What HAVE you said to patients???

annister · Apr 13, 2011

When my Baker Act patient (accidental OD) asked why He couldn't have the wall clock in his room, I said "they are afraid you'll be in here killing time" before thinking. I thought the sitter was going to fall out of his chair.

Patient thought it pretty damn funny. I always thought that was a dumb thing to remove, considering that between the O2 tubing, IV tubing, Electrical sockets, etc. would be far more enticing equipment in the interest of causing bodily harm than an 8 inch wall clock.

belgarion · Apr 13, 2011

Pt: rant, rant, rave, rave...and I don't even like you.
Me: I don't like you either. (oops, it slipped out before I could stop it but that shut the patient up and fetched me apologies from said patient)

I said something similar recently. A very whiney, obnoxious male patient whose main problem was laziness had been verbally abusing all the female nurses for a couple of days. Several of them had told him they weren't going to be talked to that way and a couple wouldn't even go into his room. I drew him on my first night back after his admission. Towards the end of the shift after he had been on the call light every 10 minutes with emergencies such as changing the channel, raising/lowering the head of the bed, could I hold the urinal for him, etc. he said, "you're the only one hasn't gotten mad at me or talked mean to me. Those women just don't understand how sick I am and I don't think they like me much." I told him I didn't like him any better than they did but Confucious said there is no point to trying to carve a rotten piece of wood.

TravelJinx · Apr 13, 2011

OMG that's such The Awesome Response!

:beer: