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!
* Please don't walk into a room in the middle of a code to complain that your relative has been waiting five minutes for a cup of coffee.
* If you are sick and contagious, please don't visit the ward, let alone ask the nurses for some random medications, then get angry when we wont give them to you.
* Pushing the doctors out of the way, screaming in your relatives face and slapping them isn't helping the code situation...I know you are worried but please stand back.
*The medical team is trying to help your loved one, and we aren't impressed when you stand in front of us on your cell phone calling us those "dumb fat black *censored* who don't know what they are doing".
*Don't be offended when we don't know who "Mom" or "Dad" is. We have a lot of patients here, could you give us a name at least?
*If you think I am "too young" to be a nurse, feel free to request someone older. But be aware I have been nursing longer than them ! Age doesnt necessarily equal experience.
Well, I'll probably get slammed for this too, but Nocturne, hon, THINK about what you're saying. Yes, I speak Spanish. Why? I learned in high school, 12 years ago, because even then I could see the handwriting on the wall. I did it because I WANTED to.
However, I did not, and do not feel that it's my duty to learn a plethora of languages because the immigrants and transplants that choose to come over can't be bothered to learn English. I hate it, but my ability to treat and prescribe and NOT KILL YOU by giving you a med you're allergic to is severely hampered if you have made no attempt to facilitate communication. I left my little Star Trek doowhatcher at home, so no go on the body scan physical, either.
You plan to live here, learn the language. It's that simple. Well, along with getting your legal papers and SSN and a job and all that other not-politically-correct mess.
And I won't even go into the Death Squad thing. Suffice it to say I think they have a point to a degree.
OK, lets see, goggles? Check. Marshmallows? Check. Asbestos underoos? Check. Let the flames begin!
I know this post is old, but I'm reading them all from the beginning and this is like the fifth time I've seen this come up, so I just had to point out: THERE IS NO OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE UNITED STATES. As much as English might dominate, it's not our official language. Some states have recently declared their own official language, but we don't have a national one.
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
"Um....say WHAT?"
This, after a new patient gave us 2 urine samples: the first a clean (for drugs) sample that looked like Mountain Dew, and then gave us a second sample that was + for opiates and benzos when we dinged him.
He called a week later, wondering why his meds were not called in. I told him about the discrepancy in the samples and asked him point-blank if the urines were different.
"Oh, yeah...that first was a fake (as in synthetic urine), the second was mine. So, you're still gonna call my meds in, right?"
This, after a new patient gave us 2 urine samples: the first a clean (for drugs) sample that looked like Mountain Dew, and then gave us a second sample that was + for opiates and benzos when we dinged him.
He called a week later, wondering why his meds were not called in. I told him about the discrepancy in the samples and asked him point-blank if the urines were different.
"Oh, yeah...that first was a fake (as in synthetic urine), the second was mine. So, you're still gonna call my meds in, right?"
Oh good God...I swear some of these people must think we have the word 'Moron' stamped on our foreheads. Or the think we make more money depending on how many scrips we have filled. Guess they have no idea we have these silly little things called licences that we want to keep if at all possible!
"Ice cream won't raise my blood sugar. It is fat not sugar." Or "Its sugarless."
Or her visitor, "She can have some cake. It is sugarless."
Oh god...my fiance's grandma is diabetic. She has a heart of gold, don't get me wrong I love the woman to death. But she isn't very bright. She alway grabs low fat or low sodium candy and eats the entire box talking aout how its "for diabetics".
I'm not being judgemental. I know that people are in LTC because they can't care for themselves. I did a rotation in a nursing home and I'll do one after the Med/Surg rotation. I have a hard time with this. I love older people because I listen to the stories they tell of their childhood, when they were first married, what the wives did when their husbands went to fight the war, etc. It breaks my heart that they can't care for themselves and that most of the time nobody comes to visit them. It's almost like they're the forgotten people. And nobody deserves to be forgotten.
