What Baffles You?

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So I have come across this a few times. I am holding a straw to a persons lips and they drink and drink and drink and pretty soon they are waving their hands for me to stop. Stop what?! You don't have to keep sucking on the straw just because it is in your mouth. I think the universal sign of I'm done please remove the straw should be to stop sucking on it and open your mouth! I have had a few people have to catch their breath and make comments about me giving them too much! What? I don't get it.

Specializes in PACU, pre/postoperative, ortho.

$$$ spent on new landscaping, garden, parking lot, valet parking, & new cafeteria but no one can seem to fix the leaky roof at the employee entrance. There has been a bucket or pads there every time it rains to catch the drips as far back as when I attended clinicals 4 yrs ago.

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1. The pt who insists that she is far too weak to push the call light and insists on screaming any name she can think of when she wants pain medicine, but was perfectly capable of walking to the bathroom multiple times.

2. The pts that refuse their insulin, then get upset when their blood sugars are over 200 (or 300). "I haven't even eaten anything bad!" Really? Because I sure do see a pile of candy wrappers and chip bags in your trash can...

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Specializes in Operating Room.

1. Why some of the nurses will leave the patient's room and ask me (because I am a still aide waiting to sit for my nursing boards) to get a urinal or a hat for the patient to urinate in, instead of assiting the client to the bathroom themselves. Not to mention putting me in harm's way when lifting a heavy client who they darn sure do not assist to get in and out of the bed or on or off the darn stretcher.

2. Body able people who I understand may or may not be in pain but insist on lying in their own filth and not washing their own behind. I will never understand people who lie in bed all day and do not wash themselves for days at a time. Then complain that they are not being offered bed baths and a.m. care by the staff when they can clearly do it themselves.

3. Pts who are discharged within a matter of days after having nothing or barely anything done along with the patients who have had major surgery. I understand that a lot of procedures are going same day surgery and if you can be discharged within 48 hours they are going to do so. But goodness unless the pt is complaining or refusing do something besides a few minor medications they can get at any local cvs or walgreens and IV infusions.

4. Finally, studying for the NCLEX and not understanding why some questions will tell you that a particular diet must be maintained and followed for a certain disorder and then in a matter of a few questions that same disorder has a completely different diet and ingredients that are the complete opposite of what you were originally told should be the adhered to diet SMH. Even now I find myself wondering why I am choosing the answers that I am choosing and getting some of these scores when I know the answers.

What baffles me more is the simple fact they ask questions about medications with very detailed side effects of what to and not to expect and I have not heard of half these medications or even some.

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When staff have time to complain for 10-20 minutes about how they don't have time to get their work done.

Or the CNA who complains that the nurses never help. Trust me.... we do want to help. And will as our time allows. (The good ones will anyway) we as nurses are swamped as well and there's not too much that a CNA can assist with outside of the direct pt care such as baths and toileting.

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Specializes in Short Term/Skilled.
Why can't they just stand up, take a few steps towards the head of the bed, and get back in? I'm not cutting those pts any slack. Hi-lo, hi fowlers....Nope. No excuse for a fully capable person to risk my back for no reason.

I put them in trendellenberg, have them reach for the headboard and pull themselves up. ;-)

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Specializes in Cardiac step-down, PICC/Midline insertion.
I could never understand why some people think that an ambulance is an absolute necessity. I would not call an ambulance for myself unless I seriously though I would need intubation in route. And I get calling an ambulance if you desperately need to go the hospital but have no transportation. I'm referring to the pregnant women who come to the hospital for yeast infection (no other complaints) via ambulance with 4 relatives following in private cars. Don't tie up emergency services so you can pretend you're Cleopatra on a barge floating down the Nile! When my water broke at home, I didn't call 911 and have my husband follow behind in our car, I rode with him​.

LOL! I have gotten pt's who were medi-flighted for the most ridiculous things ever. Pt's who go to the hospital in a rural area with "chest pain", but enzymes are negative, no previous cardiac history, pain wasn't relieved by nitro, normal EKG, etc....but let's medi-flight them to the Heart Hospital!! The cardiologists just scratch their head, go ahead and cath them I guess to justify the admission, then they get sent home the same day after their clean heart cath. This has happened numerous times. If the other hospitals would just keep the pt for 1 more set of enzymes, heck even a 3rd set if they were really concerned, then ship them if they're positive! That would save the cost of a $20,000 heli-copter ride and $12k-$15k hospital stay and unecessary procedure just to find out the pt has heart burn....

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Specializes in Cardiac step-down, PICC/Midline insertion.

What baffles me is having "charge nurses" who are expected to take on a full patient load in addition to their duties as charge nurse. Don't really see how this is beneficial to a unit when staff members need help or have questions but the charge nurse is too busy drowning along with everyone else.

Also have seen units that don't staff according to acuity. Floated to a step-down medical unit one night and the nurses were telling me that they generally would have around 5 pts and some would be on drips or vents. Seriously??? Maybe I'm just kidding myself, but have always generally thought vents do not belong in step-down period. You definitely should not be taking care of 5 patients if you have a vent no matter how "strong" you are.

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Specializes in Respiratory Education.

What baffles me is when obese patients who have been educated on healthy eating habits tell me "I eat like a bird"

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I'm baffled by the patients who insist on taking their meds with the HOB nealry flat and then scream at me when a little water spills on their neck. Don't they understand the basics of gravity?

Also, I know I'm late to the party on this, but I love the posts about how weird people get when sipping water from a straw while someone else is holding the cup. They get all bug eyed and panicked when they drank enough, but they don't stop drinking. Why don't they just stop drinking? There must be a scientific explination. It happens too often with too many able bodied adults.

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Also I know I'm late to the party on this, but I love the posts about how weird people get when sipping water from a straw while someone else is holding the cup. They get all bug eyed and panicked when they drank enough, but they don't stop drinking. Why don't they just stop drinking? There must be a scientific explination. It happens too often with too many able bodied adults.[/quote']

I just spent two nights nursing one of these. Patient young and previously physically capable, now experiencing severe bilateral hand weakness secondary to injuries sustained in a fall (a leap, actually) from a second story window. She can't hold the cup at all and I had to keep pinching off the straw and reminding her to breathe, while she just kept staring at me with those same panicked bug eyes!

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Specializes in ED; Med Surg.

Birds eat constantly though...

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.
Birds eat constantly though...

The overweight patient saying they "eat like a bird" may very well be true (though they don't realize it) as many birds, hummingbirds for example, consume 2/3 of their body weight in food daily.

However there is a percentage of the overweight population that may have an altered metabolism from poor food choices or certain medications (prednisone and antipsychotics for example) that may eat 1200-1500 calories/daily yet still don't lose weight.

You would be shocked at the number of malnourished overweight people (and even average weight) who aren't getting the recommended nutrients to sustain life.

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