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!
This sums it up for me - it's what I'd like to say to about 95% of our patients -- and all the illegals as well. Although many of them stay very quiet and dont' complain much while they're in. I think they just fear being found about and deported.
But the typical jerk, on disability, only there for the pain meds, w/ the hx of ETOH and substance abuse -- you honestly are the bane of society - and I can't figure out why we as a society, continue to tolerate it.
I have a theory as to why. Eh, I'll probably get angry posts sent my direction again, but hey........that never stopped me before;).
I look at it this way. The laws are established to favor who right now? I think the drug seeking pt's are the ones who get the best results from today's system of delivering medical care.
We have on their side........HIPPA. A well intentioned law that prevents us from talking about pt's outside the hospital. No problem there, when it is by itself. HIPPA is very limiting though. Remember, you can be tagged for violation for talking to other healthcare workers even. Fine. Abosolute privacy. Again, alone, I dont have an issue with that.
Then, we have a system of ranking the hospitals according to "customer satisfaction". Yes, the wonderfully thought out and intelligent PG scores:bugeyes:. We are ranked on a number of things, but how fast we deliver those doses of dilaudid almost single handedly decides where you rank. Better ranking means better compensation. And we all know the drug addicts LOVE their PG surveys.
Now, put these two together and what do we have. A system that insists we catter to drug seekers and be quiet about it.
One might say "What are the law makers thinking? Why would they let things go that direction?". Thats not hard to figure out either.
Why would law makers want things to favor drug seekers so much? Well, maybe because so many of them ARE DRUG SEEKERs. How often do we see this or that politician being caught with illegal drugs? Too often.
The law makers want a hospital setting where they can get their fix, nurses are expected to forsake everything else in favor of feeding the dilaudid beast, and no one can disclose anything about it. They've created a heaven on earth for themselves.
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
I never thought about it like that, but it makes sense. No flames here. And I have always said to he** with HIPAA, and always will. Stupidest piece of legislature I've ever heard of in my life. If people want to talk, people are going to talk. I don't because I choose not to. But, seriously, could I not be cited as violating HIPAA by doing a clinical report for school, even though I only use pt initials, simply because there was only ONE patient seen at Husker Du clinic with a diagnosis of pheochromacytoma on a certain day? It's flawed.
Not to mention, where I work, it's shot to crap anyway. I KNOW everybody, and they all tell me to tell Mama and Daddy hi. Per HIPAA, I now have permission. Now, if I tell them so and so said hi, and I've only been one place all day, they'll have a pretty good guess where so-and-so was. Naturally, I leave out diagnosis, lol.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled vent thread.
You see this in my hand. Its called food and I would appreciate it if I could just eat it, especially since I was in your room ten seconds ago.
I JUST WANT TO EAT!! :sfxpld:
Maybe I will be nicer nurse once I get some food in me. Last shift I did, I got no food thanks to one patient that insisted I be in his room every 10 seconds. Me+12hours+no food= a very mean nurse.
"Oh, dont be mad at me. Your nurse is bussy buying a miniature lighthouse. Here is the pt. complain number to call and here is the DON's home phone number."
:lol2:
I know it's not really funny---but the way you phrased this made me LOL!
I really think that is what she was trying to do. But she wasn't even close becasuse she didn't know where it was. She said "I was so sick of the beeping I just started pressing buttons." She opened the channel where the IV tubing was. I had to reset the IV tubing.
If all they hit is the silence button and call someone no problem.
Meg I think any of us would take care of you if you were in our hospital.
Thanks for saying you would care for me. What I meant by my original comment is, I have been TAUGHT where the silence button is, that is ALL I would ever touch. If I touched anything else I would be afraid that I would send the medication into me to fast or slow it down to much.....no thank you, I dont mess and I dont get why people do
You see this in my hand. Its called food and I would appreciate it if I could just eat it, especially since I was in your room ten seconds ago.
I JUST WANT TO EAT!! :sfxpld:
Maybe I will be nicer nurse once I get some food in me. Last shift I did, I got no food thanks to one patient that insisted I be in his room every 10 seconds. Me+12hours+no food= a very mean nurse.
There are some patients who I swear have the tea room under video surveillance - the microwave goes off and buzz; you sit down and buzz, and some of them (and others) must also be watching the staff loo because if it's not my pager going off then it's the ward portable phone. I just want two mintes!
Thanks for saying you would care for me. What I meant by my original comment is, I have been TAUGHT where the silence button is, that is ALL I would ever touch. If I touched anything else I would be afraid that I would send the medication into me to fast or slow it down to much.....no thank you, I dont mess and I dont get why people do
-- But I'm a DOCTOR!! I can turn off that patient's heparin drip because I'm a doctor!!
(No, he wasn't a doctor, he was another patient who hadn't been medically cleared for psych yet.)
What I said, through gritted teeth, glaring daggers: Look, if you touch that pump again, I'll report you to the Medical Board. That is NOT your patient and you are not a doctor in this hospital. Do.you. understand?
What I wanted to say: KEEP YOUR *%*)@)!__%$(#%$ HANDS OFF THE PUMP, DAMMIT! Now go to your room and don't come out again for the rest of the shift!!
Same pt I told her not to touch the IV pump. Pt said "Well it was beeping and I can't stand the noise." I said your light was on and I came to you. I let her know in no uncertain terms DO NOT TOUCH the IV pump! I was glad that only NS was running and not a pressor or something.
Don't trust it; I've seen too many patients, family members, fake doctors and yes, even nursing students and PCTs, figure the lock out and change the pump settings. Drives me absolutely nuts, every time.
:lol2:
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eriksoln, BSN, RN
2,636 Posts
I have a theory as to why. Eh, I'll probably get angry posts sent my direction again, but hey........that never stopped me before;).
I look at it this way. The laws are established to favor who right now? I think the drug seeking pt's are the ones who get the best results from today's system of delivering medical care.
We have on their side........HIPPA. A well intentioned law that prevents us from talking about pt's outside the hospital. No problem there, when it is by itself. HIPPA is very limiting though. Remember, you can be tagged for violation for talking to other healthcare workers even. Fine. Abosolute privacy. Again, alone, I dont have an issue with that.
Then, we have a system of ranking the hospitals according to "customer satisfaction". Yes, the wonderfully thought out and intelligent PG scores:bugeyes:. We are ranked on a number of things, but how fast we deliver those doses of dilaudid almost single handedly decides where you rank. Better ranking means better compensation. And we all know the drug addicts LOVE their PG surveys.
Now, put these two together and what do we have. A system that insists we catter to drug seekers and be quiet about it.
One might say "What are the law makers thinking? Why would they let things go that direction?". Thats not hard to figure out either.
Why would law makers want things to favor drug seekers so much? Well, maybe because so many of them ARE DRUG SEEKERs. How often do we see this or that politician being caught with illegal drugs? Too often.
The law makers want a hospital setting where they can get their fix, nurses are expected to forsake everything else in favor of feeding the dilaudid beast, and no one can disclose anything about it. They've created a heaven on earth for themselves.