What Patients do to make you mad!

[MichaelFloridaRN]

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

[Lorie P.]

When a pt that is A,A & O x4 calls and says I need a nurse now!! get in the room and pt says could you get me my water right there on the table. Smile and say, no, you are suppose to be doing those type activities for yourself so you can get better and get back home!

Then leave the room and swearing under my breath.

Or the ones that say, I haven't slept all night was in too much pain, no came to see about me, yet this is the same pt that you can here snoring even though the door is closed and when was assessed at beggining of shift" Denies, any pain, discomfort and says I am just fine!'

[scattycarrot, BSN, RN]

A very drunk 17yr old girl who was 20+weeks pregnant(and found as a drunk collaspe somewhere), who was moaning loudly about waiting to be seen and also about the old lady, with dementia who was making a noise in the bay next to her. I silenced her with one of my most deadly 'Im a ER nurse, don't mess me with looks' and told her to keep her mouth shut. Which she did.....

All the drunk patients who are so drunk that they are incontinent every hour till they wake up. Heehee....I shouldn't admit this as I might get flamed but the ER where I worked has been known to take photos of the patients with their mobile phones while all dressed up in their incontinence diapers. Mean maybe....but I think clearing up their urine and whatever else gives us some leeway and latitude.

[not now, RN]

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.)

Depending on how fine the lines are and how many colors were involved most will look like big blobs. I"ll have a bunch of blue and green blobs (flowers) down my back and a ring of black dots around my ankle (music notes).

[abooker]

I feel frustrated with a LOL (yes, I fully acknowledge and respect her personhood) who believes everything is better if the nurse does it.

"I want the nurse to put me on the bedpan"

"I want the nurse to adjust my blinds"

"Could you ask the nurse to get me some ice?"

I had a looooong discussion with her about why I wouldn't transfer her from wheelchair to bed. She is a two-person transfer with severe right side weakness, and thought that because I was the nurse I could make up for two CNAs. She told my supervisor that I refused to help transfer her.

The kicker is, this lady used to be a nurse.

[nghtfltguy, BSN, RN]

ok..... back to a regular post on this thread ...

had a pt once.... that got really.. really combative en route to the hospital...

he was on the backboard.. spider straps.. c-collor and all that... did a houdini and started flailing about... including kicking the pilots chair then the pilot in the head..

scariest night of my life.. we could not get him under control... and in a panic...

he got some sux~ paralyzed w/out a drs order.... yes i did it.. and i would do it again..

the drs in the er backed me up and gave me a standing order.. that i can do that any time i want~~.. chemical restraining of a pt can be viewed as unethical.. or life saving~

[leslie :-D]

ok..... back to a regular post on this thread ...

had a pt once.... that got really.. really combative en route to the hospital...

he was on the backboard.. spider straps.. c-collor and all that... did a houdini and started flailing about... including kicking the pilots chair then the pilot in the head..

scariest night of my life.. we could not get him under control... and in a panic...

he got some sux~ paralyzed w/out a drs order.... yes i did it.. and i would do it again..

the drs in the er backed me up and gave me a standing order.. that i can do that any time i want~~.. chemical restraining of a pt can be viewed as unethical.. or life saving~

sorry, guy.

but i wanna go back to, "what patients do to make you mad".

at least it's on topic.

if you choose to start a thread about heroics, go for it.

leslie

[eastxlvn]

:angryfirewow too many to name probally! well i work on medsurg so...

1. pts thats no matter what you do to try and make them happy still treat you like ****.

2. when a doctor admits his routine drug addicts with diagnosis of migrane and they come to the floor smiling and laughing.

3. when the first thing they say to you before you can even do their admission assessment is "i havent eaten all day, can i have something to eat" and its like midnight.

4. very young mothers who's young children get admitted and all they care about is if someone can watch their kid so they can go smoke, which is probally why the child has asthma and pneumonia in the first place

5.family members of pt's are many times worse than the pt, i hate when they expect you to "keep a real close eye on them" becasue the pt is confused and the family dosent want to sit with them and then they fall and break their hip or somthing because your busy with your other 10 pts!

6. one doctor in particular that admits a 28 yr old female with diagnosis of constipation and then she eats a box of cheese nips two snicker bars after shes supposed to be NPO and he dosent seem to mind that she is on a morphine PCA pump for "breast pain" so then i have to give her enema after enema cuz hes a dumbass!

[nghtfltguy, BSN, RN]

on a second note.. which i didn't mention.. on how serious the situation was....

i injected it iv..... via the jugular... almost blindly..in a helicopter...

he did have some serious jvd goin on... i did it one handed cause i was pinning his head down w/ my other hand........ he made it... we made it... he is still in prison to this day and i am a nurse..... i was a flight paramedic @ the time......

[nghtfltguy, BSN, RN]

lol leslie~~

i swear.. i will bust out the paralytics on ya... i have a standing order!

HE MADE ME MAD... THUS I KNOCKED HIM OUT~~

[donsterRN, ASN, BSN]

ok..... back to a regular post on this thread ...

had a pt once.... that got really.. really combative en route to the hospital...

he was on the backboard.. spider straps.. c-collor and all that... did a houdini and started flailing about... including kicking the pilots chair then the pilot in the head..

scariest night of my life.. we could not get him under control... and in a panic...

he got some sux~ paralyzed w/out a drs order.... yes i did it.. and i would do it again..

the drs in the er backed me up and gave me a standing order.. that i can do that any time i want~~.. chemical restraining of a pt can be viewed as unethical.. or life saving~

That must have been horrific. I love to fly, but not if the pilot's getting his head kicked in by an idiot in restraints!

That had to have been very frightening.

[nghtfltguy, BSN, RN]

ok.. leslie~~

NON COMPLIANT pts that do not know what is in thier best interest....

better???

[nghtfltguy, BSN, RN]

thank you don...

it was freakin nuts...

i was sure all 3 of us were gonna die...