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.
When you hear a code blue announced over the loud speaker, please do not take that as a personal attack on your right to have an Ativan right then and there. No, I can't possibly muster up even an ounce of sympathy for you when you hear that and cry, "Can't you get my Ativan first? It's not fair, I asked first!" This is probably horribly un-PC of me, but this makes me really dislike you. I mean, like on a personal level, not just as a patient. And that you are here to treat your horrible secondary infections because you thought it was a great idea to go to a third world country for bargain basement cosmetic surgery? Not helping!
Now, this doesn't mean my care is going to be much different than with anyone else. It just means that no, I don't want to be best friends with you and I'm OK with that.
Edit: And you're going to have to wait for that Ativan!
Love this thread, even the posts from those who I am afraid are in for a very rude awakening. Here's a couple more.
You know, following me into another patient's room while yelling at the top of your lungs is not going to get your father's afternoon snack any faster but it might get a security officer up here.
No, your mother is not going to get any better. She's had a major CVA, is in a progessive vegetative state, and is now developing pneumonia. So mister POA, why don't you do her one last favor and sign the g-d DNR?
It is 3 AM. I am NOT going to call your doctor and ask him to advance your diet just because you heard the kitchen is serving omelets this morning.
No, I cannot crush your pills and stuff the powder into capsules for you.
I don't even understand why my post was attacked. I never put down anyone, I even said in a post I don't know the person that posted it to say what kind of nurse they are, all I said is I was a little appalled by that specific comment and nothing more.
I can see how you could feel attacked, but if you look back the stronger responses, including mine, came not after your post but after jrw's. Reading that I felt angry and outraged that someone who has no idea what the floor can be like felt so comfortable judging the member who initially posted about the bed pan. And not only jusgement but a neat little explanation of the origins of nursing and how it's practiced today, along with advice about retraining. My post, and I suspect many of those that followed, was in response to that.
I think the fact that you've participated in the discussion about this aspect of the thread is a good thing - you certainly have a different perspective than most of us, both as a student as having been a patient, and it's given some of us an opportuniy to explain the difference between what we feel, what we post here, and how we behave at work.
When any of us reference 'students' in a post we're generally not talking about all students. I'm sorry if you've been feeling as though this has been a response to your observation - for me, at least, it hasn't been.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
evidently i never claimed to know what it was like, regardless the point that i did make was that students were not the only people that said something about that particular post, other nurses did as well, who have walked a mile or more in the shoes of nurses. i also do know what it is like to have to request a bed pan and be made to feel like i am such a burden for doing so, which i admitted, probably makes me a little biased on my feelings, but again, that wasn't the point i made.
i, too know what it's like to request a bedpan and recieve the big sigh and rolled eyes in return. this, however, is not the thread for those complaints.
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I can see how you could feel attacked, but if you look back the stronger responses, including mine, came not after your post but after jrw's. Reading that I felt angry and outraged that someone who has no idea what the floor can be like felt so comfortable judging the member who initially posted about the bed pan. And not only jusgement but a neat little explanation of the origins of nursing and how it's practiced today, along with advice about retraining. My post, and I suspect many of those that followed, was in response to that.
I think the fact that you've participated in the discussion about this aspect of the thread is a good thing - you certainly have a different perspective than most of us, both as a student as having been a patient, and it's given some of us an opportuniy to explain the difference between what we feel, what we post here, and how we behave at work.
When any of us reference 'students' in a post we're generally not talking about all students. I'm sorry if you've been feeling as though this has been a response to your observation - for me, at least, it hasn't been.
Thank You Talaxandra, I never felt attacked by you at all. My post was quoted by another poster and then ripped apart. If they had taken the time out to read the context of my post and that I was simply stating it wasn't only STUDENTS that felt appalled by that remark when I was posting to you then they wouldn't have felt the need to "scold" me. But like what happens so many times, only a small part was focused on and add to that being a student automatically means you have no right to speak nor have opinions to some. You have been nothing but respectful towards me though and I appreciate that, it's to bad there can't be a common level of respect when people are talking to each other between ALL parties.
