OK. I don't want to fluff any feathers. I'm simply trying to get an opinion to experienced nurses and try to see this from the nurses point of view. I'm a nursing student so my POV is still very different from that of a seasoned Nurse and I understand this fact.
My mother had surgery today. She was scheduled to have a Hysterectomy and a Tummy Tuck. Her Hematocrit was too low (25) to do the tummy tuck so she just had the hysterectomy and will do a tummy tuck in roughly 6 weeks when she has healed and hopefully brought her iron back up. She has lost tons of weight and kept it off through diet and exercise alone. She quit smoking after 20+ years as well. Needless to say, this was a big day full of ups and downs for her and the whole family. (myself, dad, sister and brother)
Once she got to her room 2 hours post op she was doing as well as can be expected. She was of course in and out of it but pretty much knew what was going on. My dad, sister and I were there in the room. My sister had planned on spending the night with her and helping her with anything she needed. I was helping her with positioning, drinking fluids, answering any questions she or my dad had. My family has always believed that family involvement is very helpful to the nurses and we have always wanted to do as much as we could knowing that nurses are extremely busy and their time is precious. That all being said. My mother's nurse was less than enthusiastic that my mom would get talkative with her, my mom simply does this out of nervousness (esp with people she just met). I told the nurse I was a student and just about to graduate. I could make sure she did her incentive spirometer, kept and eye on her O2 sat, and let her know if we needed anything. Well, there were only 2 chairs in the room. We were all fine with one of us standing and being busy or just simply standing looking out the window during quiet times. My mother however was a typical mother and insisted that there was a third chair in the room. I asked the CNA, my sister also asked the CNA. We were told no problem and she would bring one back when she found one. Two hours pass and my sister and dad go to eat. When they come back my mom, once again in and out of a morphine nap, insisted there be a third chair. When the nurse came to the room my mom asked for a third chair very sweetly with a raspy dry voice. The nurse, in a not so nice tone said she'd try to find one. Moments later, she came back and said "Well here you go but just so you know now the room next to you has to be without a chair because of you. I hope you're happy".
Of course her tone didn't sit well with my mom, dad, or sister. I brushed it off and said she probably has a big workload and is tired. Then a couple hours later my mom was starting to have more pain that she thought she should. I know that the nurse needs to hear from the pt. herself the description of the pain so we called the nurse. Well, she was less than happy to have to discuss this with my mom and simply just said "well I gave you Toradol so any pain you have you just have to deal with"
To me, this is very uncompassionate care. I understand that nurses see a ton of different people, pt's as well as their families. But for my family, this wasn't a daily thing. This was a stressful and difficult day physically and emotionally. My mom and dad don't do this everyday, they paid a lot of money via insurance as well as out of pocket. Of course my mom was upset and didnt' feel comfortable with her nurse. I really wanted to go speak to the charge Nurse about it but I didn't, I left it alone.
Is my family wrong in feeling that this was very unprofessional as well as uncompassionate or as a nurse is everyone supposed to just bow down and be glad you even came to their room and answered the call?
Is my family wrong in feeling that this was very unprofessional as well as uncompassionate or as a nurse is everyone supposed to just bow down and be glad you even came to their room and answered the call?
It's hard to say, since we have only one side of the situation. Are the quotes by the nurse verbatim or paraphrased?
im not a nurse yet. but i think if it were my mother, i would of nipped it in the butt real quick. as someone who is just the general public. when going to a hospital and your not a nit picking crazy nut house family, we expect some common deciency. its a chair, get one and shush it. i think the whole pain thing could of been handled in a better way simply by saying " unfort you just had a pill and we cant give anything yet" something along those lines. i think it was the sense of disregard that was dis-hearting. sure attack and say i dont know what im talking about because i dont work as a nurse, but i think people should at least appreciate the patients that are nice. i can remember when my sister was having her baby. she was 18 and she was ready to go, so she goes to the hospital etc and shes in obvous pain, she has had no pain meds at this point. well she was crying, i would of too, and im sure many women do. this nurse tells my sister " if you dont stop that crying, your mother isnt coming in" are you kidding me! i would of told her to be gone! i mean come on, there is a border between someone takin control of a situation and being down right nasty. anyways this is just my opnion. i hope your mother is ok.
