What is your Nursing Kryptonite?

You know, your weakness ... your one "thing" that makes your stomach flip over when you see a patient with it/them/whatever. I had my first "maggot" patient recently (maggots living where they shouldn't be, you understand), and it really grossed many of my coworkers out. I was relieved to find that the maggots didn't bother me ... apparently my only Achilles heel thus far is nasty dentures, LOL -- EWWWWW.

When I was a tech, I had a nurse offer me $5 to suction a patient because sputum makes her queasy.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

My kryptonite is lady partsl prolapse; I had a pt during nursing school that had osteomyelitis, on a support bed, and I to perform peri care and saw IT.

That is my greatest fear. :eek:

I remember having to straight cath a lady whose uterus lay on the bed between her legs. She would just shove it back in most the time and was waiting for insurance to approve a hysterectomy (??)Ya a bit of kryptonite there.......

Specializes in Medical-Surgical.

I have a weird phobia about fingernails. After a bad experience involving cleaning feces from under a patients fingernails (very tricky task), I always get grossed out when I see dirty fingernails. Really long fingernails creep me out too.

Specializes in retired LTC.

When you speak of trachs with identifiable suction goop, I think of colostomies with easily identified dinner contents. Esp if it is 'problem' colostomy, like one that has blown out or is in one of those difficult abdominal folds.

Toenails that curl over & under. I call them '911 toenails'. I also find those ridiculously long fingernails the grossest. They look like claws on crabs/shellfish. And not to be nasty, but how do they manage hygiene when they go to the bathroom??

It can be silly or serious. Just what task or patient type is it that really pushes your buttons irrationally?

I can handle most any task handed to me as long as it doesn't involve dentures. I suspect this is because I had a couple different family members that would chase me around with their dentures when I was little and would use them to terrify me. To this day I just can't. I can digitally remove stool from a patient or handle their sputum and not bat an eye but if they need me to handle their dentures I have to put on the biggest of my big girl nurse panties and really put my mind in a special place to do it.

As far as patient types go, I used to think my weakness was OBGYN and pediatrics-- but I quickly came to realize that it was just a matter of educating myself and I found myself not nervous while caring for these populations.

But no matter how much educating myself I do, I seem to have emotional bias against obese patients and their families when they remain non-compliant and refuse to take any ownership in the position they have found themselves in. To paint a picture of the scenario I'm talking about; When you have a 40 something year old very obese patient and family who get extremely angry with the healthcare team when we aren't able to undo 40+ years of abuse done to their body with one procedure or hospital visit. When they buck and refuse nearly all of the interventions we offer (a heart healthy diet and the family sneaks in 2 fast food meals every day, non-smoking policies and the patient sneaks off the floor coming back reeking of smoke) and then get angry when they aren't in much better shape on discharge than admission. I KNOW I have this bias against this type of scenario and it takes conscious effort to ensure that I give just as good of care to them as any other patient. These patients make me irrationally angry and get under my skin like no other. I seem to take it personally when things don't go well. Again, I think much of this comes back to my own personal fears regarding my own parents being very unhealthy people and their unwillingness to acknowledge their contribution to their health problems.

There are all kinds of patient scenarios that annoy me (asthmatic kids coming in several times a month with parent's 'unable to afford' their Rx but perfectly able to afford the cigs they chain smoke in the closed car with their kids inside) but I don't really think those are as irrational. I think MOST people would be annoyed by them. I want to know what scenarios get under your skin in a "disproportionate to stressor" type of way.

The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is to self-acknowledge these areas and be prepared for them and make sure at the end of the day you can say that regardless of your emotions, you treated the situation as you would have treated any other situation. How do you deal with these weaknesses?

You should report the parents of asthmatic kids who force smoke on those kids to Child Protective Services. That is abuse.

As for those who can't yet help themselves or their family members by changing their bad habits - gently let them know how much you do care, how much you really want to help. Don't criticize them or express frustration, but do let them know you care and will be there if and when they are ready or interested. Don't spend a lot of energy or time trying to counsel or teach if people just aren't ready. No need to ruin your own health.

Not much in life bothers me but when turd-matter has crustified between the ball-sack of an old man for weeks on end it can be pretty rough. Especially if your the first to lift the flood-gate and the roaring river of analscrotum comes rushing to your nostrils.

