In the hospital where I used to work, family members would come up to the desk all the time to say "dad needs a _______ (blanket, cup, straw) and I developed a nasty habit of saying (in a perfectly innocent tone) "Does he know how to use the call light?" Gradually my tone started getting more and more sarcastic. Had to stop that one after a few nasty looks. oops.
Or "that's not real high on my priority list"
I know there's been plenty more....
At least I knew I had to leave the hospital setting for a bit before my mouth could get me in too much trouble. Feeling much better suited to home health, where you can throw whatever you like at me! I'll be out of your house in less than an hour!
Specializes in Labor/Delivery, Pediatrics, Peds ER.
Gee, ice-water....what an EMERGENCY! The nurse was probably tending to pts who couldn't wait. This apparently isn't upsetting enough to you to inspire you to cough up the extra cash so hospitals can afford to hire more nurses. You get what you pay for. HC is NOT free! (NOR is it the tax payers' responsibility.)
Have you ever been so weak you spilled something in your bed? Ever slept in a bed full of ice water while ill (or even while not ill?) Ever had to wait half an hour for a bed pan? An hour for pain med? Have a little compassion - it's part of a nurse's job, whether HC is free or not, whether a person is able to self-pay or not, whether staffing is as we would like or not. Someday you will be the patient, or it will be your family laying in ice water or waiting for a bed pan; then, hopefully, you will get it. This isn't civil engineering, it's supposed to be a vocation of civilly caring.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
Recently I laughed for a good 40 minutes about the completely unintended incident that occurred in my homecare patient's home between me and her dayshift caregiver. I've known her for 5 years, but our interaction is pretty minimal as she is very introverted and not fluent in English so. . .
I arrive for my shift and the patient said, "go with J-- she wants to show you something" She's never done that before and I'm drawing a blank so I ask "what does she want to show me?" A couple more times but she didn't answer. I'm thinking new curtains? Really yummy casserole?
But she is beckoning me and leads me into the bathroom and points to the most nasty Foley catheter I've ever seen in my life laying there in the sink complete with shriveled balloon and all crusty and icky in general. I mean really- she pointed to that thing with a flourish like it was a big prize from the claw machine.
This is so NOT what I expected to see that instinct must have kicked in and I literally jumped backward like a 5 year old and said "eeeeewwwww!!" like the highly professional nurse I am. . .I was as surprised as she was that flew out of my mouth but she started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh some more. Actually I'm glad I was such a doofus because it paradoxically made us have a connection not there prior. - and I heard her still laughing as she walked out the door.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
CUSTOMERS???!!! Start PAYING for more nursing staff! It's people like you who DEMAND everything, yet you moan and complain about the cost of HC. If you think it's expensive now, do you have any idea how much MORE it would cost you if hospitals hired more staff?? Until you are willing to put your money where your mouth is, quit whining!
May I very civilly suggest that if you would like to discuss healthcare reform you start your own thread about that or join in one of the many already devoted to that topic? Also, that no "speaky Spanish" is not nice. Commence fire.
Gee, ice-water....what an EMERGENCY! The nurse was probably tending to pts who couldn't wait. This apparently isn't upsetting enough to you to inspire you to cough up the extra cash so hospitals can afford to hire more nurses. You get what you pay for. HC is NOT free! (NOR is it the tax payers' responsibility.)
Try sleeping in a cold icewater soaked plastic bed when you are weak from blood loss and anesthesia sometime. Imagine that you are so dizzy that you can't sit up, your head is wrapped up with bandages from trauma. One eye is covered completely and your face is full of stitches and swollen. You can hardly see. You are dying of thirst so you try to pour a little water in a cup and the water pitcher drops out of your hand, of course the lid pops open and it is all over your bed. You are tied up with IVs and can't move much to get our of the wetness. Your gown is soaked. See how it feels. Karma is a you-know-what.
Before you start snapping on me remember this was ALL NIGHT. And I don't know what you are talking about I was under Blue Cross/Blue Shield as a working taxpayer. Believe me I was paying for it. They could have brought a bath blanket and padded it for all I cared, I just wanted warmed up and dried. They could have come in and said I am sorry we are really busy here is a bath blanket to pad your bed. But no, no "code blue" in the hallway, no noise, just a clerk answering the call light and not seeing to it that something got done. Basically they didn't care. Whatever caused it that is the impression I was left with, that they didn't care.
