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.
1.- I am being as nice as I can and I am being respectful to you. Please extend the same to me.
2.- Ma'am you are such a nice and sweet little old lady - How come your adult children are such douchebags?
3.- Do not snap your fingers at me, point at me or make dirty faces or glare - I am a human just like you (maybe your not a human after all).
4.- You are not my only patient - I have other patients who need medical care....your ice water is not my priority
5.- Yelling at me and making a scene will not get you your pain meds any sooner -
6.- Why do you associate male nursing staff as being gay? Why Is it, Sir, that all you discuss is homosexual related topics and crude homosexual jokes? Perhaps you need to examine your own lifestyle and come out to the world....Everyone knows that your anal warts were not caused by sitting on a tiolet seat.
7.- My son is about the age of your kids and if he ever spoke to me how your child is speaking to me - he would be slapped across the face....you need to be a better parent and read up on toughlove.
8.- Dont whine and complain about your agonizing pain -You had elective surgery and we kept you overnight because of an uderlying cardiac condition. Your nose job is not the most terrible pain on earth. You want to talk about pain - try running for 12 hours, and have compressed disks, neuropathy and muscular trigger points in your back......All this with just tylenol and an ice bag.
9.- If you hit me - i will hit you with assault charges.
10.- I find satisfaction caring for my hospice and palliative care patients - Sometimes a death can be beautiful
Quoted from MikeyBSN :"There are hundreds of drug companies that make thousands of drugs. If you don't know the name of the drug, or at least why you're taking it, then I'm not going to be able to figure it out for you. Telling me that you take the "little white pill" is like a witness telling the police that the getaway car had wheels on it."
That is great! So true - I can't tell you how many patients and family members have no clue what drugs these people take, yet fully expect us to be able to figure it out.
"Please don't call and ask " how is my mom doing?" we have lots of "moms" here you need to be more specific and tell me her name."
Reminds me of last night - true story - phone rings and lady on the other end seems under the influence, says"my mom just called and said there is someone in her room" Now I work in a SNF with 90 residents so my response is ...who's your mom? "this is Barb" OK, now I am almost as confused as she is but I persevere - thank you, but who's your mom? "Oh, sorry she's Mary." Now considering we have 4 Mary's in our facility, this is not a lot of help, and I am starting to wonder if this lady even knows her moms last name. After a few more rounds of who's your mom I finally get the name out of her and...her mom is a 90+ year old woman who is non-ambulatory, has no phone anywhere near her bed so most likely couldn't have called and suffers from severe dementia and delusions so even if she had performed a miracle and called the odds of anyone being in her room are pretty slim....but the customer/resident/family is always right so I have to check it out. Well checking it out manages to wake up mom, who didn't have anyone in her room before I got there, but now that I woke her up she does, so I have to deal with 2 hrs of "call the police! There's a stranger in my bedroom!" I scared the crap out of that poor old lady-literally, so now I have to deal with that too!
Call Barb back to assure her there is nobody in moms room but me and now my staff who are all trying to calm her down and her response? "Oh, well I must have made a mistake." Click...
I'll probably never know if she was just yanking my chain if if somebody actually did call her, all I know is it most certainly wasn't mom!
ps - I did change the names involved on the very slim chance that anyone reading this actually figures out who this resident is
... so I have to deal with 2 hrs of "call the police! There's a stranger in my bedroom!" I scared the crap out of that poor old lady-literally, so now I have to deal with that too!
:lol:This should have come with a spew warning. :lghmky:
The reason that I am with you in your room reviewing your chart is not because I'm a doctor. It's because I was interrupted three times reviewing it at the nurses station by family members of another patient. I can hear them now saying "Well where did she go NOW" because your room is within earshot. I'm glad I can just concentrate on you, and your chart. Because you're a lot sicker and you don't like to make a fuss and you need ten minutes of my uninterrupted time :)
Here's the family member you could set your watch by in LTC...always 15 min before shift change while in a mad rush to get all your charting done and prep Report
" Hi (insert name), just wondering how my dad's doing tonight"...No different than he was 2.5 hrs ago when you were here for 5 hrs...everyday!!!... for the past 2 yrs!!! He's Vegetative!!!
No, I will NOT let your lawyer know that you have called every night so that you can get all your dad's money.
Screaming at my CAs telling them they're useless, don't know how to do their job and making them cry is NOT going to earn THEM a reprimand...but I sure have a few choice words for you... b%*#h! (Damn I'd love to say that just once!)
Sure...I don't have to wear this N95 mask even though you're a demented confirmed H1N1 case, you're coughing and spitting in my face... just because you think I look rediculous.
Doctor, I know you came to this country because there are more opportunities here than in your own third-world, civil war torn homeland. I really do understand. But if you are going to come here to take advantage of those opportunities, don't you think you could at least do us the courtesy of trying to
LEARN THE EFFING LANGUANGE?