In the better hospitals wherein I have worked, that sort of attitude is absolutely unacceptable. If there is difficulty getting another chair, tell the family why and apologize, even though it isn't your fault. Trust that you will be cared for reduces anxiety and promotes healing. Anything less than compassion sets up delayed healing.
The way in which the nurse addressed the pain issue makes me cringe. I can't believe there are nurses out there who really behave like that. If there is a morphine PCA, and vital signs are stable, then the dose needs to be adjusted, or a bolus should be given. If vitals are unstable, then positioning, heat/ice, relaxation techniques should be addressed.
Call in a patient advocate. Get the name of the nurse and write a letter to the nurse manager, talk directly with the nurse manager, request another nurse, just DO NOT accept that an immediate post op patient should be in miserable pain without staff doing everything they can to alleviate it.
Well, when I was working in the hospital, I was asked for extra chairs almost nightly. I refused, for several reasons:
1) There are NOT extra chairs on the unit.
2) In order to get you a chair, I would have to get one from an empty room. Then, when I get an admit later tonight, they will have no chair. Not really fair to them.
3) If there is a patient with no visitors, you might think I could "borrow" their chair. Well, that is fine unless they have an undiagnosed infection, such as MRSA. That would be a great thing to introduce into the room for a post op pt! :)
4) If my patient codes, I want as few obstructions in the way as possible. If you have not seen a code yet, just wait and see how many people pile into that room. Not to mention the crash cart and other equipment! I would not want the code team tripping over an extra chair in the room while trying to save my patient's life.
So, maybe you can see why the nurse was unhappy about finding an extra chair. Sure, she could have been nicer about it, and/or explained her reasoning for not wanting to do so, but you have no idea what her patient load was or what was going on with the other patients. It may have put her seriously behind to hunt down a chair for you, and I would have been annoyed also.
As far as the pain, it should have been addressed regardless of when the last dose was given. No excuse for that one. If she had just given meds, give them time to take effect. If there still is pain after giving time for the meds to work, I would have called the MD. So, she definitely could have done better on that one.
Just keep in mind that when you are a nurse, you will have very busy shifts. You will have families making demands that are low on your priority list, like chairs, and you will have higher priority issues, like pain. You can only hope that the family members with the low priority issues will be understanding.
If the nurse actually said this in exactly that way, then she was out of line.
I do have a question. What does the visitor policy say for number of visitors in the room? If they have a policy that says two and you had three, I can say it gets annoying having to accomodate more than the two, especially when you're as busy as most nurses are. I know everyone wants to be with their family member, but if the policy has a visitor limit, then switching off would be a good idea. It still doesn't excuse the nurse, but that could have been what was irritating her.
OK. I don't want to fluff any feathers. I'm simply trying to get an opinion to experienced nurses and try to see this from the nurses point of view. I'm a nursing student so my POV is still very different from that of a seasoned Nurse and I understand this fact.
