Stupid things you've been called out of a pt's room for?

jnrsmommy · Oct 26, 2007

Oh my, how many times have I been called out of a room to be told "the IV in room such and such is beeping". :angryfire:angryfire:angryfire Seriously, could you at least check and see what's wrong w/ it??

Ooooh, and one time, during morning med pass (had a fall that morning, so VERY behind at this point) another nurse comes over to me.

Her: Can you help me? My pt's wound vac is beeping and I don't know what to do.

Me: Ok.

As we're walking down the hall

Me: What did the screen say?

Her: blank look on her face

Me: The wound vac, what did the screen say? It'll say what's wrong w/ it

Her:I don't know, I didn't look

Battery was low :trout::trout:

DusktilDawn · Oct 26, 2007

I came to the conclusion long ago that apparently nothing is too stupid, inane, or petty enough NOT to interrupt the nurse for. Absolutely nothing.:stone:smackingf

Never mind necessarily being interrupted and called out of the room for it.

I've had a dietary staff want me to clear off overbed tables when I've been in the middle of packing a wound on a patient. They didn't want to put the tray down to clear a spot on the overbed table and naturally the nurse should stop what they're doing to do that. My response to dietary: Uh no, I'm obviously in the middle of doing something right now and that's something your perfectly capable of doing yourself. Excuse me, but when I need room on a pt's overbed table, I make it myself and I see no reason why anybody else can't do the same thing.

I've had a transporter who have walked by NAs standing at the Clerk's desk chatting (who've seen the transporter coming up the hall with the patient and continued to stand there chatting) interrupt me as I'm inserting an IV to help them move a pt to bed. The NA figured that since I was already down there working, why should she interrupt her conversation and do anything, and the transporter apparently thought it made sense to interrupt me (even though I'm obviously busy) instead of walking a few steps down the hall and requesting the NA to do her job. My response to the transporter: That NA who watched you come up the hall with that patient that is probably still standing a the Clerk's desk doing nothing is perfectly capable of helping you. It never ceases to amaze how many times I've seen our transporters will walk by NAs standing/sitting around doing nothing to interrupt the nurse, who is obviously busy to request their assistance.

I've had a housekeeper get snotty with me asking if I though I was too good to strip beds so that they can clean them, as I'm running around trying to take care of patients, while the NAs are sitting at the desk. My response: I will not strip beds when there are NAs sitting at the desk doing their homework, which is not what they are here to do. They are perfectly capable of doing that, GO ASK THEM.

I've had a Clerk forward phone calls to me from a patient discharged days ago who had left her battery charger for her wheel chair behind when she left. The Clerk figured that since she apparently was sooooo busy that I should take care of this call, especially since I was Charge and despite the fact I also had a full patient load along with being Charge. My response: You are not to forward phone calls like this to me. I have patients to take care of along with all the added crap I've got to do because I'm Charge. I do not have time to spend 20 minutes looking for a battery charger left behind by a patient discharged days ago when I wasn't even here. I have no more of a clue about where it would be than you do, and unlike you, wasting my time can impact the quality of care and even be dangerous to the patient's I'm taking care of. I can't tell you how many idiotic, dumb phone calls that in no way pertains to the patients I'm taking care of that the Clerks forward to the nurses simply because they: a) don't know what to do, and don't care that the nurse probably doesn't either. b) think that if they are too busy to deal with it the nurse should do it. c) don't want to get up off their rump and leave the desk area and actually look for something or find something out. d) can't be bothered to look at the assignment sheet right in front of them that has the phone assignments written next to the name of the nurse assigned to that patient and forward the call to the proper person.

Heck I've had phone calls forwarded by the Clerks, while during a code because a 10th cousin 215 times removed is calling because their medically stable relative who's been able to walk around the unit for the last 15 days is off the floor smoking and they want to know why they're not answering their phone. Stupid me, I thought it was the ENT team that was paged to intubate the patient that was calling back.

We used to have a problem with the NAs, where every time a pt uttered the word "nurse" in a sentence (as in: are you my nurse, are you the nurse?) they would immediately spin out of that room in a nanosecond, before the pt could even tell them what they wanted, to interrupt and inform you that the patient wanted "their nurse" and then hightail it off at breakneck speed in the opposite direction of that room. The nurse would go in only to find that the patient wanted something like water, or help to the BR/on the bedpan, or some sort of minor thing that the NA could have easily helped them with. My response: What did the patient ask for. Now when the NAs tell me the patient wants me it's valid.

