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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My pet peeve:

Visitors who bring toddlers/small children to the hospital and let them crawl around on the floor while simultaneously stuffing their little hands in their mouths. When you suggest that they might want to hold their child in their lap they look at you as if your stupid. I have to resist the urge to say "OR I could get you a courtesy cup of our specialty, MRSA/CDiff/Ecoli/Pseudomonas, and you can just feed it straight to your little one. " Arrgh! It drives me crazy!

On a more positive note, I work with the best darn group of nurses and CNA's. I am soooo very blessed! O:)

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele/Onc.
Believe me it doesn't matter which shift you work. I work days and the evening shift comes in and will chit-chat for about an hour before they listen to report. We can not leave until they are out of report and on the floor.

Some days I would like to put them on the floor :uhoh3: :angryfire

Yep, it is a culture thing per floor I guess. When I worked MS, we worked 6:45 -7:15 to give 30 minutes of overlap for report. Most morning crew came in 15 - 30 minutes early to get their stuff together. The night shift would be hovering over us to give report. We would say, "Report starts at 6:45, I'll be ready then." But they (not all, but the ones who hovered) would stroll in at 6:50 PM, put their coats away, talk about where they were going out to get lunch at midnight, etc, oblivious to the fact that we wanted to get out of there. We were ready to give report at the appropriate time and they were not.

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele/Onc.

Know-it-all nurses who know everything that management is doing wrong and know how to fix all of it. If they were in charge things would be perfect. They are brilliant, were in med school, or engineering school, or whatever before nursing. Of course, they are working as an LPN or have an ADN. They are also lazy, leave tons of work for the next shift, call in at least once a week, and have lousy skills.

PS, this is NOT a slam against LPNs or ADNs. I've worked with many who are fantastic nurses. This is a slam against these "Highly educated" braggarts whose actual degree attainment doesn't reflect their self-proclaimed knowledge.

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Waiting room people, aka when people who are less sick than others expect vip treatment. Even though they're barely sick

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Oh! Or when family doesn't believe me :) I'm the only one who's in medicine in the family(2 are retired so technically) and they're so naive about it thinking I'm wrong even though I backed it up with facts.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

Patients who have lived in the US for 20 or 30 years and never learned to communicate in English. Last night's patient spoke Mandarin. It so happens that one of our Respiratory Therapists speaks Mandarin. When the patient and his wife became increasingly agitated and we couldn't figure out the problem, the RT went in to try to figure out the problem. Pain control? Thirsty?

The patient and his wife were INCENSED that the nurses "refuse to speak our language." They wanted to place a formal complaint against one of the best nurses we have because she wouldn't speak Mandarin. She got them a translator on the day shift, but that wasn't enough. They wanted nurses on every shift to speak their language.

How about if you're going to live here, you learn to speak some English? At least enough to ask for pain medication, say please and thank you and communicate that you need a complex concept translated?

Which language should we all learn to speak? Hungarian or Croatian for the guy in room 1? Korean for the lady in room 2? Punjabi for 4, Spanish for 8, Arabic for 9 and Russian for 12? In which language should we have hot and cold running nurses?

Guess I'm still pretty fired up!

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Specializes in Peds Urology,primary care, hem/onc.
Patients who have lived in the US for 20 or 30 years and never learned to communicate in English. Last night's patient spoke Mandarin. It so happens that one of our Respiratory Therapists speaks Mandarin. When the patient and his wife became increasingly agitated and we couldn't figure out the problem, the RT went in to try to figure out the problem. Pain control? Thirsty?

The patient and his wife were INCENSED that the nurses "refuse to speak our language." They wanted to place a formal complaint against one of the best nurses we have because she wouldn't speak Mandarin. She got them a translator on the day shift, but that wasn't enough. They wanted nurses on every shift to speak their language.

How about if you're going to live here, you learn to speak some English? At least enough to ask for pain medication, say please and thank you and communicate that you need a complex concept translated?

