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!
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
Firstly, I would like to thank Angie for trying to keep the peace. Several times over, in fact.
Secondly, I would like to say, this is a vent thread, about what you would LIKE TO SAY TO PATIENTS. NOT about some imagined slight from something someone else posted. NOT about what bugs you about the world in general. That was not what I had in mind when I started this thread.
I would like to thank Ruby for her level headed comments, as always, she hits it right on the head.
And finally, if you don't like the thread, LEAVE! If you take offense to a post, don't take it upon yourself to assume that it was aimed at you. I love this thread, and I'll be danged if I stand by and let it get shut down because of this. If you can't play nice, get outta the pool.
Now, in a different vein:
Me:Well, Mrs. X, how are you sleeping with your new meds?
Mrs X.: A little better, not much
Me: Do you need more samples, I only gave you enough for 2 weeks?
Mrs X.: Oh, no, I still have plenty.
Me:Mrs. X, are you not taking the meds?
Mrs X: You mean I have to take them EVERY NIGHT?!?!?!
Me:No, ma'am, only on the nights you want to sleep.
There's a retired nurse on our unit, and she makes sure EVERYONE KNOWS she's a retired nurse. Well, guess what, she is the worst patient I have ever seen when it comes to the call light. I swear she has it glued to her finger and every time it twitches she calls us.
I was standing in the room, talking to her roommate and just told her that I would get her nurse for her and she picks up the call light and "DING'!! calls the nurse.
I said "Now, Ms. so and so, WHYYYYY did you just do that?"
"I need my nurse"
I say, "I JUST told you I was getting your nurse"
"I know, I need my nurse"
ME: "QUIT pushing that button. STOP. Don't do it again" (as politely as I can be)
OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!
And she is still doing it,, I am not exaggerating, every 5 minutes or more.
I've many a family member flash the fact that they have a medical background like it were a badge that was going to get the preferential treatment or something. I have a way of dealing with it, probably not the most theraputic way, but it works for me and lets me know if their claim is true or not.
Once someone claims to be a nurse to me, I stop with all the hand holding teaching and expect them to be up to snuff on what is going on. If its a family member, I let them know they will now be taking on the role of teacher with the pt. since (OK, I make this part up) pt. teaching has been proven to be more effective that way.
One daughter who repeated over and over that she was a nurse and new "the truth about what goes on" stayed in my pt. room all night. At that time, we did not have open ended visiting hours. So, I began pushing things on her. Here is the enema, let me know if it effective or not. And the GoLyte will be here in 30 minutes so get started on that right away because then you have to start that. Please, remember, your mother is on strict I/O's so you must mark down on the board what she drinks and the amt. of stool produced EVERY time (we had a board for family to mark I/O that went on when nurse wasnt around, so if they brought in stuff we wouldnt miss it). The CNA will be in around 2130 to perform an accucheck. No dont forget, your mom is NPO so be carefull when you decide if she should be covered or not.
After a few minutes of "thats your job!!!" I countered with "Oh, its past visiting hours. I let you stay because I thought you wanted to stay to support your mother and assist her through this difficult times. If you only stayed to be an observer, I cant allow you to stay. We've already asked other family members to start preparing to leave. Its not fair to them to let you stay while they have to go. You know how it goes with visiting hours. Let one person stay, everyone wants to stay."
Of course she didnt do any of those things, I would not have let her, and she asked very nicely to be allowed to stay. I came off as the bad guy but hey, she quit with the ego trip and it made the job easier for every nurse who followed me afterwards. We were finally able to concentrate on how to help the pt., not on how her daughter (who, BTW, passed boards and got married, never worked a SINGLE day of her life as a nurse) wanted things done.
Another case of someone claiming to have a nurseing background was when a daughter called me upset about her mother being put in an isolation room. She had shown signs of C-diff, got moved out of the semi-pvt where she had a room mate that she got along with very well. The daughter called me, on an imaginary high horse, lectureing me about taking care of someone on an emotional level as well as physical. Then came out the "I am a nurse" badge. So, I relaxed, not knowing any better, and started talking medical jargon instead of breaking things down into layman terms. Halfway through my explination that even though we understand she enjoyed her room mates company, we are a surgical floor and must isolate if we suspect C-diff........she stopped me, told me to slow down. She asked me for an explination of what C-diff was, and why was this I/D nurse specialist called on to help with the care, couldnt the housekeeping just clean the room real good whenever she had a bowel movement to solve the problem? I was beside myself.