I am a VERY new nurse, but I've already said things I shouldn't have. It's kinda what I do. I say something to the patient, family, doctor, etc that I find out that I should never have said, or have said it in a different way. I'm still figuring it out.
But about a month ago I had this EVIL, demanding patient who made EVERYONE'S life hell, who wouldn't let us move her the safe way, either by using lifts or team efforts (hurt my shoulders several times moving this dead weight). Just all around unpleasant woman who "fired" almost everyone she came in contact with.
Well, a patient died in another one of our rooms and this lady got wind of it. When I went in to help her off the commode (for the 5th time that shift) she asked "How old was the lady who died?" and I replied "well, actually it was a man." "Oh, well how old was he?" "He was about your age" LOL The look of horror on her face is something I will remember for a long time.
I probably shouldn't have said it, but it felt good! Damn, I'm a bad nurse!!
I was really young, working as a tech in a peds ER during a hiatus in my student nurse days. We had a super busy ER that was chaos most nights. When you'd look out from the desk, there was always a sea of faces filling the huge waiting room.
I'm not at all proud of this - I'm fessing up. A woman brought in a screaming, fighting, kicking 3-yr-old with a cold and possible earache. It was all mom could do to drag her to the desk. The mom was pretty pushy and asked that her child be placed in a room as quickly as possible. We explained that she and the other 20-25 patients in the waiting room would be seen in order, barring any life-threatening emergency which would take precedence.
She kept coming back up to the desk, asking to be placed into a room. On the last time she said, "Well, look what she's doing!" indicating her screaming, fighting child. Apparently she thought this behavior was an excuse to be moved to the front of the line. Once again we told her she'd have to wait her turn.
After she headed away, I said to the tech next to me, in what I thought was sotto voce, "It's not our fault she raised a brat."
She wheeled around and said, "WHAT did you say?" :chair:
Once I had more experience, I realized that most 2-3 year-olds who arrived screaming and fighting in the ER usually had a long history of ear infections and trips to the ER for treatment, and good reason for their behavior.:smackingf
Umm is that the part where the person who answers the light (if they ever do) then proceeds to ignore or forget the request? I slept in a bed full of icewater once because I was so weak after surgery that I spilled my water pitcher. I called and told them (followed procedure- used the call bell) and no one EVER came. My roomate also called- "we'll take care of it". I slept in that wet cold icy bed. I have seen this happen to patients many times, at work and as a visitor. They call and it rings, rings, rings. Someone finally answers then nothing happens. They call again, again. Thirty minutes to get a bedpan, one hour to get a med, forget it if there is something wrong on your tray or you are cold or can't reach the phone. Is this the case at your facility? If so then try to understand why the family comes out to request things in person. They want to be sure that their loved one is not forgotten.
I can't recall saying anything to patients or family members that I shouldn't have, but I have given them the silent treatment before when I felt like I just could not possibly hold my tongue if I opened my mouth. There are people that make it impossible to try to have a civil conversation, so sometimes I just completely avoid speaking to them.
You should send the hopsital a bill for services not rendered. Also, tell the bosses about your experience at their hospital and get them to do an investigation to find out why no one ever came to help you. Next time something like this happens, and I hope it never does, call your doctor and the nursing supervisor and even the police if you have to in order to get a dry bed. This is just outrageous.
Also, you should tell your insurer, who should dock them for care not rendered.
if i'm in the middle of something (generally charting if i'm at the desk), if you call for something (and actually say what you want instead of just "i need the nurse."), then i can finish my thought, then go get it and bring it to you. if you come to the desk, you're going to stare at me like i'm not doing anything except playing on facebook, and i have to immediately stop what i'm doing to go fetch something for someone that more than likely isn't my patient. then i come back and try to find where i was in my charting, try to get back to what i was thinking about, and about that time, someone else comes up wanting something.
and generally, people that come to the desk can't be helped by one person, they stand there waiting for whatever it is to be fetched, and feel the need to converse with whomever is at the desk still. so two people are interrupted.
with shift change it's just the worst time, because for privacy reasons, nobody can give report with random people standing right there. so that request for ice, that could have come over the call light system, has now shut the floor down.
and what makes it worse is that we know that you think you're making it easier on us. we know that you're trying to be nice and helpful. so we know that it's not fair that we want to strangle the people that do this. so on top of being annoyed, we feel guilty for being annoyed!
giving report at the desk? why not go elsewhere where you can't be seen by families? and, no need to stop and get the requested item stat. tell the family you are in report and they can expect the cup or whatever in about 15 minutes - or direct them to the kitchen and let them get it.