Which language should we all learn to speak? Hungarian or Croatian for the guy in room 1? Korean for the lady in room 2? Punjabi for 4, Spanish for 8, Arabic for 9 and Russian for 12? In which language should we have hot and cold running nurses?

Guess I'm still pretty fired up!

And in this current patient satisfaction environment, can totally see management coming down hard on the nurses for that! Ugggh I am right there with you! At least make an effort to learn the language and DON'T get angry that the staff does not speak your language! Think if an American was in China all of their nurses all speak ENGLISH???

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Specializes in Med/Surg/ICU/Stepdown.
Patients who have lived in the US for 20 or 30 years and never learned to communicate in English. Last night's patient spoke Mandarin. It so happens that one of our Respiratory Therapists speaks Mandarin. When the patient and his wife became increasingly agitated and we couldn't figure out the problem, the RT went in to try to figure out the problem. Pain control? Thirsty?

The patient and his wife were INCENSED that the nurses "refuse to speak our language." They wanted to place a formal complaint against one of the best nurses we have because she wouldn't speak Mandarin. She got them a translator on the day shift, but that wasn't enough. They wanted nurses on every shift to speak their language.

How about if you're going to live here, you learn to speak some English? At least enough to ask for pain medication, say please and thank you and communicate that you need a complex concept translated?

Which language should we all learn to speak? Hungarian or Croatian for the guy in room 1? Korean for the lady in room 2? Punjabi for 4, Spanish for 8, Arabic for 9 and Russian for 12? In which language should we have hot and cold running nurses?

Guess I'm still pretty fired up!

To that point, foreign nurses that speak their native language in front of US nurses. We have a PCA and an RN on our unit both from Ghana. When they speak to each other, it's never in English, and they do it in front of other English speaking staff. When I've asked them about it and brought to their attention how it could be construed as their being rude, they both laughed and continued on. 😡

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The nurse behind me not restocking the cart. I work in a SNF... I came in last night to a FULL sharps box, TWO insulin syringes, three spoons and a full garbage can. And I had a crazyyy night ahead including 3 piccs, a wound vac, a peg tube etc Etc etc.... Ugh!!!

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Specializes in Psychiatric and emergency nursing.
I hereby christen you a full-blown 'clubmember'. Welcome. It's nice to see that someone is a nurse before they're a nurse...and will be experienced as soon as they don their name-badge... Congrats and high-five!...now pay up! your dues is late!!

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Come to think of it, i DO have another pet-peave...actually it's less than a pet-peave, but it's something that i notice and it kinda makes me giggle...

It's when a student,new-nurse, whatever hangs their shiny new stethescope on their rear-view mirrow(happens from the day a person gets her acceptance letter and purchases her first scope). My wife and i get a big kick out of that...we'll see people driving with one hanging in the mirror (for the world to see of course) ..and usually say in unison 'STUDENT'...followed by a snort or laugh...

'It's kinda cute'..my wife'll say.

(disclaimer:this is not an attack on anyone...student or otherwise...but if you hang your stethescope in your rearview, and drive past a guy smiling..it might just be me!Also, i know not everyone who does this is a student, just seems that most of the 'offenders' are..) :p

I do this, and I've been a nurse for about 2 years now. I do it so if I get pulled over for *probably* speeding to work, I can hopefully get out of a ticket without having to resort to my feminine wiles :)

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Families who refuse to wear isolation gear because "we've already been exposed to it" Yes, but you get in the elevator, vending machines, cafeteria, and maybe stop at Wal Mart on the way home. Unless someone is in there to remind them, they won't even wash their hands before they leave the room. And what's with the kids visiting? Kids put everything in their mouth. We've been exposed more times than we can count, but we still gown and glove and use hand hygiene

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Specializes in Oncology.

You don't graduate as an RN. You graduate with a BSN or ADN and are then granted the opportunity to take the NCLEX. If you pass, the state you applied for licensure in will THEM bestow upon you the coveted RN.

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