"Did you just take a picture of me?"

[Tait]

I had an odd experience last night at work. I was in my patients room wrangling TPN/LIPIDS and antibiotics on the iv pole while the patient and his family were chatting along. (They speak another language so I pretty much just do my thing quietly).

Anyway I noticed that one of the younger males, who was sitting in the chair facing me, picked up his Blackberry and held it up in front of him like somone does when they are taking a picture. It was aimed directly at me and then he put it down, typed a message and quietly went back to talking. A few moments later he got a text message.

I have been kind of creeped ever since.

I am not the kind of person to confront on a suspicion, so I just let it go and nothing spectacular has happened since. However I was kinda of like...what the eff?

Tait

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

because they are already passive aggressive and will most likely be doing it to sue us. It's just rude. You cant wait till Im out of the room to take a picture of it? then they go and say that they showed it to some other doc and that he/she said it was because of some other nurse and it totally was not due to that. It's just more the combination of the family's behavior and the act of taking the pic.

What does them being passive-aggressive have to do with taking pictures of THEIR family member?

Oh - got it. But if some family member starts turing some patient care issue into a he said/she said/they said pi$$ing contest, believe me - they get ferreted out pretty darned quick as nothing more than nuisances.

And really, when we leave the room, patients and family members can say, do, and rearrange whatever dressing they want to, and blame it on us. I had this proved to me when some idiot patient (and yes I say idiot) accused me to PATIENT RELATIONS of sticking her twice with the same port needle. I know it didn't happen, but that didn't stop her from lying about it. What saved my behind was my RN manager knew me better than that.

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

I'm sorry, but they have no right to take a photo of me without my consent. And as I rarely permit family to photograph me, I surely don't want a stranger doing so.

I have had visitors that thought it was "cute" to stick a video camera in my face, and then probe the pt about anything that could possible be wrong. This pt was satisfied with her care. I had to get security to come up to talk to them, and erase any portions that had my photo on it....I don't care how complimentary the comments....it is just PLAIN RUDE behavior.

What is wrong with people that we have to photograph every single blasted thing in our lives and then repeatedly subject others to the very minutiae of the trivialities of it. I can understand when our pts are in the hospital in iso for 2-4 weeks, wanting a video cam feed to the home laptop to visit....but good grief, I am sick of going to plays, movies and concerts to find mindless goons calling their buddy, to say, "Look at this, how cool". And I am even more annoyed and friends that send 4 million blurry dark pics of their child's latest performance.

I would prefer it if they just sat back and ENJOYED THE MOMENT and didn't have to render it poorly documented. You can tell me about it and I will rejoice in it well enough, without photographic proof.

I had to replace my cell recently, and there was little to nothing available that didn't have a stupid camera attached.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

I saw family members blatantly taking pictures of the patient's arm. It really irked me.

Why irked?

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

Oh, sorry, looks like you already answered this.