Ok I'm curious. After reading many threads on here and talking to aides and nurses who have been doing this for many many years I'm wondering something.
As far as patients and their family members go, have they really changed over the years? I don't mean diagnosis wise, I mean their mannerisms. Are they really that much ruder, that much more demanding then they were in the past? It seems lately that on my unit, we have patients who are perfectly capable of doing things themselves and yet they expect you to pick something up if they drop it or expect you to make 10 trips to the kitchen for this, that and the other.
So I ask all you that have been doing this for a while....have people really changed?
Specializes in Jack of all trades, and still learning.
as of last week, i set up a room for a new cabg patient that was on their way back from the or. as the patient arrived, i went back into to room to find a family member sleeping in the newly made surgery bed with their work-boots on the clean sheets. post-op infection alert!! that would have never happened in the 1970 or 1980's. a rn would have had the authority run the entire family out into the street, but not anymore.
omg! but why am i not surprised...
i have been nursing since 1989 as an en (similar to lpn); and i completed my rn in 2006. i have definitely noticed a change here in australia as well. i think the comment that ppl have become ruder in general in society holds true here as well.
but the difference for nurses is that for some reason, society, and even ourselves, don't think we should look out for ourselves. we just accept it. and there are not many avenues to help us. sure, we could charge the person or seek legal advice for an incident that falls into that category, but who wants to get a bad name and have problems trying to find work in the future? and more 'minor' incidents? nothing gets done at all.
the doctors don't see the patient abusing the staff member; they are usually sweetness and light to them, and medicos don't have to deal with these ppl 24hours a day...
I'm not an old school nurse, but I have noticed it is the younger patients/family that is generally "rude, entitled, ect". Most patients I care for over the age of 60 or so are very appreciative and respectful of healthcare workers. Most problems I have are from younger family and younger patients. So I do think it is just in general society is ruder, and parents aren't teaching children how to be polite, considerate, and take responsiblity for themselves.
i don't think families and pt's have changed. i feel the expectations have changed. companies such as pres-g. etc.. make a climate that is nearly impossible to maitain. seems we worry more and more about keeping everyone "happy" , as opposed to worring about outcomes. seems, we send more people out of the er with narcs so that they don't send in bad scores when most of the time we should be telling them that nsaids will take care of their pain fine. so, it seems pts are looking at us as department stores or hotels and expect "service" to make them "happy" , instead of better. sometimes we do things that are best for them, to help them become better, but that same treatment may not make them "happy".
Make sexually innappropriate remarks, deliberately let me "catch" you masturbating, I will give you what for (both of those happened to me last week). You may not see anyone except the security guard for the rest of my shift, lol. 15 years ago I'd have giggled and run off, now I confront it. I do not put up with abuse form anyone. Innappropriate patient behavior is addressed immediately and professionally.
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This happened to me last week as well, And to top it off every time this patient had a b.m. He would call out and ask for "my women" :bow:to clean him up, and belittled us while were trying to do our jobs because we had to clean his bm. Pretty nice, huh.
I think that people in general have become ruder and more demanding, displaying a feeling of entitlement. This is reflected in their behavior in the hospital as well as elsewhere. The same behavior is obvious in stores and restaurants - anywhere that people deal with employees who are constrained by their job from replying/reacting in kind. I think it's exacerbated by the "customer" mentality prevalent in many hospitals today.
Reminds me of a recurring theme in some of R.A. Heinlein's books that the loss of manners and polite behavior was a strong sign of the decline of a civilization - lately I'm inclined to agree with him.
Yep...I will agree. Only been a nurse since 96, but I think it has gotten worse. Everyone wants to play doctor too. Thanks to the internet and those TV ads.
ambulance chaser lawyers and many patients greed for money, along with increasing bad habits, poor diets, have all contributed to the disrespect of nurses. 33 years ago patients did not act like they do now, they wanted to get better, family members were not an issue.
i graduated in the day when nurses were respected. everyone knew who the nurse was. the woman in white with the cap on her head was in charge, no questions asked. management was concerned with good patient care. patients were respectful. visiting hours were limited. family members were not an issue. no phone calls before 9:00 am or after 8:00 pm. being sued was not a threat.
i'm not saying that all changes have been bad. patients have every right to question their care. i have underlined what i feel to be the 2 major problems today.
