i have no idea where the er is getting these people from but i wish theyd send them back...lol
they are sick..yes...but for goodness sakes!
i cant raise the head of my bed (i can however use the phone and change channels on my tv)
oh no im having chest pains...my chest really hurts (now while you go call the doc, im gonna call my friend and wish her happy birthday and then ill finish dinner while you warm up the ekg)
i REALLY REALLY REALLY have to go to the bathroom...right now..oh i have to go. i have to go NOW.
but first let me watch a little of the grammy's and chat with you a while. you just stay here until im ready to stand up then pivot to my bedside commode (i can do this, i can walk and EVERYTHING, i just need you to stand here)
could you heat my tray
could you heat my coffee
could you heat my coffee again...i didnt drink it yet
do you have any cream?
oh i hurt i hurt i hurt ...do you want your morphine? no thanks.
i dont like this food...get me something i like.
straighten up my bed (ill stand here and watch you)
i cant get in bed by myself (i can walk to the bathroom tho)
pull me up in bed (no theres nothing wrong with my legs, i just like you to do it)
It happened to me yesterday. A patient came right out and called a nurse the waitress.
I was putting a patient on dialysis and he was asking me about if we were going to change the dressing on his surgery site. I said "I'll take a look at it once I get you on."
He said "the other waitress said she would change it but I thought I'd ask" then caught himself and said "I mean, nurse."
Specializes in med-surg, psych, ER, school nurse-CRNP.
It happened to me yesterday. A patient came right out and called a nurse the waitress.
I was putting a patient on dialysis and he was asking me about if we were going to change the dressing on his surgery site. I said "I'll take a look at it once I get you on."
He said "the other waitress said she would change it but I thought I'd ask" then caught himself and said "I mean, nurse."
I would have responded with, "Of course you know your gratuity just doubled. We'll just add that to your tab."
a patient should be encouraged to do for themselves what they can. This can be done with kindness and compassion. This does not have to be mean spirited and nasty.
:o
That's a basic nursing principle. The foundation of my practice, as a matter of fact.
Specializes in TraumaER ,NICUx2days, HEMEONC CathLab IV.
I have no problem assisting buttwipers who CAN'T. It's the buttwipers who CAN but just want to get out of it that **** me off.
I cannot tolerate family and visitors who want us to cater to THEM when it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain we are shortstaffed and extremely busy.
The requests for coffee bug the hell out of me. I direct them to the waiting room. They ask us to store food for family in our fridge. They ask us to store BREAST MILK for them in our fridge. Now....we aren't even allowed a fridge for US to store our lunches...so where do these people get off?????
And what are women with infants doing hanging around our MRSA infested floor? Then they have the gaul to expect us to store their breast milk (and provide a private place for them to pump) and we have to fetch it for them on request too......GRRRR.
I know, I'm old and burnt out....but people just have no manners today in the hospital, I swear....I NEVER encountered such 'entitled' patients, families, and visitors as I do these past 5 years or so.
Gotta blame the media and the hospitals for portraying nurses as service workers.....
Sing it! and Ahmen sister, but you know I noticed the change in the way nurses were treated when....... are you ready for this....... when we as RN's stopped wearing a WHITE UNIFORM AND CAPS.......
OMG did I say it...... Yes.... I did and SOME of us oldies got together and decided the cap and white uniform had alot to do with RESPECT. Why?.... Talk amongst yourselves.:argue: ... but times change and I wear scrubs (pj's) to work too, but some days I wish I had on my whites and a cap. there is something about it that makes people back down. like, who argues with a Nun in a Habit.
Can you tell the hospital was run by the Sisters of Charity? this might be a whole new thread.
