What are your biggest pains/ problems as a nurse?

[dma13]

What are some of your biggest pains or problems you encounter in your day-to-day work as a nurse? What are some of the annoying/ tedious/ redundant parts of your job you wish you could change? It could be anything, whatever makes you tick and wish would be improved/ made better. It could also be non-work related as well.

thanks for your time, your input is much appreciated!

[kakamegamama]

Change the word "menagerie" in my first post to "manager". However, there were times working on the floor felt like I was working in a menagerie........

[purplegal]

Mine are similar to those listed above:

1. Unappreciative and/or abusive patients. Sometimes, all I ever hear all night is complaint after complaint.

2. Aides who refuse to help out with certain assignments. Some of the aides where I work refuse to work with certain patients because they are "too difficult" or "take too long," leaving everything on the nurse.

3. Always being short staffed

4. Always getting out late...and by late, I mean HOURS late. Constantly.

5. Constant fear of being mandated.

[annabanana2]

Clients who care less about their health than I do.

Like, you came to me for wound care in the hopes of healing your disgusting gigantic lower leg ulcer, right? And we agree that I'm not a fairy godmother? So you might actually have to do things like wear the compression I put you in (yes even though you can't wear your favourite shoes with it) and control your diabetes and show up to your appointments on time. God forbid, right?

And then somehow clients are mad at ME when they don't do anything I tell them to do and SHOCKER their wounds don't heal. Really?

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

The customer service mentality. Patient care ought to come before customer service. In other words, the safety and health of my patients ought to come before the coddling of visitors.

[Caroline123]

EXACTLY!!!

Shut the hell up and do your own dang job.

[scthomas93]

OMG!! Therapy really works my nerves!! always trying to diagnose patients

[aspiringrn1987]

You hit the nail on the head...

I worked at a specialty rehabilitation hospital for six years. Some of the physical and occupational therapists were wonderful. Others...not so much.

The busybody PTs/OTs were steadily stepping into the realm of medical diagnoses when they lacked the training or privileges to do so. They were insisting that the nurses obtain orders for UAs, chest xrays, I&O caths, and so forth.

If the nurse does not interfere in the PT's/OT's personalized treatment plan to help the patient regain function, then the PT/OT should not meddle with the RN's judgment and plan of care.

This is actually the joke I make while I roll my eyes. They walk away and I am like "tomorrow I am definitely going down to therapy and telling them what exercises to do, that they aren't working in the legs hard enough, the patient has gotten weaker by MY assessment so we need to do whatever I think". But wait, I would never do that. Because I do not hold a degree in physical therapy. Which is probably evident by the fact that my statements sounded ridiculous. 😂😂😂

[HeySis, BSN, RN]

The two things that gets my knickers in a bunch every time...

1. When nurses on other units think they are busier then you and are asking me to look up things they could be looking up themselves, it takes the same amount of time, or longer for me to search the chart and tell you as it takes for you to search the chart yourself.

We are all busy, We are all doing the best we can for our patients.

If I call report and your busy, I'll wait a bit. If you get on the phone and sound out of breath, I'll ask if you need a minute to grab a pen or pull the patient up and I'll give it to you.

If I know the answer, I'll certainly tell you, but I give you all the relevant info I know in report.

2. When the other nurse keeps interrupting my report to ask questions, or to talk to other people.

I'll get there and when I'm done, I'll ask if you have any other questions. Report takes way longer when you keep going back and forth randomly. Our facility has an agreed upon order for report, so jumping around makes it harder.

Report will go a lot faster and I wouldn't have to repeat something I already said, but they were holding another conversation.

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

1) Supplies are not stocked

2) Management is out of touch with the bedside nurses

3) Staffing is cut (see #1)

4) Lack of consistency (see #1)

5) Lack of accountability

6) Rude patients and family members

[nutella, MSN, RN]

My biggest pain is that I am super tired in the morning in winter and that I have to get up early to avoid the rush in am in my house.

Otherwise I have to say that I have the best job I can imagine and that I work for an organization that values and supports nurses. My team colleagues are great and I am lucky enough to work at a hospital that does not have a punitive culture and where nurses care about and for the patient, I can feel that patients are not just a task or number.

[susummers1]

I agree with most everything I have read!

1. Managers who are so out of touch

2. short staffing

3. rude patients and families

4. double charting

5.the constant audits that show areas for improvement but no one is held accountable so it stays the same forever and people continue pointless audits.

Probably could go on and on! To end on a positive note though one thing I love is nursing sense of humor!!

[CCU BSN RN]

In addition to the above

1. Physicians who deny/refuse to acknowledge when a patient is declining until they actually crump/code/require intubation, etc. Often interns/residents who are too scared to call their attending. And I'll go over their head and call the attending myself, but I have to notify them first, let them see patient, formulate a plan. These things all take time. I had a patient with new onset symptomatic bradycardia to the 20's and no IV access. I told the intern and resident that she needed a central line before she coded. They wasted over half an hour asking me to repeatedly page IV therapy, asking if we could get IO access, etc. I'm pretty sure because they weren't comfortable with the procedure of putting a central line in and didn't want to call the fellow. The patient VT arrested. She lived and was fine, but COME ON. This happens to a lesser degree fairly often, this happens to be an extreme example, I'll admit.

2. 'Informed Consent'. People consenting 95 year old patients for open heart surgery and brushing over the risks and complications. I have had countless patients who end up circling the drain and slowly dying over the course of months postop. I don't care if she's a 'good 95'. All lives end in death. The elderly, especially those with co-morbid conditions DO NOT bounce back from open heart surgery like a 60 year old. They have CVAs, their kidneys fail, they get septic, they get delirious, they get ischemic gut and end up with an ostomy, they can't wean from the vent and end up trached and pegged. We spend millions of dollars on their care and they spend the last weeks or months of their lives miserable and much worse off than they were pre-op.

3. Patients who think that the best way to tell if they moved their bowels is to stick a hand into their butt and see if it comes up wet. I'll never trust a handshake again. A side question, anyone have any magic tricks for scrubbing fecal matter from underneath someone's fingernails?