I've walked in and found patient's soaked in urine from earlobes to toenails who were told by the NA that took their VS 30 minutes ago that they "would be back" after the shaking, shivering, soaked patient requested their help. See the NA is busy doing VS on 10 patients and that will take her 2 hours to do. Oh please, that NAs plan was for me to find the patient and take care of it. Response to NA after I stopped what I was doing and cleaned & changed patient and after I had to hunt her down: You do not EVER leave a patient like that. Also wrote a report to manager regarding incident. Forgot to include suggestion that perhaps we tie the NA in 4 points, soak her down with water, and leave her like that for an hour. I guess with this particular NA in her defense, it really must be tough to complete and document VS on 10 patients in 2 hours.

Any freaking time I have a patient that has to go for a test/procedure that department will call the Clerk and request the pt's nurse, the clerk will forward the call to me, all in order to have me call transportation to have the patient brought down. Apparently they're too busy to call transportation, but not busy enough that they can't call me to call them. My response is always: You realize that the time you wasted to call the Clerk, have the Clerk transfer this call to me so that you could ask me to call transportation that you could have called transportation yourself. :smackingf Amazing how much time and effort can be put into getting the nurse to do something one could easily do themselves.

At one place I worked at, the dietary department had this brilliant idea to send bread/bagels/assorted bread products up untoasted. You see things could be freshly toasted on the floor by the nurses (of course by the nurses). Never mind that most floors only had toasters not unlike the kind we all have at home and that there were usually 30 patients on the unit and that it takes a few minutes for bread to actually toast once it is place in the toaster and that these toasters weren't designed for that kind of use and that only 2-4 slices could only be toasted at a time.

The biggest problem seems to be that EVERYONE seems to believe that if it is not, in their opinion, part of their job or that if they think they don't have time to do it that the nurses should do it. Whether it's getting water for a visitor, the broken clock in the patient's room, the printer that needs toner/paper, or any other dumb minor trivial thing.

Team-work is actually a code word in any given facility for "dump it on the nurses." Nobody seems to have a clue just how busy nurses are or what we do and they don't seem to grasp the concept that we don't have unlimited time, or "magic minutes" that we keep in our pockets to do EVERYTHING that they don't want to do, or THINK THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TIME TO DO. I've heard way too much complaining from other departments and disciplines about why the nurses can't do this, that, and the other thing. It's become about making their job easier at the nurses expense. Nobody seems to think that they should be interrupted with whatever they are doing, but everybody seems to think it's perfectly acceptable to interrupt the nurses continually, and boy are these not the first ones to point accusing fingers at the nurses over everything.

