I really like the Reader's Digest new monthly article. 13 things_____ won't tell you. This month it was teachers. So here are some I would like to see listed for nursing:
I really resent when you call and say you need a nurse immediately and when I get to the room you tell me you need a drink of water with a lot of ice. That is NOT something you need immediately and not something you need a nurse to do for you. Next time I won't hurry.
Standing at the desk staring at me isn't going to get me moving any faster, I am on the phone with the doctor getting orders. Glaring doesn't help either.
I understand you just had surgery, part of your recovery process is getting up and walking, so get up and walk.
Your doctor is an #@$hole, he will kill you sooner or later. Please don't sit there and say to me "well, my doctor says..."
Your family is crazy. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
If you hit me, I will prosecute. I am not your punching bag.
You break my heart. You have been sick for so many years and yet you still smile when I walk into the room. AND manage to make me smile.
I love my work, but it is my work. My life is outside this place with people I love.
Please don't talk to me like I am stupid or deaf. I have a four year college degree and great hearing.
Use your call bell and your inside voice. Screaming nurse, nurse, nurse and banging your cup on the tray table will have people thinking your crazy and they will just ignore you.
When you come in acting like an idiot, your not advocating for your mom. The second you leave every nurse on the floor will avoid that room because they don't want to do a thing to tick you off.
That hug you gave me meant the world to me. The thank you for your great care? Made my day. Yes, I will be back tomarrow and one way or another you will be my patient.
Nursing is hard physical work. Nursing is hard physical work. Nursing is hard physical work.
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
the only "ripping apart" i personally have seen on this thread is the students and inexperienced nurses ripping apart the person who vented about the bedpan demands at change of shift. many people ripped that poster apart. many of the people who did the ripping apart intimated that she should not even be a nurse, then kindly offered a description of what "real nursing" is about. that was harsh. you may have not been the first person to do so, or the only person but you were the straw that broke the camel's back in my effort not to respond to such unkindness and lack of understanding from those who have little basis for such opinions.
being a student means you have no idea what it means to walk in the shoes of an experienced nurse responsible for x number of patients for a shift. therefore, it is ludicrous for you -- or any student -- to admonish someone who is venting about her shift for feeling that way. when you've been an experienced nurse, you might get it and might then have a basis for your opinion. but you haven't been. this isn't just you i'm addressing, although you do seem to be particularly paranoid about your "rights" to an opinion.
i didn't make this thread about those complaints. i may have thrown that in at the of my post, but it was not the point i was making to talaxandra, they understood my point perfectly and my post was specifically to them. so i guess that is all that really matters.
i just want to point out that when you use your experiences as a patient to admonish experienced nurses for venting about their jobs, it contributes nothing to the discussion except really irritating those experienced nurses who just wanted to vent about their jobs without being interrupted by patients and/or students who don't have a clue telling them they're mean, nasty, horrible people who ought not to be nurses.
believe it or not, i've been a student. i remember what that's like.
i've also been a patient and a family member of a patient. i know what that's like. and those observations have no place in a vent thread.
you can learn an awful lot from a vent thread, but if your goal in reading the thread isn't to laugh or to learn, please click on the little button that makes all of us bad people go away.
you know what, this is getting ridiculous, you are accusing me of things i didn't do, you are back peddling on your rudeness to me as if i deserved it and i did not. you projected your frustration with another person out on me. you sit here and diminish the experience of nurses that disagree, if they don't agree with you they are inexperienced nurses from the looks of it, because their profile information shows they are experienced. you aren't even reading the full context of my posts, you are picking apart bits and pieces and turning it into something else. your last sentence to me proves that. i never called anyone bad, i never talked down about what kind of nurse anyone was. (i saw one person do that and it wasn't me) i told talaxandra that i enjoyed 99% of the posts in this thread and usually like to read them as a learning experience of what i am getting into.
you have just accused me of many things that i did not do and that i only saw one person really do. i specifically posted to talaxandra, they understood exactly what i was saying without twisting it all into something else.
so if your goal is to continue to patronize, talk down to, and project your frustrations out on someone then by all means find another person because i did not do anything to you or to anyone else in this thread to deserve such feedback.
being a student does not make me a verbal punching bag thank you very much. if you are going to go on the defence and rip someone apart for things said, by all means, make sure you are talking to the right person. i am far from paranoid, i adressed those that quoted my exact post which in this particular case happened to be you.
with that, i am done debating this with you. it is going no where and shouldn't have even got as far as it did, i am responsible for only the things that i say or post, i am not responsible for things other people say or post.
