What Patients do to make you mad!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I seldom loose it over my patients. One thing however gets me every time.

When a patient, even more so if they are not old, has no teeth, and mumbles so you can not understand them even after asking them to repeat for something the fifth time, gets all mad at you for not being able to understand them.:trout:

If they are 20 and have no teeth because they did too much meth it makes me loose it even more! I had one little crackhead tell me the other day she lost all her teeth because of bad genes at age 20, funny part was that only the front ones were affected by this genetic defect !

Don't get me wrong, I will take best possible care of anyone, regardless of their bad choices in life, but some things get beyond absurd and make you want to pull your hair out!:angryfire

Specializes in ER.

Sounds appropriate to me bethin. (ROTFL!)

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Specializes in ER.

These things don't really make me angry... but frustrates the heck outta me..

4 Things

1: patients who consistently take themselves off of every monitor i have put them on... 5-6 times again and again!!!! They are there for a reason!!:angryfire

2: Patients who tell me one story then Resident another than Attending another....GRRR !!:angryfire

3: Parents who bring in 3-4 kids all at once (to the ER) for N/V/D and they are eating Flamin Hots and drinking pop running around terrorizing the ER... and mom has a lady partsl bleeding problem!!!! :angryfire

4: Patients who come in at 1:00 am for random complaint..not emergent at all.. (stubbed toe) and then complain after 10 mins about how long it will be.... And then ask me EXACTLY how many pt are before them and EXACTLY how long will they be waiting!!!:angryfire

There are lots more but these guys take the majority of the cake!! :lol2:

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

sexual harassment always tees me off! i've had more than one male patient make a grab for my boobs. one middle-aged guy who didn't have the excuse of being confused made a grab at me when a colleague and i were pulling him up in bed. the colleague (who just happened to be my husband) intercepted the hand and told him "that's my wife you're grabbing for, friend. try that again and you won't be using that hand again for a very long time."

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Specializes in ER, Occupational.

I hate when patients walk through the ER door asking, "when do you serve dinner around here?" They drove by a ton of restaurants on the way here, but of course, they want something for free.

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Specializes in ICU, School Nurse, Med/Surg, Psych.

I've got tears rolling down my cheeks and I can't breath!! Too funny!! I thought that I had run accross some reall losers in my 13 years! THat takes the cake!!

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Specializes in ED, ICU, Heme/Onc.
Oh my, LOOSE IT???, loose as in loose pants???? OR lose as in lose your cool???

AND "I'm glad he died" ?? What in the world??

Just say that I am truly shocked!

Hey, take it easy. She was venting on an anonymous forum. This person assaulted her with his own colostomy bag. Even the most "angelic" of us "angels to the afflicted" might feel the same. ;)

Blee

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Specializes in ED, ICU, Heme/Onc.
I hate when patients walk through the ER door asking, "when do you serve dinner around here?" They drove by a ton of restaurants on the way here, but of course, they want something for free.

It's usually the sweet looking LOLs strapped to a backboard after the wind blows their shopping carts on top of them. They try to wiggle out of the backboard (I know, they are uncomfortable) - despite my frequent reminders that the doctor has to examine them first - then they start shouting for a bedpan and a meal tray at the same time!

I just have to bite back the giggles (they are quite inappropriate) when a patient goes through their litany of medical issues, I ask "why did you come to the ER *today*" and they say earnestly "I haven't eaten a thing all day or taken my meds, when's lunch?".... (I do ask if they have food in the house or have enough meds to take - and when I get an "oh yes, dearie" to my questions, I feel the corners of my mouth start to twitch uncontrollably!!

Blee

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Oh my, LOOSE IT???, loose as in loose pants???? OR lose as in lose your cool???

AND "I'm glad he died" ?? What in the world??

Just say that I am truly shocked!

Oh, PLEASE!!:lol2::lol2::lol2:

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sexual harassment always tees me off! i've had more than one male patient make a grab for my boobs. one middle-aged guy who didn't have the excuse of being confused made a grab at me when a colleague and i were pulling him up in bed. the colleague (who just happened to be my husband) intercepted the hand and told him "that's my wife you're grabbing for, friend. try that again and you won't be using that hand again for a very long time."

that is pretty good. it is kinda cool that the person helping you would be the person who would get the second maddest if he grabbed you (you being the person to get the maddest)

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Specializes in subacute/ltc.
That reminds me of something not patient related. How about those young people with multiple piercings, tatoos up the yin yang, multi colored hair, weird clothes. You look at them a little longer than you would normally and they cry "What are you staring at??????"

Anyone else who works LTC ever wonder with all the tats and piercings what admit skin assessments will look like in the future? I can just hear it now "I'm sorry Ma'am I has no idea that was a dolphin":o (I was busy looking for Ishmael, thought I had already spotted Ahab.)

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Oh yes I would have been too but I would NEVER say something like that.[/quote']

Meh. If a patient purposefully sprayed feces in my face he would have died that very day.

Posts like yours are the reasons why there is a nursing shortage and no one wants to enter the profession. We are expected to eat poo and do it with a smile.

No thanks.

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Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

The patients who miss appointments and then come into the clinic demanding to have their meds refilled despite being told they'd have to be seen and having missed 2-3 appointments. When they are told no: "If something happens to me it will be all your fault!!" :angryfire

One lady called and said her husband was falling at home. She couldn't bring him in to be seen because of no transportation. (They lived in the next town). There actually was free transportation available, but they wouldn't take it because the little bus didn't run exactly on their schedule (they might have to sit and wait 30 minutes for another patient to be done). We suggested that she call EMS to come check him since we didn't know why he was falling and it could have been a number of different things, including something serious. No, she didn't want to call EMS. In fact, she "knew" why he was falling; it had to be that blood pressure medicine (though of course she hadn't checked his BP) and all she needed me to do was OK her to not give it. When I said no, I couldn't do that without his being further evaluated, "If something happens to him it will be all your fault." :angryfire (Hubby was hypertensive, diabetic, and epileptic, but the BP med just had to be the culprit).

Can you tell this irritates me??

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