Let me put it to yo this way: the people in LTC that don't get visitors probably didn't get visitors when they lived at home, or the only got visitors when a (potentially abusive) relative needed something from them. Many of them realize their family is full of jerks. If you work in LTC you are in a position to potentially give them all the love and attention their family should have been giving them. Some times its a wake up call for the family when they make their once a year visit and the resident makes it cear that they would rather talk to the staff than them, or doesn't recognize them but knows your name and when your shift starts.
As another poster said, the staff can become a surogate family. If their kids are to busy spending their money to be there for them, I will give them all the love they need.
Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.
VictoriaGayle said:
Let me put it to yo this way: the people in LTC that don't get visitors probably didn't get visitors when they lived at home, or the only got visitors when a (potentially abusive) relative needed something from them. Many of them realize their family is full of jerks. If you work in LTC you are in a position to potentially give them all the love and attention their family should have been giving them. Some times its a wake up call for the family when they make their once a year visit and the resident makes it cear that they would rather talk to the staff than them, or doesn't recognize them but knows your name and when your shift starts.
As another poster said, the staff can become a surogate family. If their kids are to busy spending their money to be there for them, I will give them all the love they need.
Just don't judge the kids too harshly... the "sweet little old lady" in your LTC may be the coldest, most manipulative and controlling witch you've ever met when it comes to parenting.
Seriously, my mom hasn't spoken to me in a decade because I put my sick dog to sleep without her permission. (I'm 43yo now -- do the math!) You can bet your sweet bippy that I won't be visiting her in any nursing home... but the community at large thinks my mom is a paragon of virtue and altruism.
She's even lied to her church about me (which came as a complete shock to the poor church lady who called my house a couple years ago in search of wedding pictures of my parents for a special service they were doing for couples married 50+ years... kinda awkward to tell the nice church lady that my mom disowned me long before she even joined their church!).
Every now and then I'll run into someone who knows us both (I live in a different town, so we don't run into each other at all), and the other person is always SHOCKED to learn that I've had no contact with my entire family of origin for over a decade. In most cases, they'll say something like, "I ran into your folks at the mall a couple months ago, they told me you're doing well..." and I reply with, "Hmmm, that's odd, my mom disowned me in 2002 and hasn't spoken to me since then, nor seen my son, even though we live less than half an hour away."
While many people really do just have ungrateful selfish spoiled brats for kids, some people truly deserve their abandonment in their old age. You reap what you sow, folks. Be kind to your kids -- they'll choose your nursing home some day!
Just don't judge the kids too harshly... the "sweet little old lady" in your LTC may be the coldest, most manipulative and controlling witch you've ever met when it comes to parenting.
Seriously, my mom hasn't spoken to me in a decade because I put my sick dog to sleep without her permission. (I'm 43yo now -- do the math!) You can bet your sweet bippy that I won't be visiting her in any nursing home... but the community at large thinks my mom is a paragon of virtue and altruism.
She's even lied to her church about me (which came as a complete shock to the poor church lady who called my house a couple years ago in search of wedding pictures of my parents for a special service they were doing for couples married 50+ years... kinda awkward to tell the nice church lady that my mom disowned me long before she even joined their church!).
Every now and then I'll run into someone who knows us both (I live in a different town, so we don't run into each other at all), and the other person is always SHOCKED to learn that I've had no contact with my entire family of origin for over a decade. In most cases, they'll say something like, "I ran into your folks at the mall a couple months ago, they told me you're doing well..." and I reply with, "Hmmm, that's odd, my mom disowned me in 2002 and hasn't spoken to me since then, nor seen my son, even though we live less than half an hour away."
While many people really do just have ungrateful selfish spoiled brats for kids, some people truly deserve their abandonment in their old age. You reap what you sow, folks. Be kind to your kids -- they'll choose your nursing home some day!
I won't judge the relatives as I don't know what my resident was like before, but at the same time, even if they were horrible people, it shouldn't affect the care they recieve. It's not about judgement, its about filling a need. I'm just as concerned with the resident's emotional well being as their physical health.
