15 Secrets the Emergency Room Staff Won't Tell You

mish_RN · Jul 22, 2013

Cool! Thank you for posting :)

Guests · Jul 22, 2013

The nurses provide most of the hands-on care so be nice.

I tell this to people all the time. All other things being equal, the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease until all the pleasant wheels have been greased.

SionainnRN · Jul 23, 2013

Ha, love #11 standing and staring at us won't get your labs done faster!!

green34 · Jul 23, 2013

#4 is completely true! Imagine how mad patients become when they find out that they are going to sit in the waiting room because their ankle hurts and we're full in the back.

#5 Very true! We had a woman complain that it took us 25 minutes to take her daughter into the back and that clearly if they were really sick, she'd have to wait a long time. Her child had an earache. If we had the minor care open, she would have been on that side.

#6 Happens all the time! I hate it when I come back in and the gown isn't taken off. I make everyone get into a gown because I am a jerk and the medical director complained that people weren't in gowns (not because of what I do because I work nights) so he said all patients go in a gown and now all patients go into a gown. Except for babies and little kids we don't have gown sizes for.

#7 This includes smoking

#8 Not necessarily true.

#9 I try not to. I will not take someone nice before someone mean. I will not take back an employee's family member before other people unless the charge nurse tells me to. I am not very nice, I know. I also will transfer the hospital employees to the charge nurse or the hospital supervisor if they become abusive towards me. The standard line is that "we are busy and the patient was evaluated by a triage nurse." We don't keep people in the waiting room for fun. Oh, and I also informed her that she needs to stay in the room and not the hallway due to our efforts to follow HIPPA to a T and since she was not on the clock, she is not an employee at the moment. She didn't like that.