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.
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.
Can I just say this is one of the most mature responses I have seen on AN in a very long time. This kind of open-minded thinking and willingness to listen and learn speaks very well of your character. If you keep this up you will go very far in nursing and in life.
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.
That is YOUR opinion. Last time I checked, compassion wasn't a prerequisite to being a nurse. Sometimes people become nurses because it's a way to pay their bills. Whatever the reason, the only thing that matters is if they can do their job without letting judgment, bias, or negativity interfere. Something you seem to show so easily. Should YOU be a nurse?
Before anyone else piles on, the OP has had a complete change of heart. Not only that but she has taken her licks with grace and come back to the thread thanking us for our thoughts. This seems to be a very rare occurrence around AN lately.
That is YOUR opinion. Last time I checked, compassion wasn't a prerequisite to being a nurse. Sometimes people become nurses because it's a way to pay their bills. Whatever the reason, the only thing that matters is if they can do their job without letting judgment, bias, or negativity interfere. Something you seem to show so easily. Should YOU be a nurse?
The ability to be caring on the part of the nurse is important to our patients. Nursing is not just about "us" and "our needs" as nurses. Nursing care is patient and family centered, not nurse centered.
I don't expect to have to provide remedial information about ethics, patients rights, patient advocacy, and so forth, to licensed nurses, so you are correct that you are not receiving compassion from me.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
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.
Be blessed.
WOW! What a rude post from someone who doesn't know enough about anyone to know whether or not he'd like us to be his nurse. That would be humorous if it weren't so ignorant. And all of these "rude" posts you're complaining about are from experienced nurses, which neither you nor the OP are as yet. Nobody is perfect, but the OP displayed an egregious lack of compassion for patients and their families . . . and most of the nurses replying were telling him the same thing you've just said: DNR patients deserve dignity, respect and quality care.
Please don't be apologizing for us crusty old bats. Apologize for yourself only.
cholmes1223
42 Posts
Thank you. I totally agree. Its crazy how everyone talks this "compassion" but have been very rude to me on this forum. Irony. Oh well. Thank you.