Specializes in Burn, CCU, CTICU, Trauma, SICU, MICU.
perfect patient... intubated, paralyzed, with a foley and a rectal tube, a peg tube that will never clog, 100lbs soaking wet and no family or friends. :)
perfect patient... intubated, paralyzed, with a foley and a rectal tube, a peg tube that will never clog, 100lbs soaking wet and no family or friends. :)
Last night a pt. wanted something to drink. Not just ANY drink. She wanted the new Coke with Lime. Oh and make that DIET please?
Needless to say i told her our prune-juice-storage fridge does not seem to have any Diet Lime Coke. And she was SURPRISED we didn't have it! But i was dying to say "Ya want fries with that??"
I work rehab, LTC. had this patient admitted on a saturday. as soon as she was off the stretcher she wanted something to eat. ok no problem until she said "i want some soup but i dont eat the canned stuff. i only eat homemade and i would like some chicken and rice soup". haha you should have heard the dietary dept on that one!
same pt. unbelievable demands. so much so that i did something i'd never done in my life...i called the vice president on call and asked if he could come help us by talking to her because i was getting nowhere with her and she was verbally abusing the staff.
he came right there. recovering customer service is very important, you know.
after being in her room over an hour and a half...changing bed linens...heck, he even changed the picture hanging on the wall to try to please her!...i saw him walking thru the nurses station with some kerlix in his hand. him not being a nurse I asked what he was doing and he said "i'm going to put this over her mouth!" thought i would die!
next day she discharged AMA. same VP and nursing assistant helping her walk to the car from the door. she pretended to stumble and then started yelling that she fell and they made her fall. she hadnt even lost her balance, let alone fell. she demanded to go to the ER because she fell. VP told her to go ahead, she was no longer our pt. she wanted transferred in an ambulance and told him "and you will pay for it because you made me fall".
when he refused again, she called the police on him! the police told her, while she was on the phone with them, that she would have to call the ambulance herself and that it wasnt a"police" type situation.
she was yelling and threatening to sue. as she was screaming he quietly told her "btw..we have cameras all over our facility and your "fall" was recorded". ha! she shut up and got in the car, lol
You know we laugh about the 'nurse as a waitress' but behind the laughs is the reality that the way we are treated harms our psyche as human beings. So many nurses have physical and emotional problems that can be directly linked to the appalling disrespect and disregard of us as people.
The positive effects of the sweet kind people we care for is negated by the nasty self centred mean spirited people we have the distinct displeasure in looking after.
I can honestly say I absolutely hate nursing, it is a menial job and can not be called a profession.
I have to admit that I am disgusted with the way nurses are treated. see my thread "unbelievable family members" for my story of crazythumblady that tried to pull my thumb off my hand.
the way we are treated by family members AND upper management is enough to make me want tobe a garbage picker upper.
"I can honestly say I absolutely hate nursing, it is a menial job and can not be called a profession."
Oh boy, now you've done it!:trout::trout::trout::trout::trout:
I have days where I do see it as a profession and I like my job, but more and more I am seeing a trend towards 'customer service' which breeds a sense of entitlement and the idea nurses are just there to do whatever is demanded of them.
I have been a nurse for quite awhile and we have come a long way from being Doctors handmaidens but closer to being the general public's whipping boys. There is a general lack of understanding and respect for what we do. Working in the ER I am more exposed to the nastier side of human nature in many ways.
All in all the only reason I stay nursing is for the standard of living it gives me. Nursing has made me a true misogynist which is sad really.
"Scratch any cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist." George Carlin (1937-2008)
:o 
had alot to do with RESPECT. Why?.... Talk amongst yourselves.:argue: ... but times change 
and I wear scrubs (pj's) to work too, but some days I wish I had on my whites and a cap. there is something about it that makes people back down. like, who argues with a Nun in a Habit.
Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN
872 Posts
It happened to me yesterday. A patient came right out and called a nurse the waitress.
I was putting a patient on dialysis and he was asking me about if we were going to change the dressing on his surgery site. I said "I'll take a look at it once I get you on."
He said "the other waitress said she would change it but I thought I'd ask" then caught himself and said "I mean, nurse."