Saw a nurse yelling at a patient in ICU

Published

So today was my first day volunteering at the hospital and I was walking in the ICU when I hear a nurse yelling at a patient. Just the tone and volume of her voice made the already decaying stench in the ICU palpable. This is more of an ethical topic rather than patient safety but I think it could play in the patient's stress levels.

I'm a pre-nursing student and I'm not aware of the whereabouts on ethics for nurses and hospitals yet. Do nurses have ANY rights to EVER yell at a patient, especially one in the ICU?

Thanks, MomRN0913. :yes:

RIP to my preconceived notions.

I'm relatively new nurse and after all the old people who can't hear who had been my patient, I tend to use this loud voice to talk to elderly. It's a mistake that I should avoid but in reports most nurses miss reporting visual and auditory insufficiencies that one day I ask a patient to show me in the face scale her pain scale. Guess what? The patient is blind! Geez. Something I ought to know in report right? Some elderly patient also likes to nod like they understand you rather than to tell you they can't hear you! Anyway, this nurse voice of mine, some patients have mistaken it for yelling, patients who are weepy and uber sensitive. As far as actually yelling, I have only done it once because a patient almost yank on his central line. But I always thought you can tell it's not a mad yell because I was doing a loud vibrato sing songy NO NO NO NO!

Specializes in Neuro ICU/Trauma ICU/Cardiac ICU/BMT/Onc.

I will say this. The public is getting harder and harder to deal with. I have 13 years of ICU experience. Not once have I yelled at a patient. I am the one who gets the harder to deal with patients because I can deal with anything. I laugh when called vulgar names. Stuff just doesn't bother me. Well last week I snapped. I got floated to a gen med floor.  I had a patient who was fully aware of what he was doing. He called my mom a c**t and said she didn't raise me right because I don't respect men. (Just gave him 6 of bummed and he wanted a clean urinal every five minutes after he uribated.No sir. So it went downhill fast). I let that slide. All thru the day it was F bombs, ***es and anything else you can think of. Two BERT calls with nothing at all done to help out. Towards the end of the day I was done. Well he went off again. Called me a retard. I don't know how to do my job. More F bombs. Another C bomb. Well, out of nowhere my mouth started and even tho I wanted to stop, I couldn't.  I was one inch from his face, fists clenched, screaming louder than I think I ever have. Other nurses ran in and had to drag me out. I immediately called the nursing supervisor who thankfully had my back. I cried and cried, wondering why I would snap like that. It wasn't til the next day that I figured out what had triggered me so bad. My ex of 7 years called me a ***, a C**t, and was told F you on a daily basis. He eventually tried choking me one day, and unfortunately for him, the outcome wasn't as he planned. He left the house bloody with his tail tucked and never walked back in. Well this hateful patient reminded me of how my ex treated me. We can, as humans, only handle so much. If covid didn't mess you up, the increasing violence towards nurses will. I had a patient try to stab me in the neck with scissors (neuro ICU...he didn't know what he was doing). One inch from my carotid and I still remained calm as cucumber. We are all human. We have feelings. We don't deserve to be abused. We can only take so much. So if you hear someone screaming, maybe they are having the day I did last week. And if you are a nasty *** patient reading this, don't be surprised if we lash out. We are DONE. 

+ Join the Discussion