The second (Where I didn't actually say something but...): Another hectic day in the ER. Had a woman come in via EMS with a vague complaint of "just not feeling good." No pain, no injury. We put her in T6. Time passed, and we put a little old lady into T5, who promptly coded. Everyone made a bee-line for the code, so I stayed at the desk to watch things. The family of the woman in T6 came out, and said that his wife needed to use the bathroom. Before I got further, let me make a few things clear: 1) This woman was completely able-bodied; she could have gotten up herself. 2)T6 was the only room with its own bathroom, which was approximately 5 steps from her bed. 3) The only thing she was hooked to was her IV bag; no tele, no oxygen. 4) This wasn't my patient, but everyone else was busy. Anyway, I followed her husband into the room, and introduced myself and told her I would help her to the bathroom:
Woman: "I'm glad someone finally came. I can't believe it took so long."
Me: "I'm sorry you had to wait. Everyone is busy right now, but I'm here, so I can help."
Woman. "Someone should have come a lot sooner. I waited and waited."
Me: "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to make you wait. But I'm here now, so we can get you taken care of."
Woman: "You shouldn't have made me wait. I had to pee and y'all ignored me."
Me(starting to get frustrated):"I'm really sorry. There's something going on in one of the other rooms that needed everyone's attention right away. We didn't meant to ignore you. But I'm here and I can help you go to the bathroom."
Woman: "I just can't believe you made me wait."
Me(in a strained voice): "Ma'am, there's a woman down the hall whose heart has stopped beating. Everyone is in her room trying to save her, and that's why noone came at first. But let me help you now. I'm here now and you can go to the bathroom."
I turned around to get her IV bag, and heard her say, "It's because I'm black." And I turned and stared.
I wish, to this day, I had said something. Something, anything at all. "Yes, it's because you're black. It has nothing to do with a little old lady dying next door because her heart has stopped. No, we didn't come right away to take you to the bathroom, which you could have very well done by yourself, because of the color of your skin."
But I was , literally, speechless. I have never, in my entire life, been so angry. I gaped at her, unable to speak, to think, to breathe. And then I walked away. Because if I'd waited one more minute, I would have hit her.
Patients who have had C-sections do not seem to realize that they've had major abdominal surgery and yes, it hurts. It is not realistic to think we can get your pain level to zero on the 0-10 scale. I must have been in one patient's room every hour, trying to get her "pain" under control (mind you, she was sitting up in bed, watching TV, working her cell phone, and laughing her head off - but her pain level was a 10). I told her, "The only way I can get your pain level to a zero would be to put you into a coma." That got her attention. She was much more reasonable after that.
What was her pain med? her dose? Was she expected to care not only for herself but also for her baby, like lifting the baby out of the cradle? I'm glad you realize that post-op CS's are postop. NSVD's hurt, too, but, unless they've had an episiotomy, they are not post op.
How low CAN you get her pain? What level is acceptable to you?
Specializes in Labor/Delivery, Pediatrics, Peds ER.
Earaches can be really painful.
That's very true, but this child's screams weren't from pain. She was fighting mad. Have seen a lot of children screaming with painful earaches and it's obvious they're in pain.
She turned out to just have a cold and should have gone to the clinic during the day, but we were always used as the "night clinic." But after more years of experience, I wouldn't have over-reacted as I did, for a lot of reasons. This wasn't a "yeah, I'm so proud of what I said" moment.
She's never done that before and I'm drawing a blank so I ask "what does she want to show me?" A couple more times but she didn't answer. I'm thinking new curtains? Really yummy casserole? 
like the highly professional nurse I am. . .I was as surprised as she was that flew out of my mouth but she started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh some more. Actually I'm glad I was such a doofus because it paradoxically made us have a connection not there prior. - and I heard her still laughing as she walked out the door.
This wasn't a "yeah, I'm so proud of what I said" moment.
RetRN77
153 Posts
Have you ever been so weak you spilled something in your bed? Ever slept in a bed full of ice water while ill (or even while not ill?) Ever had to wait half an hour for a bed pan? An hour for pain med? Have a little compassion - it's part of a nurse's job, whether HC is free or not, whether a person is able to self-pay or not, whether staffing is as we would like or not. Someday you will be the patient, or it will be your family laying in ice water or waiting for a bed pan; then, hopefully, you will get it. This isn't civil engineering, it's supposed to be a vocation of civilly caring.