Things you'd LOVE to be able to tell patients, and get away with it.

[AngelfireRN]

Hi, my name is AngelfireRN, I'll be your nurse tonight.

I am not a waitress, nor am I your slave.

Yelling and hurling obscenities at me will not get you your pain meds any sooner than they are ordered. Nor will having your family member or entourage do the same.

Threatening lawsuits and having umpteen family members camp out in the halls or hold up the nurse's station will not get you preferential treatment.

Physically grabbing me as I go down the hall is NOT a good idea.

I do not give the orders, but I do have to follow/enforce them. This is something that you should take up with your doctor.

No, I will not call him again to ask him for more pain medicine. He has been called twice and has said no both times.

No, I will not give you his number so you can "straighten him out".

No, you are not my only patient, and I highly doubt that you are single-handedly paying my salary. On the off chance that you are, let's talk about a raise.

NO, NO, NO, I most empahatically will NOT come get you when it is time for your next pain shot while you are having a smoke break. I also will not bring it to you in the smoking room. (Have actually said that, I am allergic to cigarettes. I did it once, had an asthma attack, desatted to 83, and turned blue, according to the patient and my charge nurse, after the patient had to help me back to the floor).

No, I don't really care if your family has not eaten all day, they drove here by themselves, they are not sick, and no, I will not call for 6 guest trays. (This of course, is if the patient in question does not need all 6 family members present, and is not at death's door).

No, you may not have 3 six-packs of soda from the kitchen, there are other people that would like a snack, too.

No, they will not open up the kitchen up just for you, at 1 in the morning, because you don't like the snacks we have on the floor.

I could think of hundreds, but those will do for a start. I know it sounds mean, but this is why I got out of bedside nursing. When a hospital becomes the Hilton, I'm gone!

Have fun!

[rkitty198, BSN, RN]

Would you like it if I took a crap and called you on the call bell a million times just to tell you "I left you a little suprise in the toilet."

Why in the heck do you want me to get you a sandwhich after I just medicated you for nausea?

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Would you like it if I took a crap and called you on the call bell a million times just to tell you "I left you a little suprise in the toilet."

Soooo totally gross.

[UpinawayRN]

Why do you keep going back to your "stupid doctor who doesn't know jack and just prescribes a bunch of pills?"( Don't know what they are for? But you just take them because he said to because that's all that doctors do!)..Well, is he force feeding you? That's against the law ya know.,OOhh.don't know what that ones for..don't know what that ones for...don't know what that ones for..humm..You just MIght want to inform yourself, and take responsibilty of your medical problem!!

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

"You have two choices: use a bedpan in the bed or let us help you transfer to a commode and we'll wheel you to the toilet. Walking on your newly amputated forefoot is not an option. That's it - pick one.

"I'm happy to call security, but they won't evict me from the premises. In the meantime - pan or commode?

"Feel free to call X&Y law firm but I should warn you they'll have a conflict of interest as they already represent me. In the meantime - pan or commode?"

"Ooh, nice try at dividing the staff but we're too experienced to fall for that. So, pan or commode?"

"I'm not going to argue with you about the content of the Hippocratic oath. Nor about whether I answer to a higher authority than the hospital's policies. Pan or commode?

"As you're not my patient I didn't know you have schitzophrenia. To the best of my knowledge that doesn't preclude you using a pan or a commode."

"Okay, I'm going. When you've decided if you want the pan or the commode let me know."

This reminds me of an obese patient I had who couldn't walk for various reasons (obesity she said was NOT one of the reasons she couldn't walk apparently, even after bilateral TKRs; denial if I have ever come across it), and who would NOT use the commode or a bed pan, because it was 'beneath' her. I told her roundly well it's one or the other lady, cos I'm not going to clean ur bed when you mess in it. So THEN I had to go get her 2 different bedpans to show her which one was better for her; the normal pan or the slip pan. In the end she chose the slip pan, but trying to pull it out afterwards was so hard, it stuck to her sweaty bum, the contents spilled everywhere and we had to end up changing the sheets anyway. The fact that she would not even try to lift her bottom up when I was trying to pull out the pan, was OUR fault.

Of course, she complained about THAT when her family members came in later, that we weren't toileting her properly and she was left in a crappy bed - she wasn't left there for long as we just had to go get sheets etc. But it's all exaggeration with these patients.

Lady, do you have a life, or do you just live to make your carers/nurses and doctors lives a misery?

Would have LOVED to say that to this obese high and almighty madam!

[rph3664]

Why do you keep going back to your "stupid doctor who doesn't know jack and just prescribes a bunch of pills?"( Don't know what they are for? But you just take them because he said to because that's all that doctors do!)..Well, is he force feeding you? That's against the law ya know.,OOhh.don't know what that ones for..don't know what that ones for...don't know what that ones for..humm..You just MIght want to inform yourself, and take responsibilty of your medical problem!!

When I worked at the grocery store pharmacy, I once had a customer who told me that I made too much money, and I said to him, "Nobody is forcing you to take any of this medicine!"

The other pharmacist told me that if I got called on the carpet for this, he'd be first in line to defend me. I wasn't, but it sure was nice to know that I had backup.

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

And diabetic health care workers are absolutely the worse of all.

