What's the meanest thing a patient has said to you?

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Just curious, what's the meanest, rudest, nastiest thing a patient has said to you? Tonight I had someone tell me they wished I would die and go straight to he!! Then they said they hoped it rained everywhere I went. They also told someone they were a son of a b. What's your best line?

I wouldn't say it's the meanest, but it is certainly the best.

"Honey, you're a pimple on a good man's ass."

:)

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Even though the bigotry is never accepted,S I understand it from the older generation, because they either had slaves or their parents did......

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Slavery ended in the U.S. 150 years ago.

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Specializes in ER, Med Surg, Ob/Gyn, Clinical teaching.
Scariest and meanest things ever said to me was by a patient the day shift nurse started report off with saying "Girl, you are going to love this patient. She is just the sweetest little thing ever". Before she could even finish giving report, that sweet little thing could be yelling "F you you Fing N-word" down the hall at anyone who passed her room. I start thinking to myself maybe sundowners is a thing just as day shift nurse informs me she DC'd her order for restraints (because why would anyone possibly restrain such a sweet little thing?!) and that she was currently up in the chair that happens to have a broken chair alarm. AWESOME.

I figure the first thing I should tackle this shift is getting grumpy granny back in bed, so I head over to her room where she is just shouting vile and nasty things at passerbys and the television. I walk in her room and am immediately pelted with a full, but open can of pepsi and told to "get the F out" before I even completely enter the room. Now soaked in pepsi, a bruise already growing on my chest and neck...I venture in further to see what kind of IV access I have to give the haldol I had the good sense to bring with me. As I lean behind her chair, she grabs me by the stethoscope stupidly hanging around my neck. She pulls me in and starts clawing at my neck screaming "I WILL PAINT THE WALLS WITH YOUR BLOOD, B____!" Which thankfully attracts the attention of some coworkers. They help untangle her talons from around my neck, which is now bleeding. As four of us endevour to get her carried over to the bed and strapped down in soft wrist restraints she yells out threats against us including such classics as "I will make you drown your babies in the river with your own hands", "I have shot 3 people dead and I ain't afraid to add your @ss to the list" and perhaps most perplexing, pleading for someone to "remove the sorghum from her lady parts". All this between the most unholy, animal like howls and screams you ever heard.

I called her husband to see if maybe he could come down and calm her down a bit. He hung up the first time I called. The second time he said it was our problem now, and that he is so scared of her himself he locks himself in his bedroom at night. Evidently this behavior was not new. Somebody needed to order that patient a young priest and an old priest and to chuck the walls against the green vomit that would later ensue....

Lol....husband is afraid too... lol.... :D

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
I worked four nights in a row with Lynn, who was a beautiful, young, blonde and unbelievably smart nurse. (I'm old, fat and blonde.) We had the patients in 4A and 4B. They were both old, obnoxious and creepy men. I'm not sure which one was a bigger pain in the rear; they were both vying for the title of "Most Obnoxious Patient I've Ever Had The Misfortune To Tolerate For Twelve Hours." Did I mention that they were both racists? They had "fired" every nurse to enter the room who wasn't Caucasian. And every male. The first night, I had A and she had B. The next night, and this may have been a mistake, she had A and I had B. They were so foul mouthed and suggestive that we made sure we were either both in the room or both OUT of the room . . . safety in numbers.

Mr. Nasty in A was grabby, and every time a nurse got close enough, he'd reach for "the sexy parts." We got pretty adept at tag teaming. She'd hold his hands while I started his IV, I watched her back while she was between the two beds with her back to him, caring for her patient. Mr. Nastier in B was bowel fixated -- always wanting his meds rectally, rectal temperatures, etc. It was bad when I had him. It was worse when she did, her being younger and prettier and all.

Then the suppositories worked, and Mr. Nastier had to have a bowel movement. He was incontinent, of course, and as we cleaned him up, we were subjected to all sorts of sighs and moans implying he was having a jolly good time. The next time he had to have a bowel movement, she was right there with the bedpan, which he refused. "I'll just (four letter word starting with S) the bed and you girls will have to clean me up," he said smugly. Lynn started to try to reason with him. I said "No, I got this." I stood there and watched him strain, soil himself and then demand to be cleaned up.

"In a minute," I said.

"No, you got to clean me up NOW."

"In a minute." And I left the room, towing Lynn behind me, and went to talk to our assistant manager, a tall, Black, bald body builder named LeRoy. It so happened that my DH was also working that shift -- a tall, bearded Hispanic martial artist named Matteo.

When I came back into the room after leisurely obtaining linen and supplies, instead of Lynn I brought LeRoy and Matteo. "Sorry this took so long, Mr. Nastier," I told him. "I just had to get some supplies and some help. LeRoy and Matteo are going to clean you up. Lynn and I are going to lunch."

