That one resident

I had one of those. I finally had to do a sort of psychological profile of her to finally understand why she was who she was. It all boiled down to loneliness and boredom. She wasn't willing to do anything about either of those things so I had to accept the fact she was going to be on the call light all the time. It is annoying and frustrating but sometimes there's little we can do. Has social services talked to her?

There will always be one of those. She may be the first, but surely won't be the last. Lol

We all have those types of people, it is human nature. There are going to be people that you connect to very easily while there are others that you would rather not deal with. It doesn't mean that you are not caring, but we are human and personalities sometimes do clash. I have had a few of those types of people, one who was very particular in how things where done, pillows needed to be arranged a certain way and if they were a millimeter off she would be on the call light wanting them corrected. Another lady that is constantly on her call light and if the nurse is late with her pills she will let the first person that she sees have it. Usually you can figure out why people act like they do, they may be having pain, they might be trying to keep what ever little bit of control that they have in their lives, such as how the pillows are arranged, they may be lonely or depressed. When you take a moment to see where that patient is coming from and what has been and is going on in their lives it can give you a better understanding of why they are acting in such a way. They might still be that one person that grates on your nerves and makes you question your compassion, but you will probably be able to react to them better knowing where they are coming from. One of the hardest lessons that I have learned is not to always take the way someone is acting towards me or what they say personally, a lot of times that are reacting to a situation and not actually you. Unfortunately sometimes we are the ones that get the fall out of that reaction.

Yep. Been there. My resident once said to an aide "I don't have to do anything as long as I'm here, since I have you to do it for me"