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What do you say to family members when obviously they show you no respect and begin yelling at you in the middle of a hallway for 10 minutes plus. Do you walk away, do you call security what does every one else do. I am a well known doormat on my floor this is what happened to me last night.
I had a patient that was admitted with colitis that wasn't doing well with the antibiotic therapy that he had recieved a few weeks before and was now in the hospital on failure to thrive issues. This woman was extremely anxious. (I don't give meds to people freely, but this woman definately needed medication because she was throwing herself in a tizzy and becomingly increased in Dysp. r/t talking so much.) So I got an order for Ativan 0.5 and gave it to her. She was slightly confused in ramblings but was oriented to direct questions. Three hours later.... I get a note from a staff member stating that the family has questions and wants to speak to me. The staff member tells the family that I had just gotten an admission and that it would be a few minutes. I was walking out of my admissions room p 15 minutes and was on my way to see them when another staff member came up to me and said these people want to talk to you. Again it was the family I was going to see. There in the hallway they let me have it. I tried to move them into a more private area but they wouldn't budge. They bantered me with how LONG THEY HAD TO WAIT to talk to me. PLEASE. Then they wanted to know about the condition of the patient, what was wrong with her, why was she so incoherent (not anymore than she had been before). They wanted to know why a diagnosis hadn't been made. (she had been hospitalized less than 24 hours). Then they start saying to me, WHY ARE YOU THE ONLY NURSE THAT IS TAKING CARE OF HER????????????? Hello, what planet are these families from. They wanted to know what the other nurses were doing sitting at the desk and why they couldn't give them any information. Not only that but when this family was up at the desk they start yelling at a doctor who just happened to be up at the desk. I told them that they were not going to get any information out of me unless they stopped attacking me. "We aren't attacking you"they yelled. Then comes "how do we helicopter her out of here, we want her transfered to mayo. Or do we have to take her by car. ON and on this went for over 2 hours. The doc comes in and calms them down and the family says "well I guess you are doing all the right things and we can't expect anymore right now.' PUKE
Where do these families come from?
Then as a side note, 1 hour later after they left, the patient crashes with end result being sent down to icu. The family says to me "well I guess we were on the right track in thinking about sending her"
My bad- I said sure but she would have crashed on you in the back of a car or ambulance.
What would you have done. The family was comprimising the care that I was trying to give to my other patient in multiple ways. Thank god I only had 3 other patients that night.