First time that happened to me I visualized Lex Luthor stabbing me in the ribs with that crystal of kryptonite on super man returns (otherwise that movie sucked)

I'm not a nurse yet, but I've worked for 4 years as a PCA with trached and vented kids, and I LOVE the suctioning lol. I'm only allowed to suction the mouth and nose, but it's my favorite when I get a long thick string with the BBG.

The only thing that has really gotten to me so far was during clinical this semester: a patient of one of my classmates had a huge abdominal wound closed with these gnarly retention bars that looked like a giant metal panel on the stomach. I don't know what it was about it, but I got goosebumps and my heart started racing at the sight of it.

Patient/Employer Behavior: Discrimination based on using the English language for communication purposes.

I actually agree - of all the quads I've taken care of, I can only think of two of them that I liked. I get that they HAVE to be assertive about what they need because they can't do it for themselves, but I really hate that bossy attitude. A please, a thank you, or a smile goes a long way.

Or just anyone who starts barking orders the second I walk in the door for the first time. That's going to bias me against them for the rest of the shift. I would really like the first thing a patient says to me to be "hello" or some other sort of acknowledgement that I am a new person and not the same person who was in the room before, or really that I'm a human being at all and not just a mindless drone who exists only to serve them.

I second this. I can literally handle any gross or gory task you can throw at me without batting an eyelash. But interpersonal relations with difficult family members gets under my skin far too often. It is my Nursing Kryptonite. And I find that the older I get, the less I care about keeping the peace with those kinds of people. Unfortunately in the current workplace that might get me fired someday....

Specializes in Trauma Surgery.

Haha I love this! Can I just go ahead and fill this out with my list? LOL!

1. Trachs, definitely trachs. I cannot handle sputum and this is why I'm not an RT.

Which also kind of brings me to another point- you have a trach or are intubated? Just stop trying to talk and mouth words because I can't understand trachonese or entrachonese lol!

2. Patients who have tubed that are vented and honk every 30 seconds even with being heavily sedated or on pain drips. JESUS. CHRIST. I can hear it in my sleep.

3.Hovery and rude families that want to bug you at the worst possible times. Oh I'm sorry, let me go ahead and leave my agitated patient alone who is trying to get out of bed and pull out his ET tube because you have come out of your parent's room for the second time because they want a third orange sherbet. I'll get right on that.

4. Patients that have a lot of family members. Please people, my patient literally just arrive 5 minutes ago and there is 10 of you in the waiting room. This is an ICU, not a coffee shop to socialize!!

5. Patients who are not tubed, sedated, and restrained... Most days ha!

6. Demented patients who try to get out of bed every 5 minutes and moan/repeat the same things over and over again. After awhile, it gets a bit annoying.

7. Patients who are whiny no matter what you do/use the call light every 5 minutes/negative nellies.

8. OB/GYN/Peds patients. Nopenopenopenope.

9. People who say that they are "family members" to the patient but aren't. Please, get out of the room and stop asking 21 questions.

10. People who say they are a "nurse" or in the "medical field" and want information on the patient then have no idea what the heck you're talking about... Just stop.

Hmm... Maybe I should switch professions (HAH! Just kidding, I love being a nurse :) )

Specializes in clinic, ortho/neuro, trauma, college.

Ugh, mouth care. It's so important, but it's SO gross. I don't mind changing an ostomy appliance, but I do mind suctioning. The canister on the wall that contains all the sputum? My worst nightmare. Seeing all that yellow stuff move up the suction tube....dead.

Also, a good cough on a trached patient, and the sputum spills out over the opening. Kill me now.

LOL. My community rotation was home hospice, and we had a bearded lady (with a DISGUSTING fungating SCC wound--her ear came *thisclose* to falling off, but that's a different story...). Her goatee was pretty robust, and all those wiry white hairs were at least 1.5" long. She started getting closer to the end and the primary nurse asked the HHA to give her a shave.

I thought the shaving was a bit undignified for someone on her literal deathbed, and she was a little befuddled by it herself. She did really look a lot better afterwards.

When optho comes to examine a baby for retinal hemmorhages and then stick that metal retractor IN THEIR EYE. UNSEDATED. Just no!

I watched my father-in-law get injections into his eyes for macular degeneration - once a month for 6 months. It was tough to watch plus my FIL had mild-to-moderate dementia. I really didn't think the injections were necessary. :no:

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