While this is not exclusively LPN related, I feel that as an LPN I should still discuss my nursing dilemmas here with nurses such as myself.
I go to triage a pt and he says in a lively and over the top voice, "I'm not doing so well."
I look at the pt. I smile at him and say, "I'd imagine you're not doing so well if you needed to come to the ER." His wife laughs and he glares at me and I slightly shrink back- oops. I begin the triage and ask him questions pertinent to the triage. He cuts me off at every question and begins to rant. He goes on and on...... and on... and on.... he belittles the physicians and nursing staff who made him this way. He's yelping and yowling about his problems. The pt is so over the top with his complaints... I get to the question, "On a scale of 0-10, how would you rank your discomfort right now?"
"Uh. A 20!" he states like it is the most blatant thing in the world.
My manager once told me, "I knew I had to leave the bedside in the ER when I sat and listened to a father yelp and howl about how he ran over his daughter and all I could think about was how he couldn't cut tot he chase and tell me the pertinent triage information. I knew it was time for me to go after that."
I look at the patient and say, "Well, anything after 10 on the 0-10 scale is reset back to 0, so if you really think your pain is a 20, then I thin I have send you back. Do you still want to call it a 20?"
The patient hesitantly looked at me, then glanced to his wife behind me, then back at me with confirmation of his indignation, "Yes! Its a 20!"
"Okay. Just so we're clear on that..." I respond.
From that point on, it was smooth sailing. The triage was easily completed. About 15 minutes later, the Primary RN comes to me and says, "No offense, the patient requests you not come back to their room"
