Topics About 'Nurse Patient Relationships'.

According to one definition, racial bias means a "pre-formed" negative opinion or attitude toward a group of persons who possess common physical characteristics (McCleary, 2009). Racial bias has been detected in school admissions, hiring practices, p...

The PatientDiagnosis: Small Bowel Obstruction Age: 55 Gender: Male That was all I knew of the most influential patient in my nursing career, now and forever, that early day of my first year of nursing. Ray was all of 140# when I met him. A gentle sou...

That One Patient takes the shape of many different things, and for me, it was Mr. Smith, a patient admitted with Altered Mental Status due to an infection in his spine that had allegedly gone to his brain and made him a completely different person th...

It was the first time for me to be far from my family. I decided to work as a nurse in the middle east since 2002. It was a new experience. Particularly in Riyadh where the center for muslim religion can be found. I was not the religious kind, but as...

He had just turned 18 when he came into the ER with chest and shoulder pain. I walked into his room and introduced myself. He was polite and soft-spoken. I asked him about his pain and the cough that accompanied it. He stated it was an 8/10 and brace...

The first time I met Bill, he was sitting straight up in his wheelchair. He was a tall lanky man, almost my height while sitting in his chair. Soft spoken, gentle to the touch; his brown eyes gleamed with a story of a hard-working life. He grew up in...

He was darling with his white hair, big dimples, infectious smile, and a voice wispy and cheerful. Looking over at me he said, "Hi my sweetheart, my darling, my honey I love you." Wow, what a great way to start my eight-hour shift. Since he was total...

When John showed up in the unit, he was non-communicative and usually in 4-way restraints as he would usually be doing a motion, we had coined as the crab. He would be on his back, moving each of his four extremities independently of each other, the ...

Anyone who works in nursing for any length of time has had this moment. It's the moment where you have done everything, exhausted an extensive supply of interventions, and all the medically appropriate treatment has happened but the outcome is not th...

I have noticed over the years that student-patient interactions are loaded with relationship killing words and phrases. The students are not being unkind. Rather they are speaking without thought or purpose. Though I don't want students to feel stilt...

I had an elective orthopedic procedure requiring a three day stay. "Elective" is a bit of a stretch- a joke actually. I guess there are some superhuman people who could walk around without any cartilage on the lateral side of their knee, but I am not...

We were extremely busy with all the RSV and Flu patients. I was notified of an admission of a 'seizure' 2-year-old. We hurried to set up the room and have things ready for this child. When she and her parents came to the unit, I assessed the child wa...

This precious time gave the patient the ability to share the story, thus allowing the nurse to show emotions and be empathetic towards the patient. Later, this small moment of time, resulted in a small return favor that showed a great appreciation fo...

We try to teach our children how to be good. Being innocent isn't necessarily the same thing, and some day, when the sheen has worn off, becoming a virtuous person in this world will mean making hard decisions and choosing difficult paths. I was fort...

As nurses, we consider it a good day's work when nobody has yelled at us or thrown bedpans at us. When we hear, "Thank you for being my nurse; you are so kind," it borders on the near miraculous. Then again, there are those rare and truly treasured p...

The “she” in question was his daughter. And, no, she was not coming. You never know what a person’s past is, or the darkness that might have shadowed a relationship, but the daughter had been adamant that she was not coming and not to call her again....

Patients are vulnerable. They are relying on nursing to give them care, encourage their independence, to increase or maintain their functional level. This takes a certain amount of trust. Trust is something that is multi-faceted. Trust in one's nursi...

It's 7:20 am. I stood there for a few minutes, looking down the hall at my two companion student nurses scampering around with their buddy nurses. I watched with envy at how their mentors actually talked to them. Now, let me be fair to my mentor. Whe...

Recently my husband's grandmother was a patient in the ICU. I am frequently used as the medical translator in the family, this time wasn't any different. I had the opportunity to make a couple of observations I would like to share with you. Before I ...

Physical violence is an explosive epidemic, especially in hospitals and other healthcare settings. Workplace violence can be any act of physical violence, threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening, disruptive behavi...

As a new RN in a large midwestern hospital, I started on the 8 hour night shift of a busy medsurg telemetry floor. Inexperience led me to rely heavily on my psychosocial skills and interactions with patients. After report one night, as I was assessin...

ETA: Some people have reported they found the context of this story unclear. To set the scene a little better: I was a member of the second last group of hospital-based student nurses; in Australia tertiary education was introduced in the 1980s and c...

Weight discrimination is the treatment of someone in an unfair manner due to the person's size. Even though extremely thin individuals are occasionally treated poorly due to their size, overweight and obese people are the most frequent targets. Weigh...

Imagine you got up from your computer right this minute, and walked out of your house knowing you will never, ever come back. Maybe you had a chance to grab your purse on the way past the chair it's slung over, but more likely not. So you've walked o...

G.O.A.T. For those who don't know, GOAT is the acronym for "greatest of all time". Muhammed Ali, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays are just a few names that come to mind when I think of GOATs. I had the privilege to spend time with the best patient advocate I ...