annmariern · Oct 26, 2007

I came to the conclusion long ago that apparently nothing is too stupid, inane, or petty enough NOT to interrupt the nurse for. Absolutely nothing.:stone:smackingf
Never mind necessarily being interrupted and called out of the room for it.
I've had a dietary staff want me to clear off overbed tables when I've been in the middle of packing a wound on a patient. They didn't want to put the tray down to clear a spot on the overbed table and naturally the nurse should stop what they're doing to do that. My response to dietary: Uh no, I'm obviously in the middle of doing something right now and that's something your perfectly capable of doing yourself. Excuse me, but when I need room on a pt's overbed table, I make it myself and I see no reason why anybody else can't do the same thing.
I've had a transporter who have walked by NAs standing at the Clerk's desk chatting (who've seen the transporter coming up the hall with the patient and continued to stand there chatting) interrupt me as I'm inserting an IV to help them move a pt to bed. The NA figured that since I was already down there working, why should she interrupt her conversation and do anything, and the transporter apparently thought it made sense to interrupt me (even though I'm obviously busy) instead of walking a few steps down the hall and requesting the NA to do her job. My response to the transporter: That NA who watched you come up the hall with that patient that is probably still standing a the Clerk's desk doing nothing is perfectly capable of helping you. It never ceases to amaze how many times I've seen our transporters will walk by NAs standing/sitting around doing nothing to interrupt the nurse, who is obviously busy to request their assistance.
I've had a housekeeper get snotty with me asking if I though I was too good to strip beds so that they can clean them, as I'm running around trying to take care of patients, while the NAs are sitting at the desk. My response: I will not strip beds when there are NAs sitting at the desk doing their homework, which is not what they are here to do. They are perfectly capable of doing that, GO ASK THEM.
I've had a Clerk forward phone calls to me from a patient discharged days ago who had left her battery charger for her wheel chair behind when she left. The Clerk figured that since she apparently was sooooo busy that I should take care of this call, especially since I was Charge and despite the fact I also had a full patient load along with being Charge. My response: You are not to forward phone calls like this to me. I have patients to take care of along with all the added crap I've got to do because I'm Charge. I do not have time to spend 20 minutes looking for a battery charger left behind by a patient discharged days ago when I wasn't even here. I have no more of a clue about where it would be than you do, and unlike you, wasting my time can impact the quality of care and even be dangerous to the patient's I'm taking care of. I can't tell you how many idiotic, dumb phone calls that in no way pertains to the patients I'm taking care of that the Clerks forward to the nurses simply because they: a) don't know what to do, and don't care that the nurse probably doesn't either. b) think that if they are too busy to deal with it the nurse should do it. c) don't want to get up off their rump and leave the desk area and actually look for something or find something out. d) can't be bothered to look at the assignment sheet right in front of them that has the phone assignments written next to the name of the nurse assigned to that patient and forward the call to the proper person.
Heck I've had phone calls forwarded by the Clerks, while during a code because a 10th cousin 215 times removed is calling because their medically stable relative who's been able to walk around the unit for the last 15 days is off the floor smoking and they want to know why they're not answering their phone. Stupid me, I thought it was the ENT team that was paged to intubate the patient that was calling back.
We used to have a problem with the NAs, where every time a pt uttered the word "nurse" in a sentence (as in: are you my nurse, are you the nurse?) they would immediately spin out of that room in a nanosecond, before the pt could even tell them what they wanted, to interrupt and inform you that the patient wanted "their nurse" and then hightail it off at breakneck speed in the opposite direction of that room. The nurse would go in only to find that the patient wanted something like water, or help to the BR/on the bedpan, or some sort of minor thing that the NA could have easily helped them with. My response: What did the patient ask for. Now when the NAs tell me the patient wants me it's valid.
I've walked in and found patient's soaked in urine from earlobes to toenails who were told by the NA that took their VS 30 minutes ago that they "would be back" after the shaking, shivering, soaked patient requested their help. See the NA is busy doing VS on 10 patients and that will take her 2 hours to do. Oh please, that NAs plan was for me to find the patient and take care of it. Response to NA after I stopped what I was doing and cleaned & changed patient and after I had to hunt her down: You do not EVER leave a patient like that. Also wrote a report to manager regarding incident. Forgot to include suggestion that perhaps we tie the NA in 4 points, soak her down with water, and leave her like that for an hour. I guess with this particular NA in her defense, it really must be tough to complete and document VS on 10 patients in 2 hours.
Any freaking time I have a patient that has to go for a test/procedure that department will call the Clerk and request the pt's nurse, the clerk will forward the call to me, all in order to have me call transportation to have the patient brought down. Apparently they're too busy to call transportation, but not busy enough that they can't call me to call them. My response is always: You realize that the time you wasted to call the Clerk, have the Clerk transfer this call to me so that you could ask me to call transportation that you could have called transportation yourself. :smackingf Amazing how much time and effort can be put into getting the nurse to do something one could easily do themselves.
At one place I worked at, the dietary department had this brilliant idea to send bread/bagels/assorted bread products up untoasted. You see things could be freshly toasted on the floor by the nurses (of course by the nurses). Never mind that most floors only had toasters not unlike the kind we all have at home and that there were usually 30 patients on the unit and that it takes a few minutes for bread to actually toast once it is place in the toaster and that these toasters weren't designed for that kind of use and that only 2-4 slices could only be toasted at a time.
The biggest problem seems to be that EVERYONE seems to believe that if it is not, in their opinion, part of their job or that if they think they don't have time to do it that the nurses should do it. Whether it's getting water for a visitor, the broken clock in the patient's room, the printer that needs toner/paper, or any other dumb minor trivial thing.
Team-work is actually a code word in any given facility for "dump it on the nurses." Nobody seems to have a clue just how busy nurses are or what we do and they don't seem to grasp the concept that we don't have unlimited time, or "magic minutes" that we keep in our pockets to do EVERYTHING that they don't want to do, or THINK THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TIME TO DO. I've heard way too much complaining from other departments and disciplines about why the nurses can't do this, that, and the other thing. It's become about making their job easier at the nurses expense. Nobody seems to think that they should be interrupted with whatever they are doing, but everybody seems to think it's perfectly acceptable to interrupt the nurses continually, and boy are these not the first ones to point accusing fingers at the nurses over everything.

My thoughts exactly! And they wonder why I get cranky answer the phone after dozens of calls. Its like a knee jerk reaction, the "nurse" is the dumping ground for everyone. And we allow it. :uhoh21: