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!
honey, if you think you could do any better then YOU go talk to him! lol
I've been at this a long time. I understand limits and boundaries with patients. but there is always that one, ya know? and he is it!
no one, not the admin, not the social worker, not the psychologist, not the doctor, not the NP, not the CNAS...no one..not one single person can get away from this man.
IMO the only thing that would help him is to roll his bed outside, push it down the hill straight into the river and show him the pretty fishies on the bottom:D
Ugh! I had one like that... for 6 weeks! The social worker copped it worst though...
One day this poor woman actually came and saw us before going into the room, and I quote the dialogue:
SW"Hey can you girls come in and tell me you need me, or I have a phone call for something important, or page me or something if Im not out of there in half an hour?"
ME "its pt lunch time though... I have feeds to do."
SW "heres $20. Anything you can do."
I grabbed her mobile and set her alarm to go off in 20 mins. worked a charm.
serijohn's profile (as does yours) says she is a student. a student is not a nurse. neither is a daycare worker, office manager, principal, doctor or factory worker. a mother may or may not be a nurse -- depends on the mother. i found serijohns's comments to be condescending to nurses who were venting on this, a vent thread. in fact, i find it negative, inflammatory and inappropriate for student nurses, nursing students, pre-nursing students and anyone else who is not actually a licenesed or registered nurse to be coming on a vent thread and telling nurses how wrong their attitudes are when they are venting. i did not assume that serijohn was not a nurse; i looked at her profile which said she had 3 years of experience as a student. i have concluded that you are not a nurse either, as your profile says you're a student. if that information is incorrect, it is not my fault.
###rant###
i am an endorsed enrolled nurse. i am studying to become a registered nurse. i am a nurse. i updated my profile for you too. if you dont know what an een is, i posted it in another thread. go into my profile again (which is now updated), and you should be able to find out which one...
i am also qualified as an emergency medical technician...
i am a student and a nurse. i tell ya what, "he who ceases to be a student has never been one." the motto at my uni. i am both.
Re: Things you'd LOVE to be able to tell patients, and get away with it.
A gentle reminder:
Folks, please try to be polite to one another and please, please, please stay on topic. This is a vent thread.
In a vent thread, criticism of the post and side comments to the poster are considered inappropriate and off-topic.
Further off-topic posts may be removed at the discretion of the mods.
If a post that is off-topic should appear, rather than answer the poster, please take the time to report the post by clicking the link at the bottom left of the offending post. Please do not engage the poster.
Re: Things you'd LOVE to be able to tell patients, and get away with it.
A gentle reminder:
Folks, please try to be polite to one another and please, please, please stay on topic. This is a vent thread.
In a vent thread, criticism of the post and side comments to the poster are considered inappropriate and off-topic.
Further off-topic posts may be removed at the discretion of the mods.
Angie O'Plasty, RN
Moderator
Whatever......................
You just feel threatened because I am good looking. You are jelous of me and pick on me for it. Fine, be that way.......................................................<_>
You just feel threatened because I am good looking. You are jelous of me and pick on me for it. Fine, be that way.......................................................<_>
Oh, that wasnt directed at me.
Nevermind.
You're right, I'm jealous. I WANT that Darth Vader bobblehead in the worst way.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled vent thread.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
to the 5 foot 6 inch, 380 pound patient i've been caring for all night: "no sir, i'm sure you don't eat much. relatively, i mean. but i know you didn't get to be 380 pounds by making healthful food choices!"
to the abovementioned patient who tells me that he works as a spy and "if i tell you for which agency, i'd have to kill you,": "you haven't done much fieldwork recently, have you?!"
and when he said he doesn't want any "non-us citizens" in his room,: "that ain't gonna happen. and you ought to be thrilled to have anyone come in and clean your nasty butt, which i doubt you've cleaned any time in the recent past!"
to the awake and alert and unfortunately unrestrained patient in the room next to mine who keeps dismantleing his ventilator tubing from his trach as far up the line as he can reach and throwing the pieces at whoever is dumb enough not to run in the opposite direction when they hear his ventilator alarming: "if you don't want to breathe, that's up to you, but i am not picking up the pieces and putting them together one more time. where is your nurse, anyway? did you bean her with one of them and knock her out?"
and to the nurse who is taking care of mr. ventilator disconnector (theoretically) and has been awol most of the night and who claims that my patient (380 pound spy guy) is not crazy: "if you spent as much time in my room interacting with my patient as i've spent in your room interacting with your patient, you'd know that they're both crazy!"
To the guy I'm giving a Mayo enema to because your abdomen is full of #### from all your narcotic use and lack of exercise and dietary fiber, and diagnostics show there is nothing else physically wrong with you to warrant taking up a hospital bed, and you say you're "so embarassed" by this, yet you've been on your call light every five minutes all night long, including twice to ask when I would come do the enema.....
Yeah, I'm thrilled to be standing here with a tube up your butt listening to you whine. I'd be even more thrilled if it were the call light. In fact, if you push that button just one more time tonight, I'm going to call the doctor and ask for an order for a call light enema.
When the young adult child is admitted yet again for hypermania to our psych department because he went off his meds again, and his mom doesn't want to go home and leave him, and we've explained our care plan which is the same as the last time, the physician has spoken with her to no avail, and it's nearly lights out time and she simply will not be reassured, I'd would like to remind her one more time that none of this mess is her fault because he's of age and it's way way way past visiting hours. When that doesn't work (and it won't), it makes me just want to scream, "Would you PLEASE just go home, let him get settled down, let his meds begin to work and come back in about five years or so?" Why does it take security so long sometimes...
To the daughter of the 89 year old LOL who is begging you to let her go, who clearly states that she doesn't want any more hospitalizations or medical treatment, and you're just standing there telling her to just let things be.....
Was she such a horrible mother that you want to torture her by keeping her alive despite her wishes, or are you afraid to let her die because you know she is going to come back and haunt you from the grave for this?
I AM a nurse, I have been an EEN in Palliative oncology and Orthoi Rehab (my facility does both)for 4 years, and I am a student RN.
Mods, truly curious here...serjohn, what is an "enrolled nurse"? I'm trying to think what we have here in the US that may compare...
Right now I'd just love the opportunity to say "Hello!" to a patient. I'm chomping at the bit to get back to work!! Medical leave wouldn't be so bad if you didn't *need* it
Mods, truly curious here...serjohn, what is an "enrolled nurse"? I'm trying to think what we have here in the US that may compare...
I was wondering what it was as well. Does it have an American equivilent? I'm afraid different names for the same things can cause misunderstandings sometimes.
Specializes in Nursing Home ,Dementia Care,Neurology..
Enrolled nurses did a 2 year course and were always meant as bedside nurses ,never going any higher.I think your equivalent would be LVN/LPN .We do not ,however train Enrolled nurses anymore,which is a shame,some of them were really good nurses.
.thumb.jpg.6eeb2c01c27cfd151d706238b7f6d6b7.jpg){kind=small}
Re: Things you'd LOVE to be able to tell patients, and get away with it.
serjohn
12 Posts
Ugh! I had one like that... for 6 weeks! The social worker copped it worst though...
One day this poor woman actually came and saw us before going into the room, and I quote the dialogue:
SW"Hey can you girls come in and tell me you need me, or I have a phone call for something important, or page me or something if Im not out of there in half an hour?"
ME "its pt lunch time though... I have feeds to do."
SW "heres $20. Anything you can do."
I grabbed her mobile and set her alarm to go off in 20 mins. worked a charm.