Oh for crying out loud, LET IT GO. Other posters may have been more harsh in their responses, but at least they don't keep coming back playing the victim for having their posts "attacked" and "ripped apart". There is a time and a place for defending yourself and a time and a place to say what you have to say and move on. By continuing to defend yourself, you are fanning the flames. We get it. You were a patient once. You didn't like having to ask for a bedpan. You didn't like feeling like a burden. We also get that you feel your opinion is legitimate, and that you feel that because other nurses also shared your opinion, that is evidence of the validity of your opinion. Enough, already.
A venting thread is for venting. You may not like some of what you read. You may find some of what you read objectionable. Some of what you read might make you uncomfortable. If you can't handle that, then please, stay out of vent threads.
Personally, I also find it annoying when I've been working my @$$ off all night to do everything I can to make my patients' stay more comfortable and to keep them safe, and at the end of my shift as I'm giving handoff report, all I want to do is go home and kick my feet up and enjoy a glass of wine with nobody demanding anything of me, only to have shift change report interrupted by a patient wanting something I offered *right before shift change*, whether it be bedpan, ice chips, jello, a warm blanket, a pain pill, or what have you. Especially annoying is the family member who comes out and stands there at the nursing station looking at you while you're in the middle of report, and when you ask them if they need something, it's for a washcloth or some ice chips for Mom.
Does this mean I don't take good care of my patients? Of course not. Does this mean I roll my eyes or sigh or act like they are a burden for interrupting shift change report and thus delaying my getting out of there with my aching feet and back and home to relax? Of course not. Am I a bad person or a bad nurse because I am tired and want to go home? I think NOT!!!
That is what this thread is about, is the NURSES' point of view. This is a NURSING website.
I would be willing to bet a large sum that every nurse who has vented in this thread would never deny a patient a bedpan nor would they ever make the patient feel badly for asking for one. But I think we can all relate to the feelings of annoyance at being asked for things that we *just offered a few minutes ago* at the most inconvenient times.
Speaking for myself, I do NOT need to be "reminded" of the patient's point of view, because keeping the patient's point of view in mind, providing for their dignity, treating them with respect, is all a PART OF NURSING. What I do EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just because I have an unkind thought every once in a while does not in any way, shape, or form, mean that I have forgotten that or need to be preached to about the patient's point of view.
Please, folks. I think we've all been reminded once in this thread that this is for venting. Venting only.It's not for arguing about who attacked who when, and in any case, personal attacks are not allowed around here.
Any posts from here on out fighting about anything are going to be deleted. Fair warning, eh? We like to keep threads open.
I know that you would like some ice water, or have the television working, however, your child just came back from surgery and my first priority is making sure that your child is okay. My second priority is to find out what the orders are & doing whatever I need to do to make sure that your child is comfortable. In other words, back off... you are not a priority.
Also, when the television isn't working and I have already attempted to assist you by calling someone to help (since my degree is NOT in television repair!), thinking that asking every other nurse on the floor that you see to help you with the television won't fix the tv. I can guarantee that you will not find ONE NURSE who can fix the darn thing. We are NURSES...not tv repair people. In other words, your level of knowledge on this subject equals ours. Oh yah, and I have a few other kids (who need meds, help getting to the bathroom, fed, diapered, etc) that I need to take care of, not your tv.
Whoops, forgot this one....yes, I am sitting at the computer and charting...this does not mean please come over to me (who is not your nurse) and ask for linens, ice, water....etc. I am trying to do my job.
BTW, I love this thread...I have been laughing and commiserating with many of you!!! Keep up the awesome job everyone!!! (and just think, it could be worse....you could be them...hehehehe)
I understand you're a new mom at 16, but you don't need to bring your baby in because he wakes up in the middle of the night, cries, wants to get fed, goes back to sleep, wakes up later and cries, then goes back to sleep. That's what babies do.