My mother had surgery today. She was scheduled to have a Hysterectomy and a Tummy Tuck. Her Hematocrit was too low (25) to do the tummy tuck so she just had the hysterectomy and will do a tummy tuck in roughly 6 weeks when she has healed and hopefully brought her iron back up. She has lost tons of weight and kept it off through diet and exercise alone. She quit smoking after 20+ years as well. Needless to say, this was a big day full of ups and downs for her and the whole family. (myself, dad, sister and brother)
Once she got to her room 2 hours post op she was doing as well as can be expected. She was of course in and out of it but pretty much knew what was going on. My dad, sister and I were there in the room. My sister had planned on spending the night with her and helping her with anything she needed. I was helping her with positioning, drinking fluids, answering any questions she or my dad had. My family has always believed that family involvement is very helpful to the nurses and we have always wanted to do as much as we could knowing that nurses are extremely busy and their time is precious. That all being said. My mother's nurse was less than enthusiastic that my mom would get talkative with her, my mom simply does this out of nervousness (esp with people she just met). I told the nurse I was a student and just about to graduate. I could make sure she did her incentive spirometer, kept and eye on her O2 sat, and let her know if we needed anything. Well, there were only 2 chairs in the room. We were all fine with one of us standing and being busy or just simply standing looking out the window during quiet times. My mother however was a typical mother and insisted that there was a third chair in the room. I asked the CNA, my sister also asked the CNA. We were told no problem and she would bring one back when she found one. Two hours pass and my sister and dad go to eat. When they come back my mom, once again in and out of a morphine nap, insisted there be a third chair. When the nurse came to the room my mom asked for a third chair very sweetly with a raspy dry voice. The nurse, in a not so nice tone said she'd try to find one. Moments later, she came back and said "Well here you go but just so you know now the room next to you has to be without a chair because of you. I hope you're happy".
Of course her tone didn't sit well with my mom, dad, or sister. I brushed it off and said she probably has a big workload and is tired. Then a couple hours later my mom was starting to have more pain that she thought she should. I know that the nurse needs to hear from the pt. herself the description of the pain so we called the nurse. Well, she was less than happy to have to discuss this with my mom and simply just said "well I gave you Toradol so any pain you have you just have to deal with"
To me, this is very uncompassionate care. I understand that nurses see a ton of different people, pt's as well as their families. But for my family, this wasn't a daily thing. This was a stressful and difficult day physically and emotionally. My mom and dad don't do this everyday, they paid a lot of money via insurance as well as out of pocket. Of course my mom was upset and didnt' feel comfortable with her nurse. I really wanted to go speak to the charge Nurse about it but I didn't, I left it alone.
Is my family wrong in feeling that this was very unprofessional as well as uncompassionate or as a nurse is everyone supposed to just bow down and be glad you even came to their room and answered the call?
Am I the only one that sees a problem with this? Basically you dismissed her nurse and said that you, the about-to-graduate nursing student would take care of your mom. I don't care if you're graduating or even if you have a MSN, *I'm* responsible for my patients and *I* monitor their sats and give their care. And face it: daughters don't want to see their moms in ANY pain and unfortunately I've never seen a post-op patient (esp post-hysterectomy) with ZERO pain even with the best of meds. Surgery hurts. If that nurse didn't have to wade thru several family members to attend to her patient maybe she could have tried repositioning her or relaxation techniques to help ease her pain.
I can't begin to speak to the third chair issue.
Goodness, I'm grouchy this morning, but this rubbed me the wrong way
I basically had the same issue yesterday! The night nurse did not deal with the patient's pain and told the patient there was nothing she could do to get his pain in control. When I waked into the room the patient, the patien's wife and their grown son pounced on me and beat me up pretty good. I let them vent and get it out of their system and then went about assessing the patient. The pain the patient experienced was in his hip, not his back where he had the surgery. I called the physican from the room and asked for pain medication adjustments. I then went and got the extra pain RX and administered it. The entire demeanor changed in the room. I became a saint. The family couldn't do enough to help the patient and wouldn't let us do anything that they could do for him. They even got the ice for the polarcare machine and stocked it. Later, they alerted me to an increase warmth in his right thigh. Even though there was no discernable change in his neurovascular assessment I called the MD. He ordered a hospitalist consult to manage the patient quickly and a US of the Right Femoral Vein. Again the patient and family thought I was simply amazing. I kept them laughing with jokes and witty remarks. I even had to travel "all the way" to US to change his PCA syringe. The patient was all choked up because he was impressed that I would come find him in the bowels of the hospital just to make sure he had his pain RX. I also was able to give him water which the US staff would not do because they didn't want to read the chart and find out if he could have it, which is not really their job. Of course they could have just called me on my hospital cell phone and asked which was on the transport form. Well at the end of the shift the family was distraught because I was going home. They offered me a million dollars to stay and work the night. I told them that I educated the night shift nurse on what to do for him and he would be in good hands. Thankfully, the night relief was not the same nurse.