There has always been high maintenance patients, but the trend is definetly toward more of them. Not sure if this is societal, hospital marketing, or just more complex patients.
I think that it is not only patients in the hospital that have become ruder. To me, it's another symptom of an increasingly self centered, self absorbed, "entitled" society. People expect immediate results, and are baffled when a run of the mill strep throat does not clear up immediately upon taking abx, and show up to the ED to yell at the triage nurse about how long they have to wait.
I do think that our non-medical administrators have set us all up for failure by attempting to bring 5-star concierge service where it is inappropriate. It took a surgeon having to delay a surgery to finally get the admin. to accept our "all patients are NPO in the ER until testing is complete" policy. Even now, I have to be the "bad guy" and tell patient's families that we don't give meal trays to anyone other than the patient!
So I point out the rudeness to the patient, tell them that their behavior is inappropriate, and it's yet another thing to document. I think we need a check box in our flowsheet for rudeness at this point, since it happens so often during the day.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
it's been pretty much the same the last 16 years i've been a nurse.
back in a day though "good patients" and families were to be seen and not heard. with "quiet" signs posted all over the place. it was the nurses who were perceived as rude back then.
i'm relatively sure the old school nurses are going to say that yes, people have gotten ruder over the years.
guess i'm old school -- 30 years of experience. and yes, people have gotten more rude and less appreciative over the years. i don't remember a time when "good patients and families" were seen and not heard, nor do i remember "quiet" signs. but "back in the day", people would say "please" and "thank you." families were gracious and appreciative. people would treat you as a professional who was doing something to help, rather than like the hired help, or worse yet, like a thing put there merely to step and fetch for them.
thirty years ago, i would have been shocked had a family member walked straight up to me and without introducing herself demanded that i "fetch my mother a drink." had i seen a family member deck a fellow nurse because "i don't want no %$^&*( * f_____ taking care of my dad!" or had a patient refuse a nurse because of her skin color, i probably would have fainted dead away. those kinds of things just didn't happen. now they're commonplace.
Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency, Education, Informatics.
Ok I'm curious. After reading many threads on here and talking to aides and nurses who have been doing this for many many years I'm wondering something.
As far as patients and their family members go, have they really changed over the years? I don't mean diagnosis wise, I mean their mannerisms. Are they really that much ruder, that much more demanding then they were in the past? It seems lately that on my unit, we have patients who are perfectly capable of doing things themselves and yet they expect you to pick something up if they drop it or expect you to make 10 trips to the kitchen for this, that and the other.
So I ask all you that have been doing this for a while....have people really changed?
I"m going to take a different path than the other posters here today. I don't think things have actually changed that much and I started back in '78.
I def have memories of pushy patients and their families. I remember gettig in trouble for not getting my back rubs in on all my patients. I remember pts and families demanding to talk to the Dr at 3AM. I remember 45 patients on night shift with 1RN, 1 LPN and an aide. I even remember a patient asking me to light his cigaret for him, yes we used to let patients actually smoke in bed.
What is different is the acuity, patients on the floor that would have been in the ICU 30 years ago, and patients on he floor that would have been dead 30 years ago.
What I do see is that the nursing staff is tireder than it used to be, maybe less able to handle the stresses of the rude patients. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the 12 hour shifts, maybe the acuity of the patients, maybe the fact that they have a life away from nursing that takes their time.
No I don't see things different than in the "old days" possibly just more of it.
Sadly our society has changed in the U.S. Social norms are not what they were. There is a sense of entitlement. We are spoiled beyond belief by our wonderful prosperity in this country.
The word 'Thank you' is seldom heard and "You're welcome" seems totally absent from our America vocabulary. Try saying "thank you" and the best you are likely to get is "no problem." Most of the time you will not even get a grunt.
Americans are concerned about "rights" violations and do not understand that what they demand as their rights more often than not create a demand or hardship for a fellow human being.
There was a time when the saying was "don't trust anyone over 30." Now I am inclined to feel I can not trust anyone under 40 to have any sense of mutuality in this world. Then again 40 might be too young.
Alas, I am getting to be an old fart who is dismayed the younguns these days.
FireStarterRN, BSN, RN
3,824 Posts
I have nothing else to add, the above posts sum it all up.