To an unnamed hospital: please do not let elderly ladies who are covered in urine and feces sign out AMA. Especially when they don't even know what year it is, or who the president is!
(Mother telling father) Oh, have the nurse do that, after all that's what they are supposed to do...
No, I did not go to nursing school so that I can change your kid's diapers!!! Change them yourself!!! After all, you are in the room the whole d*** day sleeping and watching tv...and getting free food trays cuz ur kid is on a video EEG. This is not a hotel...it is a hospital!!!
Okay, I really don't care what you do or do not wear when you go to sleep, but could you please remember that you are in a children's hospital & that we (the nurses) do not need to see those "parts" of you.
I don't care what your personal habits are at home if they do not affect your kiddo in an adverse manner, however, when you keep complaining (and hitting the call bell) that the monitor is going off (more than likely because the child took a lead off)...please close the damn washroom door so that when I go into the room to take care of the alarms I don't have to see things that will burn out my eyes!!! I DONT WANT TO SEE YOU SITTING ON THE TOILET!!! THAT IS JUST GROSS!!!! Your kid is old enough to be left alone for a few minutes (and you know that cuz you have already done so anyways!!!).
Let me say that I just read most of this thread's posts and WOW! One thing I can say about everyone, is they seem to be passionate about their profession. As it SHOULD be. I think the main problem is that there are many nurses with much higher work ethics than others. We all resent those nurses who just do the minimum to keep their licenses and jobs and really don't care about their patients. They seem to never get fired because they are charismatic and the supervisors like them. Really irritating! But let's not assume that other people with different opinions are those BAD nurses that we all run into. That being said, I too am an old timer of 35yrs. Some of the thoughts, (that I ONLY THINK,) would make the general public and a lot of newer nurses think I am a bad nurse or a horrible person. Just the opossite! Thinking these thoughts and dealing with them- (venting)- is the key to longgevity in nursing. Most people who are not nurses have no idea what we go through. To get by, year after year, seeing the same drug seekers, massivley obese patients, verbally and physically abusive patients,and "professional patients", requires the understanding and support from our fellow nurses, which is a rare thing in the actual workplace. THUS - this web site. If we said some of this stuff in the workplace, some DO GOODER would report us. We are all just people being asked to do an almost impossible job these days. We need this forum. I am so glad I stumbled upon it. NOW- A few things I, as a nurse won't tell you" - ( I work in a LTC facility and take care of 52 pts. on the 11pm. - 7am shift) 1) Just because you can afford a cell phone or the facility gave you a phone in your room - don't call me instead of using your call light - I will hang up on you. I am not a phone nurse.:argue: 2) Why are you telling me at 3am that you need a podiatrist? I can't call and make an appoitment at 3am. All I can do is pass it on. I leave at 7am and your doctor is not available until 8am. Tell the day shift. 3) If you are 300 lbs.( I am not judging you!) but when you were at home doing for yourself - fine. Now that you are so big that your family no longer have the backs to take care of you, and you are in a nursing home for NOTHING other than your weight and resulting diabetes and hypertension etc.-- what makes you think my 130lb. CNA can roll you over in bed and change your diaper? I know---- You have the RIGHT to eat anything you want anytime you want! 4). Why do you think verbally or physically abusing the staff is going to get you what you want. H-m-m-m? Is this how you treated your family and thats why you are here? 4) Do not STRIKE my CNA or myself - I will have your butt moved to the local psych facility!! See how you impress your fellow inmates! 5) If you think you are going to tell me you have quit smoking and I find you rumaging thru every ash tray on the premises - think again. I will put water in the "butt can" and in every ash tray on the premises. I smoke so I understand- but you have HIV (I don't) and you can't afford the possible infection risk. So without violating your rights I will do all I can to protect you from yourself. 6) Please don't call me at 3am to find out if your mother has clothes for the next day. Especially since you have complained to the director of nursing that your mother isn't dressed like you want. Provide the clothes or shut up.7) If you are a "professional" patient and been in multiple long term care facilies, don't do the same things to my staff that got you DNR'd - (do not readmit) from the other facility. Nurses and lab techs etc. talk to each other. My staff doesn't have to like you, they just have to be polite and respond to your needs. 8) Don't complain about your current roommate when your behavoir has run off the last 6 roommates you had. I have a whole bunch more, but many of your comments have covered them. The worst thing I have to contend with now is that the "State" requires that we assess and meet all patient's pain needs. There is no present assessment tool to distinquish between pts. that are in actual pain vs. pts. who are TRUE DRUG SEEKERS! (Esp. in long term care settings). Drug seekers are very clever! We can get written up for not medicating patients - even if we feel/know they are not in pain, as long as they say they are in pain. Even patients who have had several episodes of their family members bringing in unauthorized medication. We are placed in the position of having to medicate pts. who are taking drugs not authorized by the physician or getting written up. Nursing has gotten SO complicated, I can't imagine why anyone would go into it if they knew what they would be facing! I guess the younger nurses will just have to adapt to what we did when we were young. We didn't have pulse OX's and blood glucometers to rely on. THANKS for letting me VENT! LF.
