annie.rn

Sorry for the delayed reply. My phone broke so I haven't been on here in a while. I am just today seeing this. I really appreciate you asking the GI doc you work with. I couldn't figure it out either. Glad to know I'm not the only one :-) Thanks so much!

I respectfully disagree with this. I worked home hospice and my immediate supervisor had very little clinical experience. (She had only worked at managing her husband's medical practice) It made it very difficult for the nurses under her because when we were in a patient's home trying to solve a clinical problem, she was almost useless. She was a lovely person but not very helpful for us nurses in the trenches.

Your post is so familiar. We have a few frequent fliers like that on my med/surg unit and they are oh so frustrating. I am amazed at how well you handled the situation while also having your own load of patients to care for. As someone else said, you will not lose your job. And if by some freak chance you did, I'd say "good riddance".

ThIs line is part of our hospital's scripting, too. I have trouble getting myself to say it much because most often I'm not sure if I WILL have the time (or I flat out don't) and I don't want to set myself up to disappoint the patient. I like to give the pt. a quick rundown of what's planned for the shift. Usually when I am passing my 9 o'clock meds. I tell them when vitals will be done, what time the rest of the shift's meds are scheduled, what prn meds they have available, if they have a.m. labs, etc. If they have a sleeping pill, I ask if they want it. I've had a lot of people thank me b/c it's their 3rd day w/ little sleep and they didn't know they could get a sleeping pill.

I'm not much of a public speaker myself and have never been Valedictorian. However, I wanted to say Congratulations!!! That is awesome!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I would be very angry in these situations, too. I'm glad there are people out there like you. who can advocate for these kids.

Quote from Banterings:

My comment wasn't directed toward you at all. I hope you didn't think it was. It's obvious you care or you wouldn't have been asking for help :-)

Dementia is not funny. Of course, I don't know you, so I apologize in advance for my perceptions. The way you refer to the residents you work with is hateful. I understand that working LTC is super stressful but you still have to show compassion. These residents are not "crazies", as you put it, they have dementia. (Unless perhaps you work in geri psych but even then it is unkind to refer to patients as "crazies"). My mother had dementia. Thankfully, she never had to be in a nursing home but if she had been and I knew the workers thought of her the way you seem to think of your pt.s I would be devastated and so would she. Your residents are human beings that had rich, productive lives before living there and they deserve to be treated as such. I know you are venting. We are all allowed to do that. I just hope that what you said here is something you keep very well hidden when you are caring for your residents. I'm glad you were able to find another job that will hopefully be less frustrating for you.

Can I come eat at your house?

Very true. But this particular guy is super abusive as it is so it couldn't get much worse :-)

Quote feature isn't working right but this is from KatieMI:

Thanks for all the replies so far. I agree about not being able to change habits during a few days of hospitalization and I usually don't sweat the diet stuff too much but these two cases annoyed me b/c they were directly making themselves ill by what they were eating. It was infuriating to be in that guy's room pushing Dilaudid q3 and Phenergan q6 while he was simultaneously munching down on a burger and fries. And he was vomiting and having the foulest diarrhea. You could practically taste the poo smell in the air. Sorry, gross, but true. I tried to educate him on cause and effect but no go. After all his GI stuff settled down for the night he turned around and ordered SIX carne asada breakfast burritos for his bkfst. He wouldn't be able to order all that if the doc would put his foot down and have him on a renal/diabetic diet. He had no means to get food from the outside so the doctor changing his diet would have put an end to it. But the pt. was a squeaky wheel and we all know that they get the grease. In his case, lots of it :-)

You can't make up lies to convince people to do things. And I'm assuming it's a lie b/c I've never heard of such a deposit. In your first scenario: I hope the nurse was certified as a medical translator. Just b/c she speaks Korean, it doesn't mean she necessarily knows medical terms in Korean. We have many Spanish speaking nurses on our floor who's native language is English but they also speak fluent Spanish from living in a bilingual household. They struggle to translate medical terms b/c their nursing education was in English and they didn't learn medical terms in the Spanish they learned at home.