Reorienting families.

[anonymurse]

When families think it's all about them, the situation calls for reorientation, which I usually accomplish by pointedly speaking directly with the patient, asking their own wishes and perceptions. Last week, after one such reorientation, the family started out the door, and the patient (who was waiting for me to get him off a bedpan that was hurting his tailbone) said to me (but in a voice loud enough for them to hear) "Glad to be rid of the lot of 'em. Who the hell do they think they are?"

[RN1989]

Those are the patients that I think are a riot to care for! :)

[Hoozdo, ADN]

I had a pretty ridiculous situation a few months back. Doing admission work for ICU with a husband. EVERY SINGLE question I asked he turned it to a story about himself. He went to the point of asking me to take his wife off the monitors and put him on it because he wanted to see his heart rhythm :trout: because he has been told in the past it was a pretty heart rhythm. After I got the hx done I managed to politely send him home "for some rest"

He would visit briefly every day and never had one question about her. It was all about him and how important he was. His wife had no health insurance (he kept it that way despite his wealth) and should have being seeing doctors for years. She was in pretty bad shape. He never paid one iota of attention to her. Almost made me cry