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!
My thing is, get out the AMA form, have it ready to roll and pray that they boogie. Tell them "Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!!!!!"
Same turkeys end up later back in the emergency room whining again. SHEESH
Ok, that was very funny! Thanks for posting that because you made my day!!!
When I was a student doing preceptors, I had a patient whose iv infiltrated and a new one had to be placed. After removing the old one, I placed the other one and a small amount (less then a half of drop) came out of the cath hub before I placed the tubing. The guy looks at me serious as he could be and said, " i have extremly rare blood and i don't appreciate you wasting it." Unfortunatly i tend to have this problem where things just pop out of my mouth, and I looked at him and said, " Wow, you mean i could have collected that drop of B pos. blood instead of wiping it off and quit my career as a nurse and sold it on ebay". The RN I was working with just smiled and said, " Dang, I could have been a multi-millionare by now" The guys wife wife laughed.
Don't "threaten" me with saying you're going to leave. Honey, you've been so hateful, everyone on the shift would help you pack (since you apparently brought ALL your earthly belongings), and we'd fight over who got to drive you home.
What I actually said was, "Ma'am, dayshift told me how unhappy you've been here. I've already spoken with your physician, and he said that he'd like you to stay to complete your treatment, but that you can leave AMA any time you like." She didn't threaten to leave any more....unfortunately.
Please don't call me . . . honey. I am not your "honey" and I really wish you'd stop treating me like your wait staff.
I am a professional with a college degree. Two of them, in fact. I am likely more educated than you and was also one of 70 accepted into a nursing school program with over 400 applicants. I am an intelligent woman -- a nurse. I deserve more respect than that.
Honestly, nurses with BSN's have a higher level of education than most Americans -- yet they treat us like idiots. I don't get it.
No, I'm sorry....if you are exclusively breastfeeding and do not want your baby to get any bottles or formula in *anywayshapeorform*, he cannot stay in the nursery for eight hours. I am not currently lactating and can't help ya out any....
To the little old man making silly noises at the staff everytime they walked past his cubicle for the 10/24 night shift....."Zibbida, Gonk, Boing Boing, Boing to you too!" (It was funnier to think at 0400 than it apears in writing.)
"You asked for a good-looking Nurse, not a nice one, you can't have both!"
"Don't worry, I saw how to do this on 'All Saints'" (an Australian hospital based drama, as realistic as Grays but with actual nurses)
"And the Oscar goes to.........."
Scary thing is, I have said one of these....and I'm not saying which.
to the hateful daughter of my patient that was yelling at me because he had blood caked on his nails....
Look woman, your dad sits and CHEWS on his nails and cuticles. He's a grown man that has obviously raised a family. If you want to yell at someone because he has blood caked on his nails and is getting infections...talk to HIM! all i can do is tell him he shouldnt do that and put some bandaids on him. i aint his momma, yaknowwhatimeanjean?
So you don't want your uncle to have ANY kind of benzo, antipsychotic, pain med or anything that would make him calm down? okey dokey...then YOU stay with him 24/7 so that when he is playing in his colostomy bag and then painting the walls, eating his own poo and trying to beat up my staff with said covered fingers....YOU deal with it, Kthnxbai!
Sir, you are having runs of Vtach...that is a fatal heart rhythm...and your implanted defibrillator is not working...
I know that you have an established relationship with a certain doctor who inserted your first AICD...but he is 3 states away...and I don't know if you are going to live long enough to be transported there to have him place your next AICD.
Being paced externally with pacer pads hurts like heck, and seeing as your are such a wimp that you screamed when I stuck a 20 g IV in you for your amio gtt, and then insisted I stop your lifesaving antiarrhythmic medicine to draw labs, because you did not want another needlestick, I don't really think you want to experience being jolted with 50-200 juoles of electricity though your chest repeatedly....possibly followed by chest compressions
SO SUCK IT UP WIMP...we are just trying to save your frickin life. You are 42 years old, and actually have a nice physique...grow a set of balls.
Being paced externally with pacer pads hurts like heck, and seeing as your are such a wimp that you screamed when I stuck a 20 g IV in you for your amio gtt, and then insisted I stop your lifesaving antiarrhythmic medicine to draw labs, because you did not want another needlestick, I don't really think you want to experience being jolted with 50-200 juoles of electricity though your chest repeatedly....possibly followed by chest compressions
Sorry to nitpick, cardiac nurse here.....you wouldn't pace VT, and amiodarone hangs out forever (half life up to 13 days), so stopping the gtt just for a minute isn't likely to result in a recurrence of VT.
I meant more likely would would be shocking him out of Vtach. He was having runs of vtach lasting up to, NOT exageratting 80+ beats...and then would go back to afib...very scary....especially since my floor is not an ICU floor,
He had CHF from viral cardiomyopathy as a child, his BP's were in the toilet, and he had been on the unit for less than 15 minutes, he was BIBA from another hospital.
He hadn't even been seen by a doc from our hospital yet and was getting ready to code.
I love my cat!
630 Posts
Ok, that was very funny! Thanks for posting that because you made my day!!!