All of this to say it is not what you do that matters, it is how you do it. Compassion, warmth and empathy goes much farther to make a patient happy than making sure the computer chart is up to date. Your experience shows that nursing is being reduced to how many tasks can you get done in your shift and not taking care of patients in a holistic approach.
Your experience shows that nursing is being reduced to how many tasks can you get done in your shift and not taking care of patients in a holistic approach.
Very true. This bears repeating. The nurse may have had very valid reasons for what she did, but had she done it with an air of compassion the result would likely have been different.
I hate to tell you this but the third chair just wouldn't happen in my hospital. Two visitors to a room and no overnighters unless the patient is dying.
Post op we have the patient leave the room for 30 minutes because we have work to do without having to constantly ask the relatives to step aside so we can work. Even then many patients are too groggy, in pain or just plain out of it post op to deal with visitors. We've had them thank us for asking their families to leave. They are there to recover not visit.
Frankly, we're fed up of this "I'm my relative's advocate" line that is being promoted by worthy publications such as the Readers Digest and media pundits like Glen Beck. We don't ignore our patients, we don't let anyone die. If the average nurse has enough room to do his/her job, they are usually good at it.
The pain meds, maybe she just opened her mouth and what she was thinking came out. Brain fart for lack of a better time. I've seen q3h morphine followed by q6h Toradol, warm blankets, you name it be inefctive for something as simple as a lap appi, only to discover later that the patient is on 80mg Oxycontin q6 for back pain that they forgot to mention.
Walk a few miles in the nurses shoes and then see how you'd deal with it.
Thank you everyone for reading and replying. Let me sort of answer/clarify a few things.
1. The chair thing....we were belligerent in asking, quite the contrary. I'm sure if she would have just said "no and this is why" it wouldn't have been an issue, it was more of her unnecessary tone that was an issue and made everyone feel uncomfortable.
2. I didn't just chime in and say "I'm going to do all of her care because I'm a nursing student. My mom had told her I was before I got up there. The nurse asked me to keep and eye on her O2 sat. I also helped my mom turn and get positioned. The CNA was fine with that...it helped her with her workload. They both acted like they were more than happy to have someone experienced there to help.
3. We weren't in the way. It's a huuuuge room, my sister sat in one corner and my dad in the other. My dad and sister both had a laptop to occupy them and keep noise down. When the nurse came in we made sure we weren't in the way, everything was picked up and tidy and we kept our mouths shut.
4. I know that in nursing between the pt. demands, dealing with families, workload..yadda yadda yadda it's stressful and tiring at best. But I also know, and this situation just reitereated, that to each pt. you're their nurse. How could they possibly know what it's like to be a nurse, or a cna, or a pharm tech...whatever it is. They can't and you can't expect them to. If you went to a restaurant you want the server to be nice and hospitable...you don't care if they had a bad day, if they have a crapload of tables and side work, if they worked a double and have class the next morning. If they are rude and don't live up to our expectations we don't tip well or complain to the manager. It's no different. It's a service minded job. People expect a certain level of communication from all professions.
5. If so many nurses are so unhappy taking care of pts and families, workload, not enough pay, schedules, dealing with other nurses. Why not find another job in another profession. Every job/profession sucks period. Every job has crappy schedule, crappy customers, crappy bosses, get in the way of our own personal lives. That's just how it is be it a Nurse, Pharmacist, Doctor, Waitress, Mailman, whatever. Working to live sucks. I feel I have to look deeper at it than just a job...it's an extremely important job and it demands my respect if I'm going to want others to respect me.
Baloney Amputation, BSN, LPN, RN
1,130 Posts
It's hard to say, since we have only one side of the situation. Are the quotes by the nurse verbatim or paraphrased?