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!

[dRkazN]

"No I do not speak Spanish and NO I SHOULD NOT learn how to speak Spanish because we live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!! YOU should learn how to speak ENGLISH!"

MAN I wish I said that to the family member.....that just infuriated me. To think I had to learn English, and they insult ME for not speaking Spanish.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

Matthew,

You mean you didn't walk out to the nurses' station and find them all with mouths hung open in silence, and then applause as you shook your Rambo-esque fist in the air?

Right on- you can come play in my ER anytime.

[squeakykitty]

If you can behave like the worlds biggest selfish, entitled, exit-only orifice of the equine persuasion, you must not be that sick so knock it off!

[eriksoln, BSN, RN]

If you can behave like the worlds biggest selfish, entitled, exit-only orifice of the equine persuasion, you must not be that sick so knock it off!

LMAO. OK. Wow. I'm afraid of you now. I am starting a new thread asking for people to put me in their prayers that I never **** squeakykitty off. I dont think I'd survive it.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

"No I do not speak Spanish and NO I SHOULD NOT learn how to speak Spanish because we live in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!! YOU should learn how to speak ENGLISH!"

MAN I wish I said that to the family member.....that just infuriated me. To think I had to learn English, and they insult ME for not speaking Spanish.

I speak some Spanish, and I have no problem speaking Spanish to Spanish speakers, but a few have refused to speak Spanish to me. They will talk to the translator, but not to me. One guy just said "No speaky" to me over and over, when I told him (in Spanish) that his wife had arrived. I've never understood that.

[catshowlady]

To the family member of my suddenly-obtunded COPD'er who ended up having a pCO2 of 98, who yelled at me for sternal rubbing her mother to check her level of responsiveness (next to none):

I am rubbing her sternum. It is supposed to hurt. I need to check to see if she can respond to me at all. I know exactly what I am doing. Let me do my job.

Oh wait.... I actually did say that.

To the same family, two hours later:

Your mother is very sick. This is the ICU. You cannot be screaming and hollering and nearly throwing punches at each other in here, ESPECIALLY NOT IN YOUR MOTHER'S ROOM! SHE IS SICK and doesn't need you all fighting where she might hear you.

Oh wait... I actually had to say that too. Poor pt.

[dRkazN]

"I speak some Spanish, and I have no problem speaking Spanish to Spanish speakers, but a few have refused to speak Spanish to me. They will talk to the translator, but not to me. One guy just said "No speaky" to me over and over, when I told him (in Spanish) that his wife had arrived. I've never understood that. "

That NEVER happened to where I work at.

[LRICH94]

Not just patients, my own family members as well (in-laws), people never cease to amaze me:

1. Being a nurse does not qualify me to be the family doctor. If you are sick, call your doctor. I've just worked 12-16 hours on my feet, so no! I don't want to drive across town to look at your swollen ankles when I know dang well that you havent been compliant with your diet or diuretics because you wanted to go play bingo today and skipped your lasix.

2. Yes, I can understand why your joints hurt, they are carrying around an extra 200lbs. Yes, it does make sense that your knee wants to buckle after a while of standing.

3. Yes, you are going to keep chronic bronchitis when you continue to smoke 3 packs of the cheapest brand of cigarettes available; and no I can't fix it for you.

4. To the 19 year old patient with 3 babies at home: I don't care if you are mad that I won't go "swipe" you a bag of diapers to take home to your kids. Is it not enough that I have to come up here and put up with you, so they can take taxes out of my check to pay for the medical expense for you to keep spitting out babies, and to get treatment and pain relief for those "spider bites" that you only seem to get along the viens of your forearms, that you seem to get at least once a month?

5. No sir, my job duties do not include helping you out with that erection, or satisfying your need for a woman's touch.

6. No mam, I do not speak spanish. Would you go to a nudist colony and ask them to put their clothes on?

7. No mam, I can not tell you how much of your mother's B/P meds you should take.

8. No, I can not give you just a little extra pain meds and yes they will miss it.

9. No I really don't want to come wipe your butt just because you are too big to reach it.

10. No mam, we can not keep your momma an extra day or two because you want to go visit your cousin out of state.

11. Yes mam, your mother is very sick and we are doing everything we can to help her; though it seems she is sick because no one has checked on her in some time and she had to resort to eating cat food because no one saw to it that she had food.(this really happened)

12. No, we will not insert a foley because you don't want to get up to use the bedside commode RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR BED!! (actually had a pt. ask for this once)

13. I'm sorry, we are fresh out of the cure for stupid.

14. What?? Your ticked because you've brought the whole family to visit daddy in the nursing home and he's all dressed up in a hospital gown and someone else's socks?? Then bring him some clothes!!!

