I bawled my eyes out, actually. For about a half hour.
I admitted a lady with a SBO last Wednesday. The remember that the patient's daughter gave me a hard time initially when I asked her to step out of the room while we got the pt settled. She announced, "NO, I'm a NURSE." I gently asked her again, using "please" and "ma'am," explaining that it is a policy, etc etc, and she finally agreed to wait outside of the room (refused to go to the waiting room. Whatever.)
Fast forward to today... I get this patient assigned to me. I didn't think I'd have any problems.
Before I go into the room, I notice that this woman (the daughter) is hitting the stat NIBP button on the monitor herself and readjusting the bp cuff. I chose not to say anything about it.
I go into the room, I politely say hello, introduce myself and proceed to ask my patient how she is and if she has any pain. Before the pt can get a word out, the daughter goes, "Yes." I then said, "let her answer" to the daughter. (That happenes to be a pet peeve... let the patient speak for themselves if they can!) The pt proceeded to tell me that she had 8/10 pain.
Ok. So I continue with my assessment (at this point I'm thinking to myself that I should have asked her to step out for the assessment but I'm too far in now)... and get to the "toe" part of the head to toe (lol. I must be slap happy at this point from emotional exhaustion).
I then noticed that the pt's heels were reddened. Stage I. I grabbed a pillow (heck, it's practically instinct at this point for me) and said, "I'm going to lift your heels off the bed, your heels are red." The daughter then yells at me (literally) "OH NO you DONT. Those pillows are HARD as a ROCK and I've been MASSAGING her feet." I said I was sorry, that we usually elevate heels when there is a chance of skin breakdown. She then got angry that I used the word USUALLY. I explained to her that my first priority is patient safety and preventing injury, and she angrily told me, "well MY first priority is my MOTHER'S COMFORT." I said, "Well, we will have to work together on that then." She goes, "yes we WILL." (insert a MEAN tone in everything she says)
I walked out of the room. Took a deep breath.
20 minutes go by. The daughter comes out of the room and asks me for help repositioning her mother. I told her I would be in shortly. I asked a PCT for help. We both went in, and she was standing at the bedside. Now, at my work, we are told that we should not allow family members to help with physical things like repositioning because it could be a liability problem if they were to get hurt. I always thank family members for offering to help, but explain that it is our job and we will gladly do it. So, I told her this as nicely as I could, and she turned to me and started laying into me. She started screaming in my face. She told me that I was getting on her nerves and she'd had enough of my crap!! She told me I was rude for asking her to let her mom answer about the pain. She told me I was doing things to her mother without her consent (elevating heels). She was shouting, "You're off the case! You're DONE! Thats it! YOURE DONE! GO!" (waving her hand as though she was shooing a fly, mind you.) She goes, GO get your supervisor RIGHT NOW. She was shouting at me as though I were some p.o.s. low life that she could order around. It was so humiliating and hurtful. I finally just walked out of the room, and got as far away as I could before the tears started streaming out.
I was able to give report to another RN and take a different patient, which was good, but I was emotionally exhausted the entire day.
Well... that's the story. Thank you for reading it.
To be honest with you...I wish all nurses were as nice as you were to this lady! I had my gallbladder out this past Thursday and had nothing but nice nurses, but what I'm saying is not everyone is nice and from what you wrote your one that I would LOVE to have. You sound like a good, careful, loving nurse :) Sorry this daughter brought down your spirits, some people are just SO mean.
I think I would have told the daughter that she is interferring with her mother receiving nursing care and if she didn't back off I would call Security to escort her out of the building. I would tell her I would be happy to answer any questions she has about her mother's care but I am not going to be harassed by her. If she wants to complain let her do it but make sure you document this and what care you were giving the mother.
What a daughter! Not only would have I gotten my supervisor for her I would have gotten security for her too. Let them explain the rules and offer to escort her out of the building if she can't be nice and respect the rules and staff.
I am such a smart aleck, when she said "I'm a nurse" I would have said "Wow! What a coincidence! Me too!"
Hugs to you, my dear, and consider yourself LUCKY that you don't have to deal with that garbage. It is a blessing in disguise when those kind of people 'fire' you.
Working in OB with women who are for the most part very healthy, we still get this kind of behavior from family members who want to control the situation and in a lot of cases, the patient. We don't have security at our small rural hospital so we have the local police department on speed dial for folks who are interfering with patient care. I do hope your nurse manager and administration backed you and let this woman know her behavior would not be tolerated. We had a bad situation on night and all it took was for a male nurse (the family member thought he was a doctor) to walk to the door, end of tirade. Funny how that works. Good luck and stay strong.