Again, thank you for treating me with the same respect I have shown you and like the adult that I am. It is much appreciated. :)
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
thank you talaxandra, i never felt attacked by you at all. my post was quoted by another poster and then ripped apart. if they had taken the time out to read the context of my post and that i was simply stating it wasn't only students that felt appalled by that remark when i was posting to you then they wouldn't have felt the need to "scold" me. but like what happens so many times, only a small part was focused on and add to that being a student automatically means you have no right to speak nor have opinions to some. you have been nothing but respectful towards me though and i appreciate that, it's to bad there can't be a common level of respect when people are talking to each other between all parties.
again, thank you for treating me with the same respect i have shown you and like the adult that i am. it is much appreciated. :)
i, too know what it's like to request a bedpan and recieve the big sigh and rolled eyes in return. this, however, is not the thread for those complaints.
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 don't believe that explaining yourself and/or defending yourself equates to jumping down someone's throat. One may even say that the comment regarding poor nursing care is equivalent to the "young" berating a nurse whom is merely trying to vent away his/her frustrations. -Peace-
My point was that people did not explain themselves in a calm manner. They were patronising and dismissive. Not good traits in anyone, regardless of whether they're a student, a nurse or Joe Public.
* Of course your baby screams every time he gets his diaper changed. He just got circumcised!! You don't particularly relish the thought of someone coming at your netherparts with a scalpel and then fiddling down there every couple hours, do you?
* The morphine we are giving your baby is not what's messing him up so much. The methadone/heroin/cocaine/Vicodin/whatever else you took while you were pregnant, however, is.
* Doing drugs makes it a lot harder for us to treat your pain.
* When I ask you about your drug habits, your living arrangements, how many sex partners you have had, or if you have ever been treated for an STD, it's not because I'm the moral police. Really. Asking these things is part of my job, and I don't get my jollies doing it. I will, however, be unable to trust you completely if I find out you're lying.
* You are not a treat, and I'm not really sure why your two recently-given-birth babymamas are up here fistfighting over you. They ought to gang up on you and whoop your hind parts, or worse.
* The fact that your husband missed the birth of his baby girl while deployed to Iraq breaks my heart.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
my point was that people did not explain themselves in a calm manner. they were patronising and dismissive. not good traits in anyone, regardless of whether they're a student, a nurse or joe public.
patronizing and dismissive are not good traits -- but neither is attacking someone for venting in a vent thread and then pointing out that you don't like the way they respond to being attacked.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
thank you talaxandra, i never felt attacked by you at all. my post was quoted by another poster and then ripped apart. if they had taken the time out to read the context of my post and that i was simply stating it wasn't only students that felt appalled by that remark when i was posting to you then they wouldn't have felt the need to "scold" me. but like what happens so many times, only a small part was focused on and add to that being a student automatically means you have no right to speak nor have opinions to some. you have been nothing but respectful towards me though and i appreciate that, it's to bad there can't be a common level of respect when people are talking to each other between all parties.
again, thank you for treating me with the same respect i have shown you and like the adult that i am. it is much appreciated. :)
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.
1. You are fat and disgusting. You are only 60 years old, but you live in a nursing home because you weigh 400 pounds. You can't move because you are fat and lazy. You can't feel your feet because your HgbA1C is 12. And you moan when we try to move you, "because of the pain". Your hygiene is awful. And you brought all this on yourself.
Oldiebutgoodie
That is one of the meanest things I have ever heard. I hope you aren't really a nursing student and if you are your attitude changes quickly.
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Wicked Wahine
104 Posts
When you hear a code blue announced over the loud speaker, please do not take that as a personal attack on your right to have an Ativan right then and there. No, I can't possibly muster up even an ounce of sympathy for you when you hear that and cry, "Can't you get my Ativan first? It's not fair, I asked first!" This is probably horribly un-PC of me, but this makes me really dislike you. I mean, like on a personal level, not just as a patient. And that you are here to treat your horrible secondary infections because you thought it was a great idea to go to a third world country for bargain basement cosmetic surgery? Not helping!
Now, this doesn't mean my care is going to be much different than with anyone else. It just means that no, I don't want to be best friends with you and I'm OK with that.
Edit: And you're going to have to wait for that Ativan!