There was a VERY long, uncomfortable pause. My brain danced circles in my head and I could only mumble. I was frantically seeking a way to go back to laymans terms without letting it slip that this woman was not a nurse. Every time I started to say "C-diff is different from other infections in that.............", my mouth would start to utter "Are you really a nurse, you dont take care of people or anything right? I hope not". In the silence, without me wanting to, I think she came to a revelation about why we dont claim to be nurses when we are not. She thanked me before I could say anything and said she needed to return to work............THE LUNCH RUSH WAS ABOUT TO BEGIN. WHAT? Yeah, she visited that night, wearing a Denny's uni.
I had a patient tell me last night that I walked like her son. O_O I just laughed it off and was like oh the lady is on dilaudid. No big deal. Her son comes in and is in the room with her and I went in to do my thing and he was watching me very intently. I wanted to say Stop staring I know I'm beautiful. LOL but instead I got Wow you really do walk like a man. :dzed: Run that by me again!?!
What drug are you on?
Then to all my other patients last night I think things would have been better if I said at the start of the night, "Don't call me, I'll call you."
Specializes in Geriatrics, Cath Lab, Cardiology,Neuro.
I had this one lady when I was a CNA/HHA. I did her homemaking and errands and she had scoliosis and chronic pain. Also her husband who was hard of hearing, has diabetes and heart problems was getting all the medical attention from another visiting nurse agency, so she would get jealous and she possibly had Munchausen's. She claimed just driving around the corner "was too painful and too much" but 3x a week her and her husband would trek into Boston to see all the specialists. Also she claimed she needed me on Saturdays but her daughter would come on Saturdays to do the same thing as I would do. And one day when she was "in pain" after I made a big shopping trip to the grocery store and to Costco (a huge warehouse), I went to Costco later on to shop for myself and low and behold I caught her and her daughter (this was a Thursday) driving away! I so wanted to tell her, but I told my agency and they gave her the riot act for abusing the home care system, if you can drive around the corner in pain, and all the way to Costco then you dont need me and you are NOT in pain. Also her husband had this cool machine thru the visiting nurse that monitored BP, SpO2, blood sugar, etc and it would be recorded via internet to the nurse. I caught her numerous times using the machine because she thought she had hypoglycemia or a heart attack and she would call the VNA and tell them to erase the results cause it was her vitals. And the nurse would ask if she was all right and she would tell her otherwise even though the results were ok and nurse had to tell her the machine and services were for her husband. Eventually my home care agency had to tell her like it is!
I've many a family member flash the fact that they have a medical background like it were a badge that was going to get the preferential treatment or something.
Yeah, and half the time they took a pre-req or two and then dropped out...or they managed to pass NS yet failed NCLEX. Or worse, they *read* a lot of medical mysteries!!
Yeah, and half the time they took a pre-req or two and then dropped out...or they managed to pass NS yet failed NCLEX. Or worse, they *read* a lot of medical mysteries!!
Or, even worse..........they watch House/Grey's Anatomy/E.R./Scrubs.
oh boy the things I wanted to say to my patient in 298B the other day...
1. You have been on "oxycodone 30mg for thirty years" so you say even though you are only 40, FDA didn't approve that high of a dose to patients until 2006, and you have NOTHING physically wrong with you, you are in this hospital every two weeks to get your fix and get high, yet all of your tests remain negative. Now all of a sudden you claim that this oxycodone doesn't work for you anymore and you need Dilaudid every 5 minutes. If in fact you were on an illegal dose of oxy since you were 10 for no chronic health problems, then you have a tolerance issue and no you can not get Dilaudid IV ordered for you at home, get HELP! Stop taking me away from my patients who are having evolving MI's and NEED attention and pain medication for your Dilaudid that your doctor DIDN'T order because he knows you are an addict from the scum of the city, and no I am not going to get it for you anyway, I will gladly get you a social service consult because feeding into your addiction is not going to help you.
2. You can throw things at me, threaten my license, verbally abuse me and swear at me and give me the guilt trip that you are suffering without your daily high, it is not going to change my mind.