Mr. Nastier was suddenly a whole lot nicer, and the last two nights of our stretch were ever so much more pleasant.

Oh, many's the time I would've LOVED to have a LeRoy and a Matteo to back me up in certain patient experiences! That is just PRICELESS! Thanks for the belly laugh!

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Is it rude to be laughing at these ? This is better than the "hilarious conversation with patients" thread

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Specializes in Hospice.

This is our Safe Zone. What you hear in AN, stays in AN. Most nurses who have had similar experiences will find these funny. You have to let off steam or you will explode.

That being said, these anecdotes should NEVER be repeated within civilian hearing. WE know that we're humorizing difficult situations-families don't. If I ever heard staff laughing over situations like this in the halls, patient rooms or the elevator, I would have to say something. In the privacy of the break room, or in this forum, however, feel free to laugh your ass off.

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Specializes in Emergency.
Pretty sure I have been called everything under the sun and more. Sticks and stones... :cheeky:

I tend to laugh when insults are thrown my way and also mutter to myself:

"Sticks & stones may break my bones, but you'll always be a {radio edit}".

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I had a patient yell at another patient that she was a b**** and a c***. She replied, I'll pray for you. He started yelling, B**** pray for me c***. B,B pray for me you C. Ah, the joys of nursing.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

mestrela, I'm so sorry! I can't imagine, and then for some jerk to say that to you.

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Specializes in LTC, med/surg, hospice.

Most of the mean stuff has been said the mentally ill or elderly dementia patients. I don't take it personally but they sure know how to hurl an insult.

When I worked LTC, many times the older patients would use the N-word when they didn't like something you did and then other times would be sweet as pie and say "oh I just love your skin." So take that for what you will.

I do remember being pregnant and going in to help someone do a brief and reposition and the old lady said "come over here so I can kick that baby out of you." Yeah, so they got somebody else to help.

This wasn't mean but it really pissed me off when I had an alert and oriented ICU patient (uncontrolled diabetic) accuse me of ignoring her multiple times and it was absolutely false. She said in front of visitors that I ignored her call light and wouldn't help her. Anyway, I did my absolute best to get her condition under control and got her out of there and to a regular floor ASAP.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.

A family member tried to convince my NM to cancel my very carefully planned and QUITE expensive vacation because he liked me caring for the patient. When facing outright refusal, he threatened to sue me for abandonment. "How DARE you go and have your sweet time when (a patient) needs your care???"

Speaking about words, BTW, I was once, when I went through my own vent wean, taught by an exeptionally good RRT a few excellent but rather non-traditional breathing exercises. One of them involve a short and as full as possible exhalation while pronouncing the word *s***" in full voice. The idea is to do first stage of exhalation through narrowed upper airways and so get DIY PEEP of a sort but shorter than "pursed lips" breath. It is really working thing for some patients but the way it sounds, literally, makes it a bit difficult to teach.

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The worst things I've had said to me where when I worked in credit card customer service. I didn't even work in our collections department. I had my usual routine of putting my headset on mute and cracking up...which worked beautifully until the day I forgot to put my headset on mute and started cracking up. That one didn't go over so well. I only got a "reminder" to utilize my mute button...my supervisor pulled the call (they were all recorded) and just laughed at the absurdity.

I had a patient when I was working stepdown throw some stuff at me and/or other staff. We called security on their butt each time. They were a patient every month for a while - convinced they had a problem, went to their local ED (small community hospital) with mysterious neuro symptoms, got a CT head which was negative for tumors, hemorrhage/subdural/epidural or hydrocephalus but with these symptoms particularly their transient nature was flown up to our hospital (100 miles-ish) for evaluation of TIA vs CVA. THREE times, THREE months in a row. Evaluated in every way by the neurology folks (all of the attendings) at our hospital and TWO other stroke centers. Nothing came of it - everything came back negative except the psych eval... This patient didn't want to be on our psych floor, but each time they had an admission neurology worked to clear them medically faster than the previous stay - and wrote transfer orders from our floor (neuro stepdown with neuro med/surg and tele) to inpatient psych...apparently inpatient psych was less fun than our unit so the patient left AMA each time...

I had a prison guard say some disturbing stuff one time when I was caring for a guest of the state... And I also have issues with some of the guards where I work now - our hospital has corrections patients that are a mix of some guests of the federal government and some guests of the state government. The federal prison system sends the same group of officers with inmates to our hospital and only sends specific officers to the OR with patients/inmates. I never have issues with compliance from the federal corrections officers - they have done the same thing so many times that they know the drill. The state prison system sends whatever officers whenever...I've heard some nasty things from state officers about all kinds of things - and they complain about all of the policies we have.

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