Ma'am, I cannot stand here the entire shift, and hold your breast in one hand and your baby in the other hand and keep him latched on while you lay there like a lump and watch TV and eat pizza. Just not happening.
Your baby will be in the hospital for two months because YOU chose to do drugs and our doctors make sure our babies are OFF drugs before they go home. No amount of yelling at me is gonna change that. Please feel free to yell at the doctor. Let's see how far THAT gets you.
If you decide to make a birth plan, please make informed decisions. Don't print off a birthplan from thebump.com and check every box on it, and not even know why you are refusing some of the interventions you are refusing.
Don't ask me, as I am performing CPR and BMV on your newborn son who is blue and unresponsive, when the doctor can circumcise your baby. His weiner is the last thing on my mind right now, as it should be for you, too.
Please, don't tell me absolutely no bottles or formula ONLY BREAST when your baby has a blood sugar of 20 after breastfeeding for 30 minutes. Your breastmilk is not enough to keep your baby's blood sugar stable right now, and it's either a bottle of formula, or a running IV. That means I have to stick your baby with needles. I'd rather not do that if he will suck a bottle.
**Note--I am pro-breastfeeding, but there are some circumstances when the baby just needs some formula.** :)
I'm loving this post!! Especially hearing the point of view's from different nursing specialties. You can tell who is a psych nurse, who is LTC, who is L + D just from what they write about and it's great hearing the different perspectives!
Keep it up!
I'm a student graduating in May and I love being able to help the nurses that I shadow with the things that We as students have time for (with our ONE patient load) and that our nurses don't. The nurse I was under yesterday in pediatrics was so grateful for not having to get water for the mom, clean up spit-up and diarrhea, and answer all the mom's questions... It felt great being able to help out the RN and hope that maybe she might be able to eat some lunch that day!
Obviously as students we don't understand even half of what you're going through.... but I try to support you all as much as I can during my clinical time!
Thanks for being great examples for us too! :loveya:
1. I know you are distressed because your family member is not waking up. But he has an 8 mm tube shoved down his throat, a catheter up you-know-where, an FMS to catch his soupy diarrhea and is fighting pneumonia and sepsis. Meanwhile he has been sliced open from sternum to navel to fix an abdominal perf. He and I think the propofol and morphine are working just fine. So please don't stand two inches from his face and yell at him to wake up. It's inhumane.
2. I can see by your faces you didn't understand a thing the intern just said. Let me translate it for you, and cut him some slack too, because it's July and he just left Pakistan/India/Malaysia/Peru and no one else understands him either. Also, he cries in the on call room.
3. When the intensivist said, "We'll have you out of here soon" he meant the floor, not the hospital.
4. Telling me you are going to leave the hospital to escape us 'beating on you' and cursing in the process does not concern me, as you have end-stage HIV, sepsis, stage IV pressure ulcers, and cannot move your legs. Your family has told me not to let them call you. Oh, and calling 911 31 times from the floor did not impress us with your trustworthiness. So no, you may not have your phone.
5. No I can ABSOLUTELY NOT bring ice water to the additional family members in the waiting room.
6. If your family continues to be rude and obnoxious to both of us, I will make sure I clean you up specially nice when they are there. Backrub, aromatherapy, the whole bit. It's more time with them out of the room.