That's if they even bother turning up. I was assigned to work other wards apart from the psych unit, and when I got back to psych a week later, the diabetic educator (whom we had left messages for) hadn't even seen my patient, or hadn't even bothered to leave a message saying they were perhaps busy but would see them on such-and-such a day/time.

And the patient was being d/c soon, so I had to spend MORE time (on top of time I'd already spent with her the week before last), to explain her PCOD/PCOS and why that affected her BSL, etc, etc. It was exhausting but at least the patient had a better understanding of her illness and she was pleased about that. But she had many more questions I didn't have time to answer (I had 6 psych patients in total that day, one was acute I think, and I hadn't even SEEN them all yet on the shift).

The DE eventually turned up and I told her the patient had many more questions, but the patient said the DE didn't spend much time with her - maybe 20 minutes by her estimation.

To the DE: if you don't even have the courtesy to leave us a message as to when you are turning up, don't bother. I would have happily stayed back half an hour and sat with the patient. And giving her 20 minutes (if that) of your time, is NOT a diabetic education session in my opinion.

If she was busy she should have said so to the patient and scheduled another time...but that is too much like common sense isn't it!

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Anything House has ever said

Hilarious!!!

We had a complicated patient admitted one night, (he wasn't one of mine), but the young doctors were a bit baffled re his diagnosis/ses and were trying to figure out which specialty to bump him to. Well this younger nurse said: 'We need House here!' and this young doctor replied: 'No way - he'd make us work harder!!'

It broke the tension with laughter, and was just what we needed that night.

[punkydoodlesRN, BSN, RN]

I work CD at a psych hospital, and occasionally, we have patients who have hit rock bottom and truly want to get better. You can tell those people will succeed. But for the other 95% of my patients - they are frequent fliers. We see the same ones over and over, you know - the ones who are drug seeking and can't walk past the med room with out knocking to see if they have ANY PRN they can take...

No. You don't NEED a norco. No. You don't NEED a xanax. No. You don't NEED a valium. What you need Sir, is to take your self to your room, sit on your bed, close your eyes, cross your legs and Hum....

I don't care that you don't want to go smoke with wet hair. Either don't wash your hair or don't smoke. No, we don't have blow dryers - did you see an outlet in your room. You're not on vacation Ma'am.

Please don't come to my med room to talk to me until you have showered. Your body odor and hygiene practices are nasty.

You're detoxing, not on a trip to the carribbean.

XXXX. I know that YOU'RE a nurse. and I KNOW that YOU know that taking ANY drug more than prescribed, whether on purpose or not, is considered an OVERDOSE. So NO. You will not be getting ANY meds until your Dr. sees you face to face in the morning.

I've said everything I wrote... and more. I try to be nice. But these people sometimes need brutal honesty. I've worked with some nasty, ugly people. I've been peed on, spit on, BIT, and had more F-bombs thrown at me than I care to think about.

What I WISH I could say to one particular pt who has been riding the system for 4 wks now - You're never going to get better. You're drug seeking, crazy and farking obnoxious. You take entirely too many meds - you can't even walk down the hall because you're so strung out. I hope the state takes away your baby so the blessed child has a chance at a better life and doesn't end up on the adolescent floor down below. Now, Please go away. I really don't care to hear you whine about what body part you think is killing you now.

[highlandlass1592, BSN, RN]

One of my favorites: ( We deal with LVAD pt's on our unit)

Happens frequently before any holiday:

Me: "So, your AICD has been firing off and on for the past few days..why didn't you call us before now?"

Pt: "Well, I was afraid the doc would admit me to the hospital and I didn't want to spend the holiday here"

Me: "You realize, your AICD only fires for Vtach/fib..so it's kind of important to check this out. Why did you decide to come in today instead of last week?"

Pt: "Well, I didn't have anything else going on......"

Me: "Have you been taking all your meds as prescribed?"

Pt: "Well, I ran out of my potassium a few days ago but didn't figure it was that big of a deal...(pt is on a large dose of lasix daily)"

Me: Pt's K is 2.0, AICD interrogation reveals multiple runs of VTACH. Not the first time this pt has done this. Beating head against the desk repeatedly..maybe it's all a dream.

[JBudd, MSN]

OH, grow up already!

Yes, it IS your fault this happened.

My toddlers never whined this much.

[WittySarcasm, BSN]

Ohh this is too fun! I have so much I would love to tell certain people.

~Look if you touch my butt one more time you will find yourself nothing more then mush on the ground. Same thing for trying to grab my boobs or hey anywhere on my body.

~Hey, if you don't wanna eat fine. But don't lecture me for 5 minutes for the kitchen not having what you want. You have 10 fingers and a cell phone. Call your family to do it.

~No. I am not going to take your laundry home to wash. I don't care if you hate how we do it here.

~Look answer the damn question. Are you in pain? Don't lecture to me how I- a nurse- gets rich from the meds I pass. Cuz I am so missing out right now on millions.

~Hey, you have the right to refuse meds. But don't toss the whole cup at my face.

[punkydoodlesRN, BSN, RN]

I don't like you, not one bit. And I'm just trying to make it through the next 12 hrs without yelling at you. So, could you please just go back to your room and make this a little easier for me, mmkay? Thanks!