Rant:How NOT to be a nurse

[crnahole]

Good evening, I am writing this post because I had recently encountered horrible nursing care. And I want to provide an example for future nurses on how NOT to be. One day my grandmother was found unconscious in the street and was rushed to the nearest hospital. She spent several days in the ICU intubated, with a chest tube (for a pneumothorax) and congestive heart failure. She slowly recovered and was weaned off the ventilator and had the chest tube taken out. The nurses in the ICU provided her with amazing care! She then was discharged to the floor.....

When I visited her on the floor I was flabbergasted with the way she was treated. I walked into the room and saw my grandmother with a vest restraint( which wasn't even tied to the bed), happy to see me. She was placed in a vest restraint because she fell in the bathroom. I asked my grandmother, " what happened, how did you fall?". She replied with, "they walked me to the bathroom and left me there for a very long time so I tried to get back in bed and fell" After falling she had an X ray (which turned out to be fine) but was in a lot of pain (in her back) from the fall. Okay... I get it, nursing is a very busy job, and sometimes you cant be there all the time to help patients... I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, things happen right? I tell my grandmother not to get up until someone is there to help her. I also tell her that if she is in pain to ring her call bell ask for some pain medication. She answered with "they hid the call bell because they said I call too much. It doesn't matter because the wont come anyways. I look around the room and see the call bell hanging on the wall, away from reach. I reattach it to her siderail. She then rings her call bell....... 15 minutes go by without anyone responding to the callbell. So I go to the nurses' station and speak to the nurse, we'll call him "M". M comes to the room and tells my grandmother, " you just had Percocet 30 mins ago, you need to give it time to work". Okay...I get it PO med...have to wait for it to work, makes sense. Half an hour passes and shes still in pain. I use the call bell again, M comes in and she tells him she is still in pain and I add....

Me: hows her Bun/creatinine , maybe we could give her some toradol

M: did you speak with her doctor? They're here in the morning.

Me: No I wasn't here in the morning

M: Ill write the doctors name on a piece of paper, and you could speak to them tomorrow morning

Me: Yea but she's I pain NOW. I'm sure you have a nightfloat or an on call resident who can come assess her

M: are you a nurse or something?

Me: Yes. I'm a nurse anesthetist

M: Oh ...wow. Okay I'll speak too the doctor.

Half an hour passes. No response. So I ring the call ball again and M comes in.

M: still in pain huh?

Me: Yea. Did the doctor say anything?

M: yea I'm waiting for him to put in an order for another Percocet... then I'll give it to her

Another 30 minutes pass by and M is not in sight, so I ask another nurse...

Me: can my grandmother have pain medication?

Nurse: she is not due for her dose.. she already received one.

Me: yea but she is still in pain

nurse: (sigh, rolls eyes) Ill see what I can do

Another 15 minutes pass by....still in pain. I go to the nurses station....

Me: can my grandmother have some pain medication, I was told by M that we were going to give her more Percocet but were waiting for an order

Nurse: That's not my patient but it seems like she already received Percocet

Me: but shes still in pain

Nurse: Ok ill speak with her nurse

Me: ok thank you. And just wondering does she have an incentive spirometer? She barely gets up, and she has CHF, and was fresh from the ICU intubated

Nurse: shes not ordered for one

Me: so... can we get an order for it?

nurse: you have to speak with her doctor

Me: so ... can I speak to the doctor?

nurse: (sigh) .....okay

Another 15 mins pass by with out any pain medication so I go to the nurses station and throw a fit...

Me: My grandmother has been pain, for several hours now. I don't know who is taking care of her I thought it was M

Nurse: M went HOME

Me: well whoever is taking care of her please help her. We're been waiting so long that shes probably in the timeframe for another Percocet

...finally the oncoming nurse comes in gives her some pain medication after waiting for over 3 hours.

I know what it is like to work on the floor. I began my nursing career working on a medsurg floor for 2 years. Things get busy, I get it, but I would never do that to any of my patients. Take away their call bell? Ignore them? Leave them in pain? Have restraints improperly applied? I became a nurse because I want to help people, and I hope others entered this profession feeling the same. I know a lot of nurses become burnt out from understaffing, overworking, and crazy hours, but I want everyone to remember that we are patient advocates. We ARE the patient's voice.

I left the hospital that night with a feeling of uneasiness, hoping that this is an isolated incident and that new nurses don't learn to be this careless. So to all the current and future nurses, please never lose your passion and drive to help others.

[caliotter3]

I wonder what M said to his relief about your grandmother before he walked out the door. I don't see how understaffing had anything to do with his behavior that day. I hope your granny is completely recovered.

[TriciaJ, RN]

Yes, please report this situation. It does sound like short staffing, where people become too burned out to care. Or else, they just hire and put up with some real duds.

On the new technology issue: when I worked the 3 - 11:30 pm shift, it was not unusual for me to work straight through with no coffee, dinner, anything. Then the rep would show up at midnight for the new equipment inservice. Usually some young pup who grew up playing computer games and blithered a mile a minute. You can imagine how much information I retained.

[Mr. Murse]

Frankly, I'm surprised that you (the OP) didn't do more, considering you have a med/surg background especially and have a good idea how things work on the floor. As someone else said, I would like to hear all sides of the story, but understaffing is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for poor care or communication.

The reason I say I would like to hear all sides of the story is because I have see incidences where family members or patients complain about the care they receive when in fact they were receiving good care, but they didn't understand the reasons behind the choices their caregivers were making, although they may have been explained to them. I have seen people complain about not getting pain medications when it was being withheld for very specific and important reasons. I have also seen family members who come and see their "loved ones" once in a blue moon and have no idea what's been going on but see one or two things they don't approve of and throw a fit about it, even though there may have been good reasons for what was going on and they didn't come by enough to really have any clue about the situation. It's possible the patient may have been confused or disoriented, or a chronic opioid user that would have required dangerous amounts of drugs to feel like her pain was under control. It's possible the nurse had another patient who was having some major issue that was requiring all their attention.

There are so many x factors in this scenario that it's hard for me to automatically side with the OP, although I feel like it's obvious that the nursing staff at the very least were doing a terrible job of communicating and there's no excuse for that.

[Hpy_Vly_RNBSN]

I work on a busy med surg floor that is understaffed. I've had days when techs tell me no and I have one patient crawling out of bed and another that needs the restroom and another needing pain medication. Sitting in the room with my computer to chart isn't going to help anything. But I would never leave someone so long that they were forced to fall trying to get back to bed. Every day I work It's a game of priorities. I genuinely care about my patients and seek the best care for them More times than not my requests for increased pain medication is denied by the provider. Then I become the bad guy who doesn't give pain relief. If it was my grandmother in this situation I would have signed her out and taken her somewhere else but I do sympathize with busy med surg nurses too...

[ComeTogether, LPN]

Heads would roll if I found my grandmother in restraints without her call bell in reach. You were too kind, IMO. Report, report, report! This is ABUSE!

[nikkley]

This is so sad and actually a huge reason for why I decided to go into nursing. My son spent the first 9 months of his life in a hospital and sadly, that's when I learned the hard way what is behind the scenes of a hospital. I was so thankful for the nurses I could trust, but there were a few nurses I would pray to see outside of the hospital. One almost killed my kid but they didn't sneeze without me questioning it so I caught it. I know I'm just one little person in this world of medical professionals, but I will do my best. I'm sorry this happened to your grandmother and I hope you report this.