"Your patient in 520 is in pain!"

[FireStarterRN]

You know what bugs me? You have a clock watching, narcotic loving type patient who is, well, whiney and somewhat manipulative. He's been on the light frequently.

So, you're super busy and along comes one of the ancillary personnel who comes to you with an accusatory tone of voice, informing you that one of your patients is "in a lot of pain", as if they are the big patient advocate and you are the neglectful, hard hearted nurse.

The 'patient advocate' then plops herself down somewhere, after sending you scurrying.

That bugs me...

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

This thread isn't about the normal reporting of pain that routinely goes on by CNAs. It's about ancillary staff who breeze through a unit, answer a call light from a patient they know little about, and when the patient complains of pain and says he's been suffering and no one will answer his light, the ancillary believes the worst about the nurse, doesn't try to find out more, and runs to accusingly tell the mean nurse that her patient is in pain.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

How about the statement, "That patient has issues that I can't get into right now, but we're doing our best to make them as comfortable as possible. I'll get to them as soon as I'm finished here."

Paraphrased "You don't know whats going on, I've got people coming at me from all sides, and I don't have the time."

[PetuniaRN]

I have an issue with one particular nursing aide at my hospital. She says she used to be a nurse in her home country (maybe Russia?, not sure). If I ask her to help me out in any way, she tells me why I should or shouldn't do that particular thing. In many instances it is an outright, "No" when I ask for help!! She frequently tells the nurses her "professional" opinion, but it is so often not appropriate. She especially loves to say, "When I was a nurse, my patients got pain medications when they needed it and I told the doctors what the patient needed." I really want to ask her why she doesn't pursue her nursing license here if she is such an expert! She will let a patient sit in their stool until I "suddenly" smell it when I go in, but she swears it JUST HAPPENED, and yet she will hunt me down to tell me a patient needs me for pain meds. I often think she makes a point of saying it in front of other people so she looks good. I have brought this up to management, but they want me to write each episode down, with a date and time. Who has time for that? Grrrrr.....BTW, it isn't just me....