Warning.....Visitor Vent!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Every once in a while you get a visitor that makes you want to scream an bang your head on the wall. I work in a very small LDRP unit, where we know all our patients rather well. Anyway, a couple showed up to see our only mom and asked to see John & Jane Doe. The problem is John & Jane are not married and Doe is not her last name. They were told, we don't have anyone by that name are you sure of the name. They got huffy and had to think for a minute of Jane's real last name. After they were able to recall the name the women rolled her eyes and said "What do you want our fingerprints too?!" :angryfire This kind of thing drives me crazy! Why the attitude?

Along the same line, it also drive me bonkers when someone calls to the nurse's desk asking for the S.O. by first name only and then gets huffy when we aren't sure who he belongs to!:nono: We are supposed to know every boyfriend, bestfriend, and monkey's uncle's names so we can just direct the call without an inquisition!:uhoh3:

Ok...end of rant. Thanks for letting me vent! :chuckle

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I work ER. On Sunday I was at triage and in comes a lady, "Yo, where's the shooting victim?" I asked for the patient's name and she said: "Uh, I dunno know - he's my cousin!" Hunh??? Needless to say she was booted.

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I used to work in a hospital that seemed to have more than its share of people high on entitlement and low on common sense. I would have the following conversation frequently upon answering the phone at the nurses station:

Caller: I want to know how my mother is doing.

Me: The patient's name is...?

Caller: She's my mother!

Me: (hoping to get a clue) May I ask who is calling please?

Caller: This is her son.

Makes you wonder how these people get along in daily life. :uhoh3:

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I used to work in a hospital that seemed to have more than its share of people high on entitlement and low on common sense. I would have the following conversation frequently upon answering the phone at the nurses station:

Caller: I want to know how my mother is doing.

Me: The patient's name is...?

Caller: She's my mother!

Me: (hoping to get a clue) May I ask who is calling please?

Caller: This is her son.

Makes you wonder how these people get along in daily life. :uhoh3:

:rotfl: OMG you are so right. :rotfl:

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Specializes in Telemetry, Case Management.
I used to work in a hospital that seemed to have more than its share of people high on entitlement and low on common sense. I would have the following conversation frequently upon answering the phone at the nurses station:

Caller: I want to know how my mother is doing.

Me: The patient's name is...?

Caller: She's my mother!

Me: (hoping to get a clue) May I ask who is calling please?

Caller: This is her son.

Makes you wonder how these people get along in daily life. :uhoh3:

I bet I get ten of these a day!!!

"How's Mom?"

"And your mother is.........?"

Blank look if they're at the desk or looooooooong silence like I am sooooo dumb on the other end of the line.

Me again: "Excuse me, I have many peoples' moms here, what is YOUR mom's name?"

Then they either get it and get on with the conversation, or worse, they DON"T get it and we go ring around the rosie about twelve more times until I'm ready to scream!!!

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I can so understand, but I can also give you a bit to try to handle these kinds of visitors/callers. I tell the family/friends/whomever about the law HIPPA that protects patient information. When they don't know the name, or only the first name, I say, "well, there is a law that is recently enforced called HIPPA. It protects the patient from the staff giving information to anyone. We (the staff) don't know who you are when you call/come in, and you could be an insurance person, or a lawyer asking for pt information, and if we give info, it could sometimes be used not for the good of him/her." The visitors USUALLY say "oh, yeah, I didn't think of that, ok". I kinda just turn it around a bit. But it is still the truth. Just a thought...

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What kills me is when the unit is full (I work L&D), and some random visitor comes to the nurses' station and says, "she needs some ice/painmeds/blanket/whatever." I always look at them and say, "every one of our patients is a 'she,' to which 'she' are you referring?" :rotfl:

Visitors make me absolutely insane sometimes.

Oh, and Marie LPN, we decided, after a very sticky, jerry springer-esque drama on our unit once involving separated spouses and multiple restraining orders, that it is not the hospital's job to enforce a restraining order. Risk management, God bless them, basically explained it to us like this: if someone has a restraining order that they want enforced, it is not the responsibility of the hospital staff to intervene. They are to call the local police and/or their respective legal counsel to ensure enforcement of any existing restraining orders. :D I could have kissed RM that day.