Contrary to what you may think doctor, I have never noticed that pain builds character. It does however, interfere with the patient getting a good night's sleep which in turn interferes with the healing process. Order some morphine already!
This is not ancient Rome doctor. Just because I pass a message from the patient's family on to you and you don't like it is no reason to spend five minutes yelling and telling me how stupid I am.
And, from a day in nursing school....
Doctor, you just spent ten minutes lecturing me on how important your time is and you are too important to be bothered with educating nursing students. If your time is so bloomin precious, wouldn't a simple yes or no have been a better use of that time?
Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.
If you want to stay on the mental health unit, don't tell your buddies "I will tell them I'm suicidal for another couple of days, and by then my welfare check should be in" over the telephone within earshot of the front desk.
If you threaten to have me arrested for not following your wishes and it happens, I'm taking the unit keys with me and your demanding *ss can stay on the locked unit.
No, you cannot have a cigarette and then come back and have a breathing treatment.
You're cursing me while demanding your medication immediately? Well, that moves you right to the front of the line. Let me just get that for you right now. Sorry you had to wait.
I'm so glad that your family is here to show me the proper way to care for you. I would never have figured it out without them.
You must be a very quick study, for web pages to give you so much more knowledge than my nursing degree. I really wasted my time going to school and getting this license.
Thank God your family reads the internet. They have found the only thing that can cause those symptoms you have. I will call your doctor and inform him of their diagnosis so he can quit wasting his time trying to figure out what is wrong with you.
You must be a very quick study, for web pages to give you so much more knowledge than my nursing degree. I really wasted my time going to school and getting this license.
Thank God your family reads the internet. They have found the only thing that can cause those symptoms you have. I will call your doctor and inform him of their diagnosis so he can quit wasting his time trying to figure out what is wrong with you.
I want to say that I am sorry. I didn't want to upset anyone at all and I know that I did. I was talking to a nurse that has more than just a name on a website and she explained some things to me. I got way ahead of myself and while I truely believe what I said, I was thoughtless of the way I said it. As a nursing student I am fresh with my ideals and beliefs. I have not seen the "reality" yet. I hope those I ramrodded can forgive me and let me start off fresh. I will need lots of support and feedback in the coming months, I hope I didn't totally ruin my chance at that.
(My hands are sweating as I type this, I am not good at this!):imbar
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
yes, sir. i know your daughter-in-law is my boss. but i'm not bringing you a gin-and-tonic, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people who "don't drink" still manage to have dts. the alcohol in your iv is going to have to be enough for now. yes sir, my boss knows what a (bad word) i am, and she's the one who assigned me to take care of you because she knows i'm enough of a (bad word) not to give in to your ridiculous demands. (ok, this happened long ago and far away and some details are different.)
oh, you're close personal friends with our director of nursing? how come i've never seen you at any of her parties? yes, ma'am. i'm her friend, too, and have been since nursing school.
yes, sir, i know your son is a very important nephrologist. i've been working with him for years, and i've spoken to him on the phone about your condition several times this weekend. you still need to get out of bed and take a walk around the unit. and your son told me that if you continued to refuse to do so, he was going to take time out of his very busy schedule to come here and hoist your behind out of bed and personally walk you around the unit. ok -- i did say that. and the very important nephrologist did come ambulate his dad. dad was very cooperative after that!
this is a hospital, not a bar, and even though you have a doctor's order for a nightly "hot toddy", bartending comes wayyyyy down my list of priorities. somewhere after tying you down because you keep climbing out of your bed and into your roommate's and suctioning out your roommate's trach!
abbaking
441 Posts
1.- I am being as nice as I can and I am being respectful to you. Please extend the same to me.
2.- Ma'am you are such a nice and sweet little old lady - How come your adult children are such douchebags?
3.- Do not snap your fingers at me, point at me or make dirty faces or glare - I am a human just like you (maybe your not a human after all).
4.- You are not my only patient - I have other patients who need medical care....your ice water is not my priority
5.- Yelling at me and making a scene will not get you your pain meds any sooner -
6.- Why do you associate male nursing staff as being gay? Why Is it, Sir, that all you discuss is homosexual related topics and crude homosexual jokes? Perhaps you need to examine your own lifestyle and come out to the world....Everyone knows that your anal warts were not caused by sitting on a tiolet seat.
7.- My son is about the age of your kids and if he ever spoke to me how your child is speaking to me - he would be slapped across the face....you need to be a better parent and read up on toughlove.
8.- Dont whine and complain about your agonizing pain -You had elective surgery and we kept you overnight because of an uderlying cardiac condition. Your nose job is not the most terrible pain on earth. You want to talk about pain - try running for 12 hours, and have compressed disks, neuropathy and muscular trigger points in your back......All this with just tylenol and an ice bag.
9.- If you hit me - i will hit you with assault charges.
10.- I find satisfaction caring for my hospice and palliative care patients - Sometimes a death can be beautiful