I work on a very busy Tele floor and can have up to 5-6 patients a night. What kills me...is when I have a patient that is DNR. Seriously? Like what is the point? So far, the DNR's are usually on their last leg, disease processed has moved to the final stages, yet you come to the ER with SOB, and admitted to my busy floor, and I have to now treat you as if I would treat one of my patients whose a full code - but, if you suddenly become pulseless, I cannot do anything anyway...grrrrrrrrr. How time consuming - why? I had a patient admitted from HOSPICE onto my floor for SOB - seriously?
Please help me understand you all. I am a new graduate nurse - 3 months - and when I get a DNR patient, I instantly get turned off. Sometimes these are the most time consuming patients with overbearing family members and in my mind I am like, the hospital is for saving lives if something lethal happens, I am not doing anything anyway. sigh.
You know how there are "who should be assigned to this patient" questions on the NCLEX? I'm beginning to think that hospice and DNR patients should be cared for by experienced nurses ONLY.
And there are also priority questions that ask, "Who would you go to first?"
cholmes, there will be a pile on, ok? Just remember that some people are hitting the reply button after reading your OP and haven't seen your other posts. I want to believe you learned something here.
Wow alot of these comments are rude. I don't think I would like for any of you to be my nurse...EVER. Nobody is perfect and this person is asking us for our opinion so how dare you frown upon them because they came to this site to seek help. I've taken care of DNR patients and the message to take from it is this. They deserve the utmost respect and deserve just as much quality treatment and care as you give to those patients who are not DNR patients :) I apologize for the nurses above me who answered so rudely. I wish we could help each other instead of tearing one another down. You are your patients advocate and you also practice autonomy i'm sure. I'm young and am in my last semester of nursing school and even I know that posting rude comments wont help anything, so all of you older adults should be ashamed of yourself. The next time you take care of a DNR patient just treat them like you would family and think...hmmm how would I want to be cared for when I get older and can't take care of myself. :) that's what I always do when I am doing my clinical rotations. I wish you the best of luck in your journey.
Thank you for your response. Although the comments are pretty rude...I am humbled and seriously...I will approach this line of care differently. Im new and still learning. Thank you!
Okay, the OP is not the only one who shares this perception of DNR patients. I have a friend who works Med-Surg. She was complaining about her patient assignment after work one day. If I recall correctly, she had 8 patients while another nurse had 7 patients - one of the other nurse's patients was DNR. My friend went on and on about how the other nurse actually had 6 patients because the DNR patient "didn't count." Remember, nurses are people and people are imperfect. Not everyone thinks the same and everyone doesn't have to. We just have to do our jobs to the best of our abilities.
I am all for different opinions on ethics, and the conversations around here about code status and resus get very lively, to say the least. However, these conversations are in the context of poor prognoses, not just the existence of a DNR order. The complete picture is what is important here.
This is the single most offensive, callous, and clueless post I have read in nearly three years of membership of AN.
Did you learn anything in nursing school?
God help our patients.
The OP is a new nurse. Nursing school doesn't teach us compassion, it is developed. Sometimes it takes that one patient to change a nurse's perception. The OP's experience will guide her to what's the point. The best way for us to address this is to give her some examples of why there's a point. But she will soon "get it".
I have learned alot. And next time...Ill just provide safe and excellent care to ALL of my patients and their familes...and just keep my personal opinions about it to myself. Its not about me when I step foot into that hospital anyway! Thank you for your response. I HAVE LEARNED ALOT!!!
The OP is a new nurse. Nursing school doesn't teach us compassion, it is developed. Sometimes it takes that one patient to change a nurse's perception. The OP's experience will guide her to what's the point. The best way for us to address this is to give her some examples of why there's a point. But she will soon "get it".
Without compassion, what is anyone doing training to be a nurse? If one is that lacking in basic empathy for one's fellow man, and has been all the way through nursing school where one has presumably taken care of sick patients, and been taught about patients rights to make choices about their own health care, and about ethics, and has been taught to advocate for patients, and is still lacking in basic empathy for the choices sick people make, then one gets no sympathy from me.
I would like to THANK YOU all for sharing your personal experiences with working with DNR patients and how powerful that experience can be for a nurse. You all are right, I should put the same effort in caring for a full code as a DNR. DNR does not mean Do Not Care - it is just a different kind of care and I pray that I have more experiences with DNR patients!!! My attitude regarding this matter has changed and I am very appreciative of this forum.
Angeljho, MSN, NP
392 Posts
And there are also priority questions that ask, "Who would you go to first?"