3. The only health problem you have is you are a diabetic which I will gladly educate you on and care for that. However, when your druggie friends are bringing in McDonalds and soda every five seconds because our 1800 ADA calorie diet is "killing you", expect me to enforce visiting hours and have our resource nurse/NIC take away the food that is causing you to have blood sugars in the 500s!!!!!
4. Please stop refusing your insulin all of the time. When I check your blood glucose and it is in the 200-300s, stop telling me that that is a normal range for you and if it goes below 200 you will have a massive hypoglycemic episode. You constantly live in the 200-300s chem BG range, and you wonder why you are working up a diagnosis of renal failure.
5. No I can not get you anymore Zofran, Reglan or Compazine. I find it an interesting correlation that whenever you know I cannot get you your pain med because it is not time and I do not want to administer NARCAN to you like you last nurse, you begin to throw up on me and force saliva to come out and call it throw up. We all know that you know exactly what drugs will boost your high when its not Morphine, oxy or Dilaudid time. If in fact you are truly nauseas, it is probably because you are constantly maxed out on narcotics!!! But of course you don't believe nor want to hear that.
UGHHHH this was not a fun shift, I am sick of these people that drain the system, spend your tax dollars to get high, and take you away from the poor patients who truly need your time and attention. Thank God I am leaving that place Friday and starting in the OR! Phew sorry had to get that vent out!!!
Specializes in Geriatrics, Cath Lab, Cardiology,Neuro.
"UGHHHH this was not a fun shift, I am sick of these people that drain the system, spend your tax dollars to get high, and take you away from the poor patients who truly need your time and attention."
I so wanted to say that to the lady I had with Munchausen's! She thought I could add her on for extra hours because she felt "she was entitled for my undivided attention" when she knew I had other clients, school and a life! She took away from other clients who really needed home care services thanks to her husband who got all the home care services and she was jealous that she didnt get the services that her husband got! Also her husband is hard of hearing and he would use it to his advantage to tune her crankiness out!
Look. Its not hard to figure out. Just apply simple basic elementary school math and it will help you prioritise your call bell use/requests.
I have 8 pts. I am here 8 hours. Take 1/2 hr for shift change twice (begin and end shift) for one hour. That leaves 7. Now, take about an hour and a half for documentation. Now we have 5 1/2 hours. So, 5.5 divided by 8 means I have about 2/3s of an hour to spend with you, or........40 minutes. So, if you want me to use your 40 minutes moving tissue boxes and fetching sprite.......its your time. But when your time is up, all used, its gone. May not get that dilaudid fix at the end of my shift cause someone who used their time more wisely will ask for it at the same time as you.
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, I can't cure stupidity, and you seem to have that in spades."
To the woman who came in, wilder than a buck, insisting that the medicine her sister took would work wonders for her "because we're sisters and our bodies work the same". She told me that her sister gave her two teaspoons of this medicine and she slept like a baby. Then she handed me the empty bottle and asked for a script. I nearly died when I looked at it. It was Donnatol!
I asked her if she was still taking her other meds and she said that she was not, that a friend had told her that the reason she was acting weird might be that she was allergic to them, so she stopped some, and started doubling others. And she expected me to make it all better IMMEDIATELY!
AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN
2 Articles; 1,291 Posts
Firstly, I would like to thank Angie for trying to keep the peace. Several times over, in fact.
Secondly, I would like to say, this is a vent thread, about what you would LIKE TO SAY TO PATIENTS. NOT about some imagined slight from something someone else posted. NOT about what bugs you about the world in general. That was not what I had in mind when I started this thread.
I would like to thank Ruby for her level headed comments, as always, she hits it right on the head.
And finally, if you don't like the thread, LEAVE! If you take offense to a post, don't take it upon yourself to assume that it was aimed at you. I love this thread, and I'll be danged if I stand by and let it get shut down because of this. If you can't play nice, get outta the pool.
Now, in a different vein:
Me:Well, Mrs. X, how are you sleeping with your new meds?
Mrs X.: A little better, not much
Me: Do you need more samples, I only gave you enough for 2 weeks?
Mrs X.: Oh, no, I still have plenty.
Me:Mrs. X, are you not taking the meds?
Mrs X: You mean I have to take them EVERY NIGHT?!?!?!
Me:No, ma'am, only on the nights you want to sleep.