I'm an RN and was hospitalized for a few days recently. The hospital staff did not know I was an RN. Towards the end of my stay I asked one of the nurses to look at my chart. Being the curious George that I am, I looked at the nursing narrative and was shocked (alright, shocked is a little over the top, surprised?) at how many lied about assessing "this" or assessing "that" and/or the activities they perfomed. Some said they inspected my skin for bedsores, some said they assessed my wound, a couple said they provided me some education, some said they assessed my pedal pulses, one said they did catheter care (I didn't even have a Foley!). The amount of lying that went into the documentation was quite astounding. It wasn't just one particular nurse, it was most of the nurses. It was as if they were pulling things out of mid-air. This posting has no other purpose other than to share my experience. I always chart what I actually do... call me old fashioned. I didn't mention anything because I know how busy the job can be, and I'm not one to cause commotion if it can be avoided. I know that it is possible to mix up patient care, but it occured way too frequently to be a mix up.
Bluntly, I don't believe this story. I've never seen a nurse just happily hand over the chart to the patient without some sort of written authorization.
"Sure! Here ya go! And be sure to note any errors for your lawsuit."
Ummm...I think it's a bit harsh to say 'nurses caught lying'. Lying implies willful intent to cover up a truth. It sounds more like 'nurses caught automatically checking off checklists'. Or 'nurses caught charting on wrong patient'. You are an RN, and you know how busy a med/surg floor can be. It is far too easy to make mistakes in a patient chart due to the ridiculous patient loads and duplicate charting that has to be done.
bluntly, i don't believe this story. i've never seen a nurse just happily hand over the chart to the patient without some sort of written authorization.
"sure! here ya go! and be sure to note any errors for your lawsuit."
i was wondering about that too.
as for rn's lying, well, we don't have the corner market on that - everybody lies.
md's right through to pa's and social workers, which is appalling but it does happen.
it will come back to them, one way or another if they are not documenting correctly.
Bluntly, I don't believe this story. I've never seen a nurse just happily hand over the chart to the patient without some sort of written authorization.
"Sure! Here ya go! And be sure to note any errors for your lawsuit."
yea, I was wondering if it was one of the hospitals where they still hang the narative note on the foot of the bed. We used to do that.... the narative and check off page only. Until we found some family members writing on them!
Bluntly, I don't believe this story. I've never seen a nurse just happily hand over the chart to the patient without some sort of written authorization.
"Sure! Here ya go! And be sure to note any errors for your lawsuit."
Some people I've worked with in the past could have been taking care of you. I just for the life of me cant get it outta my mind how people get report, never get up from their seat, turn around in their chair, face the computer and COMPLETE THEIR DAILY ASSESSMENT.
I dont get it. I have been a nurse for 3 years and I am SOOOO far from being perfect. I am not immune to having my days where I just want to get to the end of the shift. But gosh darn, there is a line being crossed there that I wont go near.
Well, sometimes things are accomplished without the patient realizing. As the above poster said, once I've helped someone get up and go to the bathroom, I have essentially checked their skin, as I've seen it all.
If I tell them what their meds are for, that's education. Telling someone about a procedure they are about to have is education, telling someone to protect their groin after a heart cath is education. Hospitals encourage this. They always tell us, "you do education all the time; make sure you chart it."
Also, you can tell a lot in a little bit of time spent with a patient. Obviously you know if they've listened to your lungs or felt for pulses, but many other things are observed just with nurse/patient interaction.
Most of the charting was that checklist style. I really found the point of checklists and "overcharting'' to be a good point! For me, I use the checklist as just that - a checklist to help me make sure that I don't forget anything I should be checking. But I do see how mundane that could get and how someone could just robotically check the boxes. The catheter care was actually written out, though
My friend's husband was a patient and a CNA made up a few blood pressures. This CNA didn't know my friend was a nurse with over 20 yrs experience at this same hospital. My friend was at her husband's bedside the whole time. She ended up calling the CNA on it. She said "I know you didn't take a blood pressure at 4p you better never make up vitals again" This former CNA is an RN at our hospital now and I can't look at her without doubting her credibility.
Well...I don't think the OP is totally off the mark. Maybe LYING is a little harsh, but what else do you call it? I ended up doing a random chart review on my own chart once...I probably should have given my chart to another nurse, but I did it...some of the things I found were a bit cutious. I was in the hospital for what we thought was a gall stone but turned out to be a kidney stone and one of the nurses documented that my IV site was clean and dry...not sure how she knew because it was covered with Co-Flex and she never took it off to look. Did she just assume that is was OK since I denied pain to the site and it was infusing without difficulty? Also...they documented a linen change while I was in CT that I know wasn't done because one of the CNAs made a smiley face on my bottom sheet and it was there when I came back from CT. I worked there at the time and policy was to do a complete linen change, so the excuse that maybe they changed just the top linen doesn't work. We didn't use check lists so that couldn't have been the problem either.
So I know LYING seems harsh, but what else would you call it?
SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN
10,263 Posts
Bluntly, I don't believe this story. I've never seen a nurse just happily hand over the chart to the patient without some sort of written authorization.
"Sure! Here ya go! And be sure to note any errors for your lawsuit."