I bawled my eyes out, actually. For about a half hour.
I admitted a lady with a SBO last Wednesday. The remember that the patient's daughter gave me a hard time initially when I asked her to step out of the room while we got the pt settled. She announced, "NO, I'm a NURSE." I gently asked her again, using "please" and "ma'am," explaining that it is a policy, etc etc, and she finally agreed to wait outside of the room (refused to go to the waiting room. Whatever.)
Fast forward to today... I get this patient assigned to me. I didn't think I'd have any problems.
Before I go into the room, I notice that this woman (the daughter) is hitting the stat NIBP button on the monitor herself and readjusting the bp cuff. I chose not to say anything about it.
I go into the room, I politely say hello, introduce myself and proceed to ask my patient how she is and if she has any pain. Before the pt can get a word out, the daughter goes, "Yes." I then said, "let her answer" to the daughter. (That happenes to be a pet peeve... let the patient speak for themselves if they can!) The pt proceeded to tell me that she had 8/10 pain.
Ok. So I continue with my assessment (at this point I'm thinking to myself that I should have asked her to step out for the assessment but I'm too far in now)... and get to the "toe" part of the head to toe (lol. I must be slap happy at this point from emotional exhaustion).
I then noticed that the pt's heels were reddened. Stage I. I grabbed a pillow (heck, it's practically instinct at this point for me) and said, "I'm going to lift your heels off the bed, your heels are red." The daughter then yells at me (literally) "OH NO you DONT. Those pillows are HARD as a ROCK and I've been MASSAGING her feet." I said I was sorry, that we usually elevate heels when there is a chance of skin breakdown. She then got angry that I used the word USUALLY. I explained to her that my first priority is patient safety and preventing injury, and she angrily told me, "well MY first priority is my MOTHER'S COMFORT." I said, "Well, we will have to work together on that then." She goes, "yes we WILL." (insert a MEAN tone in everything she says)
I walked out of the room. Took a deep breath.
20 minutes go by. The daughter comes out of the room and asks me for help repositioning her mother. I told her I would be in shortly. I asked a PCT for help. We both went in, and she was standing at the bedside. Now, at my work, we are told that we should not allow family members to help with physical things like repositioning because it could be a liability problem if they were to get hurt. I always thank family members for offering to help, but explain that it is our job and we will gladly do it. So, I told her this as nicely as I could, and she turned to me and started laying into me. She started screaming in my face. She told me that I was getting on her nerves and she'd had enough of my crap!! She told me I was rude for asking her to let her mom answer about the pain. She told me I was doing things to her mother without her consent (elevating heels). She was shouting, "You're off the case! You're DONE! Thats it! YOURE DONE! GO!" (waving her hand as though she was shooing a fly, mind you.) She goes, GO get your supervisor RIGHT NOW. She was shouting at me as though I were some p.o.s. low life that she could order around. It was so humiliating and hurtful. I finally just walked out of the room, and got as far away as I could before the tears started streaming out.
I was able to give report to another RN and take a different patient, which was good, but I was emotionally exhausted the entire day.
Well... that's the story. Thank you for reading it.
Sorry that happened to you. Some family members just suck. And if she really is a nurse then she sucks double for treating a fellow nurse that way. :icon_hug:
unfortunately we all have days like that. if you can't get out of taking care of her, don't let the daughter dictate the care. you are the patient's nurse. deliver her care in as professional a manner as you would every other patient. spending time and energy on the patient's daughter will only exhaust you. make it to the end of the shift and blow the day off on the way home. debrief when you leave the room to co-workers......whatever it takes to get through the day. this too will pass!
whenever i deal w/people like that, i ultimately wonder how miserable their lives must be...
to treat others w/such blatant disrespect and contempt.
it can't be easy to live w/oneself.
and, at some point, it always catches up to them.
you just can't go around treating others like this, w/o our old, reliable friend, karma coming to visit.
i'm sorry you cried, sue.
whenever it happens, she'll get her due.
leslie
Leslie is right, Sue. People like that are just miserable in their own lives, in their own skin. And it can't be easy to live in their own skin, and one day it will come back to bite them in the touchie!! Just try to understand it wasn't you, per say. It is an issue that she had or has. Caring for her family, you definetly deserved more respect than that!!!
:banghead:
emndarmic
57 Posts
To be honest with you...I wish all nurses were as nice as you were to this lady! I had my gallbladder out this past Thursday and had nothing but nice nurses, but what I'm saying is not everyone is nice and from what you wrote your one that I would LOVE to have. You sound like a good, careful, loving nurse :) Sorry this daughter brought down your spirits, some people are just SO mean.