7. When I tell you that your family member seems very tired, I mean that maybe you need to have a family meeting. I might even say that, but that means you should have done so a long time ago.
8. If you are over 250 lbs. and can't stand, and the intensivist wants you out of bed, welcome to the reclinable cardiac chair. If you don't fit in the cardiac chair, (over 300 lbs) you will not be getting out of bed.
9. I know that you are in pain, but our current intensivist believes in Tylenol for major abdominal surgery. I promise to call you to the hospital when he comes in for surgery, and I am his nurse.
Sounds like heaven to me! I went back to school and graduated from an accelerated nursing program in the top 5th of the entire class that included all RN programs at the age of 55. Excellent evaluations, grades, etc. and not an entry level job to be found. Those 13 things....I'll take them all off your hands and enjoy every minute!!!!!!
:chuckle
I know---- You have the RIGHT to eat anything you want anytime you want! 4). Why do you think verbally or physically abusing the staff is going to get you what you want. H-m-m-m? Is this how you treated your family and thats why you are here? 4) Do not STRIKE my CNA or myself - I will have your butt moved to the local psych facility!! See how you impress your fellow inmates! 5) If you think you are going to tell me you have quit smoking and I find you rumaging thru every ash tray on the premises - think again. I will put water in the "butt can" and in every ash tray on the premises. I smoke so I understand- but you have HIV (I don't) and you can't afford the possible infection risk. So without violating your rights I will do all I can to protect you from yourself. 6) Please don't call me at 3am to find out if your mother has clothes for the next day. Especially since you have complained to the director of nursing that your mother isn't dressed like you want. Provide the clothes or shut up.7) If you are a "professional" patient and been in multiple long term care facilies, don't do the same things to my staff that got you DNR'd - (do not readmit) from the other facility. Nurses and lab techs etc. talk to each other. My staff doesn't have to like you, they just have to be polite and respond to your needs. 8) Don't complain about your current roommate when your behavoir has run off the last 6 roommates you had. I have a whole bunch more, but many of your comments have covered them. The worst thing I have to contend with now is that the "State" requires that we assess and meet all patient's pain needs. There is no present assessment tool to distinquish between pts. that are in actual pain vs. pts. who are TRUE DRUG SEEKERS! (Esp. in long term care settings). Drug seekers are very clever! We can get written up for not medicating patients - even if we feel/know they are not in pain, as long as they say they are in pain. Even patients who have had several episodes of their family members bringing in unauthorized medication. We are placed in the position of having to medicate pts. who are taking drugs not authorized by the physician or getting written up. Nursing has gotten SO complicated, I can't imagine why anyone would go into it if they knew what they would be facing! I guess the younger nurses will just have to adapt to what we did when we were young. We didn't have pulse OX's and blood glucometers to rely on. THANKS for letting me VENT! LF.
~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN
5,259 Posts
you know what, this is getting ridiculous, you are accusing me of things i didn't do, you are back peddling on your rudeness to me as if i deserved it and i did not. you projected your frustration with another person out on me. you sit here and diminish the experience of nurses that disagree, if they don't agree with you they are inexperienced nurses from the looks of it, because their profile information shows they are experienced. you aren't even reading the full context of my posts, you are picking apart bits and pieces and turning it into something else. your last sentence to me proves that. i never called anyone bad, i never talked down about what kind of nurse anyone was. (i saw one person do that and it wasn't me) i told talaxandra that i enjoyed 99% of the posts in this thread and usually like to read them as a learning experience of what i am getting into.
you have just accused me of many things that i did not do and that i only saw one person really do. i specifically posted to talaxandra, they understood exactly what i was saying without twisting it all into something else.
so if your goal is to continue to patronize, talk down to, and project your frustrations out on someone then by all means find another person because i did not do anything to you or to anyone else in this thread to deserve such feedback.
being a student does not make me a verbal punching bag thank you very much. if you are going to go on the defence and rip someone apart for things said, by all means, make sure you are talking to the right person. i am far from paranoid, i adressed those that quoted my exact post which in this particular case happened to be you.
with that, i am done debating this with you. it is going no where and shouldn't have even got as far as it did, i am responsible for only the things that i say or post, i am not responsible for things other people say or post.