What is your biggest nursing pet peeve?

jaimealmostRN · Apr 28, 2004

Nurses as patients, or their spouses as patients (NOT meaning everyone), who start the i'm-a-nurse-and-i-know-what-the-deal-is. Threatening to call the doctor personally for another prescription (yeah i DARE you to do that...).

I had to do this about 9 months ago...one of my family members (previous drug issues, learning disablities, etc) went to a very small ED with a pretty bad reputation with a lump in her neck, vomiting, nausea, anorexia for one week. This 2nd yr resident saw her and said something like, "lets just keep our eye on it for a while..." I got a tearful call from her in the waiting room and immediatly made the 1hr trip up there... When I got there I asked to speak with attending AND resident immediatly, in the presense of my family member, got very angry at lack of care/concern on part of MD (nurses were great, never been rude to your own either!)...she got her CT scan 30min later, and a nuclear imaging test about 2hrs later. Turns out CA... :crying2: but oncologist (at a different hosp!) says 60-70% chance SINCE WE CAUGHT IT EARLY. I have never been so angry in my life than I was at that resident and I'm GLAD I was her advocate.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Apr 28, 2004

Thing that bothered me, with the situation that i have in mind, is that the pt. was rating his pain (post-op T. and A.) at a 1, 35 minutes after med was given, and his wife was complaining that he wasn't on Fentanyl. Doctor didn't prescribe it. And he wouldn't prescribe it, since whatever the pt. was already taking PO was working. Pt. told his wife "i'm fine, i know it's going to be a little sore, but what i'm taking is working". She kept on, and was threatening to call the dr. herself for an order for Fentanyl. After repeatedly saying "i'm a nurse, i know what i'm doing".

Advocate is one thing. But she was irate the moment she hit the floor. Which wasn't helping her husband get the rest he needed since he spent half his time telling her to stop threatening people.

jaimealmostRN · Apr 28, 2004

:) see your point totally, that would be annoying!

newgrad2004 · Apr 28, 2004

Had a pt who was a feeder. Fed Pt breakfast, family came in at lunch. I placed tray on bedside table (as pt was asleep) to come back after passing all the trays). Wife says, "Arent you going to feed him?" I said, "well I have to pass the other trays and I have a few things to do, might be quicker if you fed him." Wife says, "oh, we will wait for you."

After they had complimented how clean the pt was earlier while I went in to give the other pt his bath, and PT came while trays came so I had to change the other pts bed. Along with the wife visiting (the home caregiver of this pt who needed feeding), who was a larger woman..who had her chair pushed 4-6 inches from the pts bed I was changing, whom I bumped into many times trying to change linens and said "excuse me", never budged the whole time. But they were going to "wait for me to feed him."

Incredible

Oh and to top it all off they went and complained I didnt feed him and his food got cold, because the tech was going to ask them to feed him, because we were so busy.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Apr 28, 2004

:) see your point totally, that would be annoying!

I see your point as well, when Grandma was OD'd on lasix by a whopper of a med error (the nurse "Oh well i saw where the bottle said Lasix, but i didn't bother reading the dose"). About sent her into renal failure. Ever since then, my cousin, an RN goes with her for her Lasix. Never has mentioned she's an RN, but all of the nurses there know why my cousin sits RIGHT there 2 ft away from her.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Apr 28, 2004

Post 277 made me think of another:

When it's quite obvious it's taking both hands to balance Mr. Patient while he's on his way to the bathroom, and when you ask the family member to please push the IV pole, they give you this look that clearly says "uh i don't WORK here".

shhh5683 · Apr 28, 2004

*Pharmacology instructors that spell the drugs out because they cant pronounce them ( how hard is it to pronounce coumadin????)

*med surg instructors that say "vasodilITATION" instead of vasodilation

*asking a question and being told "this is NURSING school not MED school" or "well you dont need to know that for boards anyway, so dont worry about it"

*nurses that dont know the answer but make something up anyway---grrr!!!

moia · Apr 28, 2004

I actually don't mind nurse family members, they can be a pain but alot of time they can be a great help.

What makes me absolutely crazy is the patient with two thousand family members,200 friends and their entire church (pastor and all) all trying to get in to visit in the ICU and their indignation when I tell them none of them are allowed in except if they are accompanied by an immediate family member and only one at a time up to a maximum of two per day.

They actually believe visiting is some kind of bizarre form of entertainment and it nevers occurs to them that the patient who is barely awake on a ventilator is not up to entertaining.

Then all the family breaks into fights about who should get to visit and then the manipulation starts...just one more please...I have had thirty people at the bedside for two minutes just to get these people to stop whining...half of them I am sure barely know the patient. They then take over the waiting room and the requests for blankets,pillows and free food start...this bunch ALWAYS stays all night and calls every hour to demand a visit...why would someone ever think it would be appropriate to visit someone in an ICU at 3 am I will never know but they think it is just fine to wake the patient up and ask them fifty questions and then complain to the nurse that the patient is thirsty,tired in pain...and they refuse to listen to any explanation about why the patient can't have a cup of coffee right after heart surgery....

I am a bit crazed if I have to bring any family member in to emerg because I know how emerg works and how quickly things can get really crazy with traumas or heart attacks and your family gets forgotten in the chaos...errors can occur when things are really busy...you can get sent home inappropriately if you don't have an advocate or you can get docs who want to cover their butts and they want to do procedures that aren't absolutely necessary....I do direct all care for my family...I tell them who I am and I tell them the history and what has worked before etc and I consult...I never just sit back and accept what the nurses or the doc says...they may have a different motivation than me...they may want my family member out of that bed for a lot of different reasons so I always review and direct the care...that way we are all happy..the doc feels like he did exactly what was appropriate and I maintain some control over everything....in the ER decisions are made quickly,sometimes you need to challenge that habit and sometimes the doc is absolutely right.

chris_at_lucas_RN, RN · Apr 28, 2004

Pet Peeves:
4) Families who want to know how "Uncle Jimmy" is doing, become incensed when I quote HIPAA laws to them, and then claim they don't know how to get in touch with the patient's family to as them how he's doing. (Excuse me, but if you don't know how to get in touch with "Uncle Jimmy's" family, perhaps you don't know him well enough to be visiting him in ICU.)
5) People who lie to me about their relationship to the patient. Listen, I really don't care if your divorce was the biggest mistake of your life or not, but if you're not CURRENTLY married to the patient, you have no business signing the surgical consent.
6) People who lie to me about their relationship to the patient part 2 -- I don't care if you're engaged, not engaged, living together or just having a really hot and heavy fling. If the patient gives you POA, you're in. If not, NOT. Period.
7) Families who insist that their needs supersede everyone elses. Even the needs of the patient next door who is coding. Even the needs of their loved one, who hasn't slept in 3 days and really wants a nap right now.

Realizing you are quite serious, I have to tell you--this was funny to read. (Not funny to live, I'm sure, but people can be so, well, funny!)

nursebedlam · Apr 28, 2004

Vomit, i hate vomit, vomit makes me want to vomit.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Apr 28, 2004

The word prostrate. The man did not have a prostrate exam, he had a proSTATE exam.

nursemjb · Apr 28, 2004

The word prostrate. The man did not have a prostrate exam, he had a proSTATE exam.

Yea, and people that call Alzheimers disease, Old Timers. And sometimes people that mispronounce are well educated and they still continue to mispronounce even when it's brought to their attention. Another one I can't stand is - orientate - wrong, it's orient. There are many others....I've had people tell me they were intimidated by my vocabulary.