admitedly, i love my job, however, there are times that i wonder, patients behavior. certainly, i'm not alone on this one, every time i get a patient to get their weight on the scale they have a fit, and the drama begins "oh! your scale is broken, i can't weight that much, my scale at home said that i weight much less" then you get the ones that take off their earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and the men give their wallets to their wife etc. while we nurses wait so patiently and the drama seems to happen every time when you have a million things to do. i'm sure that i'm not the only one, that goes through this every time i'm at triage.
It's silly. It isn't as though we looked at them and envied their fit and toned physique, but then saw the number on the scale and said, "oh, 300lbs. Gee, I was wrong. She isn't as thin and trim as I thought at first!" The number on the scale doesn't change a thing.
lol... i can almost see you standing backwards on the scale
if i have to get weighed, i close my eyes and i tell them to not tell me. yeah i guess you could consider it denial, but i am by no means overweight at all. just a lil extra padding in areas i don't want. but i like to go by how my clothes feel. i know they're slightly tighter. i don't need a scale to tell me to stop eating crap!! but yeah they look at me funny when i close my eyes and plug my ears, hahaha
I don't have health problems. On the rare occasions that I do to the doctor, and they want to weigh me. I just refuse. I know my rights. BWHAHAHAHAHAH. You should see the looks on the nurse's face. They don't know what to say.
I went the Gyn once w/a list of 4 things I had ??s about; none of them had anything to do w/wt. So I declined the scale. When the doc asked me why, I just handed him the list. He agreed, my wt didn't enter the equations. "But NEXT time!!" OK, OK.
When I am the nurse, I patiently explain to the patient that weight fluctuates by up to several pounds over the course of the day (using the "drink a Venti Starbucks and you've added 1 lb in fluid weight"). If that doesn't work, I use the Hacker's Diet explanation of their body as a rubber bag and the weight happens to be what's in the rubber bag at the time.
When I'm the patient, I jokingly tell the nurse that they're being cruel to ask for my weight, but I'll just take the shoes off and the keys out of my pocket, and hop on. Depending on my mood, I may also ask them not to tell me what the number is.
i remember the argument i had with a nurse when i was a nursing aide (this was waaaaaay before you could be certified) over a bedscale weight. for those of you young'uns who haven't see an actual bed scale, imagine a long-green ironing board that stores vertical but tips down to horizontal. the whole thing goes up next to the bed, you pull the patient onto it, and then jack it up until it clears the mattress, then slide the little weight around until it balances.
this nurse told me to tie the patient's arm to her chest because it kept flopping over into open air, because it if wasn't on the scale the weight would be inaccurate. i said, "when you stand on a scale, does it show you weigh less if you stretch your arms out? let's try that on the standing scale over there." somehow the concept of downward force hadn't been covered in her education.
i've always liked the idea of experiential learning. but i would really like it if the parts of me that aren't directly over the scale somehow didn't show up in the total weight.
Specializes in Trauma, ER, ICU, CCU, PACU, GI, Cardiology, OR.
i said, "when you stand on a scale, does it show you weigh less if you stretch your arms out? let's try that on the standing scale over there." somehow the concept of downward force hadn't been covered in her education.
i can only imagine what the nurse in questioned answered, to your question
Specializes in Orthopedic, LTC, STR, Med-Surg, Tele.
Sometimes my fresh post-op ladies will be like "do I really have to tell you??" Rather than embarrass them in front of their husbands, I'll just check the bedscale and hope it was zeroed out right because I am SO BAD at guessing weights.
and the drama seems to happen every time when you have a million things to do. i'm sure that i'm not the only one, that goes through this every time i'm at triage.
GitanoRN, BSN, MSN, RN
2,117 Posts