Share some of the most ridiculous patient complaints/symptoms/demands

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Specializes in Emergency Room.

Had one girl the other day who came to the ED because she had 3 nosebleeds earlier in the day. The residents takes a look in her nose and says "Doesn't look bad, we can cauterize it. Is anything else bothering you?"

Patient: "well, my skin hurts."

[Me: :confused::D:confused::D] Never heard that one before!! It took a LOT of self control not to burst out laughing right in the room!!!

The resident is the sweetest guy, never shows frustration with anyone, says "well, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. But I don't think that is a problem we are going to solve here tonight" Ya think?!?!

Had another girl come in on a Monday night (hands down busiest night every week), waited in the waiting room for approx 5 hours (!!!) to be seen. I come into her room to find out why she's here.

Patient: "Well, I've had this pulling feeling behind my belly button ever since I had a laparoscopic surgery to take out my appendix"

Me: "How long ago did you have the surgery?"

Patient: "about 7 years ago"

I went to tell the doc no need to rush to spot #20...

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I was pulled to ED one night because they were crazy busy and where I was working was settled. So I was just extra and was helping out in general, when I hear this in the triage room I was restocking:

RN: "What brings you to hospital today?"

Patient: "I picked my nose last night. And now it hurts."

RN: ........ :banghead:

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

We had a patient file a complaint with the house supervisor because the ice in her drink wasn't cold enough....uh...32 degrees is 32 degrees, isn't it?

(She wanted the solid chunks of ice, not the foamy ice shaped like pencils that I love to chew on...and of course, she was an ER frequent flyer for bellypain only helped by demerol and phenergan. When our ER stopped doing demerol, she moved to another hospital).

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Specializes in Cardiology.

After a cardiac cath, where the RN staff had to hold pressure on the patient's groin for 20 minutes to stop bleeding, the patient filed a complaint that we had bruised her lady parts. Management staff was not really sure how to evaluate or adress this one.

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Specializes in LTC, MDS.

Patient came to the ER while I was precepting there, so I went to get a history.

Me: What brings you to the ER this evening?

Pt: Chest pain.

Me: What happened?

Pt: I was under a car, working on it, when the car fell on my chest....

Me: How long ago did this happen? (Stupid question, right?)

Pt: A couple hours ago.

Me: What took so long to get here?

Pt: I thought the pain would go away so I just went to the couch and got a beer.

Um... What?!

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Oh, I see you've met my ex-husband!

The doc argued that it wasn't possible, until she saw the tire tread bruising.

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pt daughter: can you hurry up and get this treatment done? My elderly mother is very agitated/restless.

I look at the patient who is lying comfortably in bed, smiling at me.

me: "As soon as I can."

I'll just check in on my 3 post op pts first.....

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Specializes in Med-Surg, ICU.

Had one of my patients who had been terribly nasty and demanding every time I went into the room all night (and he had been there for a month already because of certain "unhealthy lifestyle habits" shall we say.) And him and his strange son kept me there about 30 minutes every time I went into the room doing stupid stuff. So when I went in one night, having 4 fresh post-ops, all of them on the call bell for pain medication at once, and I went into this gentleman's room to just stick my head in an check on him, and he demanded that I give him a back massage!!! :rotfl: I seriously thought they were joking, and giggled a little before saying "Is there anything you actually need? If not I'll be back later! " They just stared at me when I left...(then it hit me that they weren't actually joking) Oops! ;)

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Specializes in Emergency Room.

My co-worker had a very obnoxious demanding patient the other night yelling "Where's the maid??"

Nurse: "There is no maid here!!!"

Pt: "You know what I mean! The NURSE!"

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Specializes in Med-Surg, ICU.

Haha! R!XTER, that's exactly what I'm talking about! And I know in ER, I'm sure ya'll have to deal with that crap constantly! Apparently, they have our establishment confused with the local Marriott...and even there, they wouldn't put up with that yelling nonsense!:smackingf

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not a difficult request but last week when I went to do my pt's vitals she asked me to fold her newspaper - half of it was on the floor and I had to pick it up and make sure the pages were in order....

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Specializes in LTC.

I have a frequent complainer on my LTC hall.

He called me in, FURIOUS yesterday....

"NURSE! This is B---S---! Do you know what they gave me for lunch?! All I got was FOUR grilled cheese Sandwiches... FOUR! That's ALL!"

I didn't really know what to say... he was also eating a jar of peanut butter with a spoon while yelling at me.

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