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!
A coworker needed to cath a very obese female. The nurse pulled up the patient's belly and instructed the patient, "you're going to have to hold this until i can get the catheter in". She honestly didn't have enough hands to hold the patient's belly out of the way.
I had to do that once. Heck, you gotta do what you gotta do! It's just too bad we have to feel uncomfortable telling someone to hold their own belly when we had nothing to do with how that belly got there in the first place.
I have a belly myself, and it wouldn't make me feel the least bit uncomfortable if someone told me that, I'd just hold it and hope they cleaned me well enough to not get a uti. My belly is not big enough to cover my 'thing" down there lol but if it was, I would hold it!! lol
A coworker needed to cath a very obese female. The nurse pulled up the patient's belly and instructed the patient, "you're going to have to hold this until i can get the catheter in". She honestly didn't have enough hands to hold the patient's belly out of the way.
Are you sitting down? We recently had a MALE patient who needed to be cathed, and they had to call in the urologist to find his member. Let's just say the doctor had to use a lady partsL SPECULUM to expose it!
Are you sitting down? We recently had a MALE patient who needed to be cathed, and they had to call in the urologist to find his member. Let's just say the doctor had to use a lady partsL SPECULUM to expose it!
"This is called the Emergency room. If you are experiencing stomach pains only after you eat a big mac, and only when you eat a big mac - maybe, just maybe - you should stop eating the big macs"
or
"If you are 11 weeks pregnant and are experiencing vomiting, please note - this is SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN - get the hell away from my ER"
or
"walgreens sells pregnancy tests, please step away from our ER so you cannot clog one of our rooms just so you can pee in a cup - its called a freaking preganacy test!!!!"
or
"the pain medicine vending machine is out in the hall way - please help yourself"
Yes, I know it hurts, but if you do not get up and start moving, you will die.
So i guess its bad when i told a mom to get up and walk or she would get a blood clot and pneumonia? She was postpartum 3 days and still wouldnt get out of bed.
Specializes in Geriatrics, Cath Lab, Cardiology,Neuro.
"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 live in a city which is a multi lingual melting pot and I just LOOOVE it when someone says IN PERFECT ENGLISH "Me Speaka No English" I would love to say "Me Speaka no (insert foreign language)"
Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.
I had a guy with a member that I could not find. It took me a while and the help of a couple of people to find it. When his wife came up to see him she was really big also. I asked her how many kids they had....8. There was NO WAY that little member was responsible for those 8 kids.
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Let's just say the doctor had to use a lady partsL SPECULUM to expose it!
Magsulfate, BSN, RN
1,201 Posts
I had to do that once. Heck, you gotta do what you gotta do! It's just too bad we have to feel uncomfortable telling someone to hold their own belly when we had nothing to do with how that belly got there in the first place.
I have a belly myself, and it wouldn't make me feel the least bit uncomfortable if someone told me that, I'd just hold it and hope they cleaned me well enough to not get a uti. My belly is not big enough to cover my 'thing" down there lol but if it was, I would hold it!! lol