The post I was resonding to seemed to be about a specific type of absent relative so thats what my response was geared towards. I was just trying to make the point that it doesn't have to be heart breaking. It can actually be very rewarding to fill that void.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
VictoriaGayle said:
Let me put it to yo this way: the people in LTC that don't get visitors probably didn't get visitors when they lived at home, or the only got visitors when a (potentially abusive) relative needed something from them. Many of them realize their family is full of jerks. If you work in LTC you are in a position to potentially give them all the love and attention their family should have been giving them. Some times its a wake up call for the family when they make their once a year visit and the resident makes it cear that they would rather talk to the staff than them, or doesn't recognize them but knows your name and when your shift starts.As another poster said, the staff can become a surogate family. If their kids are to busy spending their money to be there for them, I will give them all the love they need.
I'd like to discourage you from being so judgemental about families who do not visit their relatives in long term care. It may not have been their relatives who were abusive or potentially so. It may have been the resident himself. Or herself. There is quite often a reason these residents don't get visitors: the father who abandoned his children when they were young, the mother who was always drunk and abusive by the time the kids came home from school. The parent who told his or her adult child that "If you marry that (insert race, religion or creed of choice), don't ever bother to darken my door again," or the parent who told a gay/lesbian/transgender child that they were an abomination. I haven't visited my mother in eight months. She lives over a thousand miles away -- a choice that she made years ago when she could still make choices -- and is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. I have breast cancer; I cannot travel right now because of my treatment. If I could travel, DH and I aren't exactly flush with cash right now as I've been out of work for months. Calling my mother isn't at the top of my priority list, either. If she could remember how to use a phone -- which she can't -- or could carry on a conversation (another can't), she wouldn't know who I was. I called her every day until the phone calls got to be so difficult they were only adding to my stress level and hers because she had no idea why people she didn't know insisted upon calling her every day.Your post is indicates quite clearly that you believe there is no reason for family not to visit residents in long term care. Please think again.
My post was about the oportunity to fill an emotional need in your residents. I just wanted to explain why LTC doesn't have to be "heart breaking."
I know there are many reasons family may ot be able to visit or may not want to visit and I do not judge them for that. My comments about family members were made in an attempt to explan that the stereotypical resident with no visitors probably wasn't any better off at home, and if their situation bothers you, once they are in our facility you have a chance to change their situation by showing them someone cares.
Im sorry if my post came off as judgemental, it was suppose to be about how LTC really isn't a horrible place where people go to die alone. I don't articulate myself well when I'm sleep deprived, I just come ff as cranky and udgemental.
As far as what I think about families...no. Children don't owe their parents anything, and that idea drives me crazy. There are plenty of abuive parents out there that think their kids should spend the rest of their lives paying them back for not selling them for crack money.
I wasn't trying to argue that "anyone that doesn't visit their family membrs is evil." Just that instead of getting all worked up about it we should just focus on making our residents happy. Whats goingto do more good, crying about how sad it is that this might be their last birthday and no one sent them a cad or giving them a card yourself?
Oh, and as far assomething I'd like to say to a resident:
You will never be able to move back into your house, so stop being mean to your daughter just because she want's to sell it. Do you have any idea how much your private pay room costs? Trust me I've seen people who want to take advantage of their parents, and she isn't one of them. She just wants to give you the care you need with out going bankrupt!
BanoraWhite
142 Posts
To patients families...
* Please don't walk into a room in the middle of a code to complain that your relative has been waiting five minutes for a cup of coffee.
* If you are sick and contagious, please don't visit the ward, let alone ask the nurses for some random medications, then get angry when we wont give them to you.
* Pushing the doctors out of the way, screaming in your relatives face and slapping them isn't helping the code situation...I know you are worried but please stand back.
*The medical team is trying to help your loved one, and we aren't impressed when you stand in front of us on your cell phone calling us those "dumb fat black *censored* who don't know what they are doing".
*Don't be offended when we don't know who "Mom" or "Dad" is. We have a lot of patients here, could you give us a name at least?
*If you think I am "too young" to be a nurse, feel free to request someone older. But be aware I have been nursing longer than them ! Age doesnt necessarily equal experience.