weeks at a time. Lie. So now our techs are required to do baths on the morning, as if day shift isn't busy enough, and if the patient refuses they have to be asked again in the afternoon or evening. Now I have patients complaining that they are being asked to many times during the day about baths and it offends them. It's hilarious, no matter what you dos someone is not going to be happy. Does anybody else work on a floor that requires to do baths on everybody everyday?? Also I hate when patient say they "need" their lines changed when they are perfectly clean and were changed the day before. I'm like I know you don't change them everyday at home!!!
Specializes in Peds Urology,primary care, hem/onc.
Can I like this 1000%? And I agree with everything everyone has said. Can't wait to finish my Masters and be a NP so that I don't have to deal with being a bedside nurse ever again.
Hate to disappoint you but it still happens on the provider said. Now you get Press Gainey about YOU! They survey MAYBE 5-10% of your patients and however they respond is treated like gospel. It is also posted on the hospital's website with your name so EVERYONE can see it! You will not get rid of it even as an NP! A lot of what they ask them you have NO control over, how clean the bathrooms are, were the MA's nice (we have no control who staffs our clinics), their wait time on the phone to make the appt, etc. the amount of surveys for 4 months is equivalent to the amount I see in 1-2 weeks. So one pissed off patient, wether justified or not, will ruin your quarterly scores and then you get "counseled" and the surveys are anonymous so you have NO way to be really sure what they are talking about. Hard to fix stuff that is abstract!
Thats really great advice. Sometimes I'm at a loss of words in the heat of the situation. Dealing with difficult, demanding people is definitely a learning process.
It's in every single customer service profession there is. It's just not inclusive to nursing. It's about how you approach it. Use a little bit of that psychology on them. It is difficult when you think you are going out of your way for someone and they still complain. But this is the real world, and this is how people act. It's not going to change anytime soon, I promise. I have dealt with the customer is always right no matter what for years. And this orientation I sat through the other day called their patients customers, not patients. Labor and Delivery is big money these days, as is elective surgeries such as knee replacements and hips. It's not about the doctor. It's about where they can get the best service while they are admitted. That is how the hospitals make money. Not off your ER visit or a MedSurg patient that is critically ill on Medicare. People will choose to have their surgery or baby where they feel the most comfortable or where the best food is. Believe me, after spending three months in the most absolute awesome hospital years ago, I would go there for anything. My experience there made me have my son there. I had pneumonia and a PE at the time of my first admission. Definitely not my choice to be there, I was close to death, but everyone made me just feel, well, good while I was there. I was not a demanding patient, but the nurses were kind to me and made me feel like they cared. The food was awesome. I think the positive atmosphere helped me to recover. I was never asked to fill out a survey. If I had, I would have given them 5 stars. The hospital was 45 minutes from my house and I chose to have my son there because my first experience was awesome. It was a great experience for me also.
I was admitted to our local hospital a few years later for a bad case of pneumonia. The jello was watery, nobody hardly came to see how I was doing. The hospital was depressing. Again, I never complained but the experience was different. I guess I felt like nobody gave a crap if I was getting better. To top it off because of H1N1, I was not allowed to see my son for over 3 weeks. I still ended up contracting it. I was just not better when I left. I guess I didn't get the caring feeling I did from the other hospital.
It does make a difference. I am not a complainer. I never said a word, and if I had to be admitted seriously again it wouldn't matter which one I was at, I would go, but for the elective things, I will choose the first one every time. And these are two hospitals under the same company just two different towns. It does make a difference. You are not going to make everyone happy. That just has to be expected. It will never happen. But if you can make a small difference so that patient does come back, that helps keep everyone in a job.
I know this is not what many people want to hear, but it's a reality that we all have to deal with. I hope that maybe seeing it from another perspective will help some people understand.
lindarn
1,982 Posts
He should have been. Did anyone call the police and have him arrested? As long as nursing is reluctant to call the police, and have these people arrested, it will continue.
If administration gets their knickers in a wad, call HR, and a lawyer, and the hospitals law firm, and inform them of what happened. Be sure to tell them that they will be hearing from your lawyer about the incident. No other profession puts up with being assaulted at work and the PTB turn a blind eye to it, and blame the victim.
Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN (ret)
Somewhere in the PACNW