Whats your biggest pet peeve working in the ED?

Specialties Emergency

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Id have to say my biggest pet peeve is when someone hands you a medicaid card as they pull it from their Louis Vuitton handbag with bling on their hands after having rolled up to the ER in their Mercedes Benz! After that I'd say when someone comes to the ER for a UPT. Dont they know they are available at the dollar store now adays?

Alright, it's been 9 weeks on orientation, and I've developed another peeve: Patients being dumped on me while I have a fresh patient to complete orders on. And sometimes the patients, either the ones I'm settling or the new patients, are chest painers or SOBers. If the new patients are ESI 4 or 5, then it wouldn't peeve me, but chest pain or SOB can be anything.

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My biggest pet peeve is with management and the new rule of having our ER pt's with admit orders, be placed in their rooms upstairs within 30 minutes of getting the bed assignment. We don't have transporters or extra staff to cover our other pt's. How they expect this to happen, I don't know. All I know is I have never been able to accomplish that rule. Personally I really don't care if my times are too long, I know all my patients are being cared for, and when I get the chance to transport that patient, I will.

Michele RN

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

This is my favorite: went in to discharge a pt (mid 30's), she's on the phone with her Dad complaining that they're discharging her. She hands me the phone and he starts yelling at me that she needs someone to rub her back and he isn't going to do it so I had to keep her to rub her back till she felt better. I tried explaining that the doctor had seen her and she was being discharged. Then he started swearing at me, didn't even bother telling him to stop just hung up the phone. Then I gave her the discharge papers and told her she could wait in the lobby for her ride. We had pts in gurneys in the hallway. She was a major PIA!

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.
One of biggest pet peeves is a parent coming in with a small child / infant with a fever saying s/he could not afford the tylenol. The parent smokes a pack-a-day.

DC

Or the husband who is yelling at staff cause his wife is SOB...for three days....and on O2....and he smokes a pack a day. Sigh.

And of course the people who are covered in piercings and tats but cry when you start an IV.

But I did have a great Mom who's 17 yr old had been taking someone else's adderall. The ER doc said it was basically meth but the kid should be fine. The mom looked at her son and told him..."stop mething around"!! Twas the funniest thing ever.

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.
My biggest pet peeve is with management and the new rule of having our ER pt's with admit orders, be placed in their rooms upstairs within 30 minutes of getting the bed assignment. We don't have transporters or extra staff to cover our other pt's. How they expect this to happen, I don't know. All I know is I have never been able to accomplish that rule. Personally I really don't care if my times are too long, I know all my patients are being cared for, and when I get the chance to transport that patient, I will.

Michele RN

Especially when you try to call report and the floor nurse is too busy to take report. Like we have a choice when we get our patients.

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And of course the people who are covered in piercings and tats but cry when you start an IV.

1) You are comparing three entirely different things, three entirely different sensations.

2) You dont stop blood flow with tattoos or piercings.

3) You don't draw tubes of blood or put anything directly into the bloodstream with tattoos or piercings.

4) Half the time I get a nurse that pokes me at least 5 times before they get a vein, half the time they have to poke me somewhere on my hand instead after poking me several times on my arm.

5) My guess is you dont have any tattoos or piercings.

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Not sure what happened to my post. But I have tattoos and used to have piercings. I don't whine or cry when I need bloodwork done or an IV. I figure if I can handle pain for decoration, I can certainly handle it for my health.

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

1) You are comparing three entirely different things, three entirely different sensations.

2) You dont stop blood flow with tattoos or piercings.

3) You don't draw tubes of blood or put anything directly into the bloodstream with tattoos or piercings.

4) Half the time I get a nurse that pokes me at least 5 times before they get a vein, half the time they have to poke me somewhere on my hand instead after poking me several times on my arm.

5) My guess is you dont have any tattoos or piercings.

Ha ha how's the view on top of that high horse of yours?? Not that it matters but I have six tattoos and have had everything from the bellybutton up pierced at one point in my life. Nice try for trying to explain why people whine like babies when getting an IV. I know it's different sensations, but I've also had IV's and even let the phlebotomy students practice on me since I have pasty white skin and glow in the dark blue veins. If someone can sit for a half hour (minimum) to get a tattoo, a minute of being uncomfortable while getting a stick...while you're sick and need it...shouldn't be such a problem. Especially since you know, they are adults and should be able to understand why we have to.

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And as a PRE-NURSING student, what is your experience with any of this??

Rofl! Wow. Uh, I've been a patient? You know, one of the people you ridicule on the job?

I know the difference between all four things and I'd rather sit through a 5 hour tattoo session or get a piercing than ever getting an IV or blood withdrawn. Hands down.

Am I supposed to be a nurse in order to give an opinion on things I have physicially experienced? Smh...

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Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.

Am I supposed to be a nurse in order to give an opinion on things I have physicially experienced? Smh...

On a NURSING board, yes. Considering this is a thread on our biggest annoyances in the ED, then you as a patient, have no business being on here. If you want to complain about how you needed an IV for medical reasons and how the two minutes it took to have it placed and labs drawn was worse than 5 hours of having a needle go in and out of your skin causing bleeding, then please go somewhere else. this is a board for nurses about nursing issues.

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Rofl! Wow. Uh, I've been a patient? You know, one of the people you ridicule on the job?

I know the difference between all four things and I'd rather sit through a 5 hour tattoo session or get a piercing than ever getting an IV or blood withdrawn. Hands down.

Am I supposed to be a nurse in order to give an opinion on things I have physicially experienced? Smh...

Well, since you haven't "physiucally experienced" taking care of adult patients who behave like children and slow down your flow in taking care of ALL your patients, maybe a "pet peeve" thread isn't something you can relate to yet. And I'm guessing all of the nurses posting here have been patients at some point in the past, so you don't really have a perspective that we don't. As nurses though, we DO have a perspective and body of experience that you have not yet had.

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On a NURSING board, yes. Considering this is a thread on our biggest annoyances in the ED, then you as a patient, have no business being on here. If you want to complain about how you needed an IV for medical reasons and how the two minutes it took to have it placed and labs drawn was worse than 5 hours of having a needle go in and out of your skin causing bleeding, then please go somewhere else. this is a board for nurses about nursing issues.

I am on these forums for learning purposes. I don't need to be a nurse in order to let someone know they are incorrect about something. If people bother you so much, you hate it when people whine, then maybe you're in the wrong profession. I find it puzzling when nurses are insensitive to even the most reasonable things. I understand everyone elses frustrations because those are all ridiculous things, things that would probably frustrate me too if I was a nurse. However, why judge someone by appearance and say they shouldn't whine because of it?

Would a mod care to point me to the rules? Is this a nurses-only forums? Maybe I missed the memo.

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