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Specializes in NICU.

Reminds me of situations in the NICU. All the babies are admitted under the mother's last name and stay that way until discharge. So when the dad for Baby Smith calls, we call him Mr. Smith. God forbid the parents aren't married and his name is really Mr. Jones. WOW do they get mad! First they're mad that they're being called by their girlfriend's last name, like it's some kind of feminist attack on them. Then they get mad because the baby is THEIRS and will take THEIR name, but we refuse to change it.

Hey, if you really wanted that baby to have your name, you should have married mom before it arrived.

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Reminds me of situations in the NICU. All the babies are admitted under the mother's last name and stay that way until discharge. So when the dad for Baby Smith calls, we call him Mr. Smith. God forbid the parents aren't married and his name is really Mr. Jones. WOW do they get mad! First they're mad that they're being called by their girlfriend's last name, like it's some kind of feminist attack on them. Then they get mad because the baby is THEIRS and will take THEIR name, but we refuse to change it.

Hey, if you really wanted that baby to have your name, you should have married mom before it arrived.

That is a whole other issue there! So many dads get mad that the baby's bracelets say the mothers name. Even when you explain about mom & babe matching for security & safety reasons, some of them still are upset. Especially if mom's name is her ex-husband's or current husband :rolleyes: We can't have a whole bunch fo babies running around in the nursery with names that don't match any mom's. How confusing would that be?

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Then there are the days when you get the patient with a family who does not speak to each other, you have 6 patients to care for, and every 5 minutes you hear your name overhead that you have a phone call. EVERY call is a different family member of that one patient, all with the same "how is she" question. Same explanation about HIPPA to each of them, explain the need to select one contact person to whom we can assign a codeword and give info to and they can spread the word. BUT, that won't work because we are not speaking! Well, if this patient is important to all of you, then NOW may be a good time to start! Next day, same pt assignment, same phone calls from same family members. Just when I know I would be totally in the right to say what I am thinking, I look up at the poster on the wall and remember that our MAIN goal nowadays is CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, do not p*ss off the family, BE NICE. That is the hardest part of nursing, if you ask me. Poor Joe Schmoe in afib with a HR of 120 is awaiting my arrival with his cardizem, YES, I know I have a phone call, but until I can either subdivide or astroproject, THAT family member will have to wait on hold! Uhhhhhhhh, this time it was a doctor!

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LOL

Had one of those last night. Miss "X" announces that she's the head of Agency Y and she was going to file complaints against everyone. (Personally, I was thinking I don't care if she is the Queen of England).

After listening to her screaming and foul language for at least 5 minutes, I told her I wasn't going to listen to her foul language and I was going to have a supervisor speak with her. Supervisor spoke to her and offered member services number,so guess what , now she is going to file a complaint against the supervisor also.

I had to hold by breath and refrain from laughing, when the supervisor made the comment of "your going to have a pretty long list of employees to file complaints against."

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Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Then there is the group of like minded souls with leather, chains,buzz cut, or the ones with the trousers to their knees and hats on backwards, or the group of "fine ladies" in their spandex and fishnet hose......one member of one of the groups comes to the desk...."yo, what room is Scratch/Tiny/Jasmine in?"

Now you may know immediately what room your similarly attired patient is in, but you'd be well advised to request more info.

Name? dunno

Age? dunno

Relationship? we're tight

Sorry......can't help and all the while I'm hoping they arent carrying, selling, recruiting.

And you know what else? Open door policy 24/7 for visitors......Nurses have to show their ID to enter. Go figure.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
And you know what else? Open door policy 24/7 for visitors......Nurses have to show their ID to enter. Go figure.

That always amazes the crap out of me. I have to hold up my security card to 5 different doors to get to the locker room in the mornings, yet any Tom, Dick, or hairball can wander on in.

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