What is your biggest nursing pet peeve?

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Nurses that are brilliant but do not know the difference between contraindication and contradiction! :rotfl:

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Specializes in OB (with a history of cardiac).
Little kids whose parents have not firmly established who is the parent/rule maker. Had a 6-year-old brought in last week, 103+ fever (give something at home?? Heavens no!!), and when I went in to give some Tylenol, said child refused to swallow it because it tasted "too disgusting!" He whined, refused, slapped at his mother, and said, "NO! And that's my final answer!" Parents both look at me helplessly. What I'd like to do is have a moment, just me and pt, and believe me that Tylenol would get down. I mean, what do you do here??

:devil: ask lil' junior if he knows what a "suppository" is.

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Ok I'm not a nurse yet but here's my biggest pet peeve from the other side of the hospital bed so to speak . . .

I had just delivered my 2nd pregnancy - b/g twins. Our girl had anencephaly ( which we knew since the 1 st trimester). Anyway, I'm sitting in the hospital bed holding my daughter and nursing my son - knowing full well that my daughter will die at some point but trying to live in that moment-one of the few moments where I was the mother of twins, trying my best to take care of both of my babies - and the nurses walk in and ask if my son has peed, if my son has pooped, if my son has nursed and how long. No one asked how my daughter was doing, if we were able to get any milk in her, if she had peed or pooped. HELLO, I just had TWO babies. I know you're uncomfortable and scared I'm going to fall apart but think how you'd want your child treated. She was not a monster - very beautiful even with her hat off which it wasn't often.

In the same regard . . . the hospital assigned pediatrician walks in while my daughter is deteriorating and we thought she was about to pass . . . We assumed the nurses sent for him and started updating him on our daughter . . . He strides to our son in the bassinet and tells us, "no I'm not here for her. I'm here for the healthy baby." He actually wanted me to divert my attention from my daughter to my son when we really thought my daughter was about to die.

Don't get me wrong - I knew my daughter's prognosis and the reality of the situation and what it meant and i know the medical establishment's view on anencephalics. Regardless of the medical establishments view that I should have aborted her and the fact that she wouldn't survive - she was my child and a human being and was not treated that way by most of the nurses and doctors.

By the way, she was not on life support but we were able to feed her with a habberman bottle . . . She lived 33 days and died in her sleep- at home on my chest.

God bless you and your children! Thank you so much for sharing. I remember sitting in my Embryology/anatomy class in undergrad while our prof showed us photos of newborns w/ anencephaly and provided explanations, I had to fight hard not to shed too many tears. God bless you

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Specializes in Psych.

When I start to eat my snack/meal and the nurse beside me asks for some of it. "Um....no"

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
But what do you consider as 'old'? Just curious.

"old" is when you start making mistakes (that you have never made before) and start forgetting things. By then you need to retire! When I was a tech there was a nurse that I would work with (sometimes) whom was in her 60's. She starting making med errors...

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Specializes in Medical.

I work with a nurse inher late sixties - full time, tertiary level care, fewer med errros than the ward average by a country mile :)

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Specializes in Long term care, rehab.

My biggest pet peeve...my family! I am the only one in the medical field of any kind so they all ask me EVERYTHING!!! Things that I never wanted to know, we are not robots, what we are told does affect us. The best part is they never even believe me when I give an answer. Why ask if you have no intention of listening? And then there is the look of sheer shock when they return from their MD office and I was right. It's just lovely!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

Racklebrown, I hate it when family/friends ask you medical questions, then u give them advice - and then they don't listen or follow it.

I don't get into this 'help me' attitude now - can't be bothered. I just say you must see your own doctor, & change the subject.

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Specializes in Long term care, rehab.
Nurses as a customer service representatives. :(

I don't know if anyone else is aware but, in nursing the customer always being correct, leads to patients that at best do not get better. If they knew all the answers they wouldn't need us. My favorite example; my trach patient that has dysphagia and is therefore NPO. The family that agreed and even wanted these things now continues to bring said patient liters of Mountain Dew and all the snacks he can hide. Makes me wonder why we bother at times.

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Right now...... EVERYTHING!

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"old" is when you start making mistakes (that you have never made before) and start forgetting things. By then you need to retire! When I was a tech there was a nurse that I would work with (sometimes) whom was in her 60's. She starting making med errors...

My grandma is 97, and can carry on a good conversation :) (she's not a nurse, so probably not a candidate to test out her skills :D Plus she gags at gross stuff :down:

I think that a nurse needs to be off the floor BEFORE med errors, or memory issues. But ya know, it's hard :) I've been on disability for the last 7 years- and I miss working- a LOT. :o

It isn't easy to change from working to not -working.

Before the older ones leave= pick their brains as much as you can. You wouldn't believe how we did things even 25 years ago, No accucheks, NO computers of any kind, no pagers, etc. I guarantee that if the lights went out, and there was a fossil-nurse, and 4 new-to-fairly-new nurses (

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Ok I'm not a nurse yet but here's my biggest pet peeve from the other side of the hospital bed so to speak . . .

I had just delivered my 2nd pregnancy - b/g twins. Our girl had anencephaly ( which we knew since the 1 st trimester). Anyway, I'm sitting in the hospital bed holding my daughter and nursing my son - knowing full well that my daughter will die at some point but trying to live in that moment-one of the few moments where I was the mother of twins, trying my best to take care of both of my babies - and the nurses walk in and ask if my son has peed, if my son has pooped, if my son has nursed and how long. No one asked how my daughter was doing, if we were able to get any milk in her, if she had peed or pooped. HELLO, I just had TWO babies. I know you're uncomfortable and scared I'm going to fall apart but think how you'd want your child treated. She was not a monster - very beautiful even with her hat off which it wasn't often.

In the same regard . . . the hospital assigned pediatrician walks in while my daughter is deteriorating and we thought she was about to pass . . . We assumed the nurses sent for him and started updating him on our daughter . . . He strides to our son in the bassinet and tells us, "no I'm not here for her. I'm here for the healthy baby." He actually wanted me to divert my attention from my daughter to my son when we really thought my daughter was about to die.

Don't get me wrong - I knew my daughter's prognosis and the reality of the situation and what it meant and i know the medical establishment's view on anencephalics. Regardless of the medical establishments view that I should have aborted her and the fact that she wouldn't survive - she was my child and a human being and was not treated that way by most of the nurses and doctors.

By the way, she was not on life support but we were able to feed her with a habberman bottle . . . She lived 33 days and died in her sleep- at home on my chest.

:hug: :bby: :bby:

I'm so glad you had those 33 days :) I'm so sorry that she wasn't treated with the respect she deserved from the HCPs that you had. I floated to NICU one time, and one of my assigned kids was microcephalic; they had the biggest hat in the joint on his little head. Whan it came time to bottle feed him, I picked him up and held him. The charge nurse came by and said "Thank you for doing that "

What else was I supposed to do? :confused: He was deserving of exactly what the others were getting in the cuddle department. :)

I know those memories of your little girl are precious :hug:

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Specializes in Nephrology.

Nurses who look down on aides and won't take their advice or guidance on anything, even if they have a ton of experience, but the get angry when a doctor doesn't take their advice or looks down on them. Do onto others.....just sayin

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