15. No I will not call the doctor out of surgery to come talk to your daughter since she had a hair appointment this morning and missed him.

16. No, I will not let you (patient) bum a cigarette.

17. No, we can not just call you in a prescription for oxycontin, as you are not a patient here, or no we can not refill your pain meds early because you accidentally flushed THE WHOLE BOTTLE down the toilet again.

We actually had to evict a patient out of the nursing home because his wife was getting his check every month but refused to pay his bill. I later learned that ours was the third facilty he had been evicted from for the same reason.

But my all time favorites are the ones who show up to the ER screaming chest pain, only to find out they've had a sore throat and didn't want to have to wait in line behind all those other people.

To the young, new, frat-boy doctors: NO, I will not just "fix it" and send you the order to sign. I would however like to find out where you went to med school, so I can sign up. **With this particular doc, we've actually had to send the police to his home to get him when he wont answer pages, calls or faxes when he is on call for ALL the docs in town**

Just my rant's but then.... I'm burned out.

Dear God...If I didn't know better I would have thought I typed that one myself!:lol2:

Even better is when someone in my family rattles off a common symptom for just about anything(muscle cramps for example) and then asks "But what causes that?" or "You're a nurse don't you know what I should take for (fill in your common ailment here)?

[LRICH94]

To the ever present family member...

No, I'm not God, so I can't tell you exactly when your mother/father will pass.

I'm sorry but my x-ray vision is on the fritz today...check with me tomorrow.

Unfortunatly, my crystal ball is not small enough to fit into the pocket of my lab coat.

Standing at the desk and staring at me is not going to make my current telephone conversation go any faster, just so you can ask me what momma ate for supper last night, knowing full well I wasn't here for that particular meal. It's the same answer I give you every morning when you ask, right after you ask me what her blood sugar was for the 10th time.

If I'm calling for help from other staff d/t an emergency situation (that you can plainly see since you've been hovering around my desk) don't ask me to stop and locate moms missing afgan. That one really happened and I had to reign myself in to keep from slapping the crap out of that particular family member.

If there are more than 15 children in the family, please designate 1 person to communicate w/ the nursing staff. I can't remember all of your name let alone each ones cell phone number.

There should be a test given to all potential family members so as to weed out all the nuts.

[I love my cat!]

Wow-wee.

You watched Terms Of Endearment, too? Hmmm, apparently, so did every other idiot that seems to come through this Hospital and use that pathetic excuse for acting like an a-hole.

Listen, T of D was a movie.....with actresses.....acting.

Now, if you believe that role-playing is acceptable because "it was done in the movies" then I will put on my Jason mask and get out my chainsaw and hack you to bits next time you come at me screaming and demanding things like a total unreasonable freak.............just like in the movies!

[flygirl43]

You were quite capable of wiping your butt at home. However you did it there, do the same here (I can never loook at BBQ tonges the same way again!)

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

No you can't press the PCA button for you mother since she can't/wont do it. I understand she is in pain and we will get her someting else shortly so DO NOT push that button any more. (I did say this last night)

Family stated : " Well the other blonde nurse out there said we could!"

My response : "I highly doubt any nurse told you that. This is a big problem." "This is why it is called patient controlled anagelsia." (I did say this and didn't get away with it.)

To the above family: (was not my patient and I chose to avoid that crazy family like the plague but I did really want to say that to them and smack some sense into them.)

Yes your mom's belly is distended. She hasn't pooped in awhile. We have been attempting to help her with that problem. She has had laxatives ordered, but she refused them. This is why she hasn't gone in awhile and is in pain. She does have a NGT to LIS. Do you see the stuff coming out? That is POOP. She is obstruced. Talk your mom into taking an emema or lactulose. No it won't be fun for her, but she may feel better. She is taking narcotic pain relivers constapation is a side effect. That is why she NEEDS the laxatives!

I think you are all nuttier than squirrel poo. GO HOME AND STAY THERE.