When good vent threads go bad.....

Very true.

In addition....we are facing a substantial nursing shortage in both Canada and the US. The baby boomers are starting to retire, and according to recent Canadian research, the workforce will begin to see a significant drop in nurses starting in 2012.

Healthcare is definitely in for a big change.....we need to hang on to our hats and continue to find ways to band together now in order to survive the future.

This is the only international forum that I've stumbled upon that is home to some very real, very honest discussions. Our global nursing village....right here.

Squeaky, I just wanted to point out that therapeutic communication doesn't help when a visitor is hurling objects at your head and it doesn't help when you are being assaulted by a family member either. I'm sure back in the day this never would have happened but now we have this society where if they don't get what they want, they resort to physical abuse to do so. So now we have to resort to calling the police and security just so we can do our jobs. I agree with everything you are saying.

Wow, squeakykitty! You hit it on the head! I'm soooooo sick of being mistreated! It would be more understandable if it was just in extreme situations, but verbal abuse has become expected! The management doesn't care about what we're dealing with at all, and I swear, if one more person says, "Well, just be understanding - they're going through a hard time right now", I'm going to scream!

We bust our butts every day and ultimately save lives - that is, when we have time. I spend a lot of my time making tea and answering the same questions a thousand times for that pt's fifth visitor of the day.

Now, there are more and more people with the "Burger King" selfish entitlement mentality

That is EXACTLY what I feel too, to the point where it is tempting to say to people 'would you like fries with that' but I truly think the sarcasm would be lost.

Sure, when I've got a PITA pt or family, I try to reason and talk with them. However, a lot of these people (my opinion) were probably the bullies on the playground, and now they're grown. They aren't going to respond to kindness -- they'll see it as weakness (when you were in school, did you EVER see a bully change into a nice person because someone was nice to them? I didn't). It's been my hands-on, boots on the ground experience that standing your ground contains the problem, while trying to be "understanding and customer focused" just makes them demand more and more and more time and resources.

Back in a past life, I used to do QA, and one of the things I did was time and motion studies. In nursing, it would work something like this. If you have 5 nurses on a 12 hour shift, you have 60 nurse-hours to spend on that shift. If you spend 2 hours x 5 nurses dealing with PITA pts/families -- frequent calls to the room, having to call the doc, having to deal with administration -- they have taken almost 1 full nurse out of the shift. You are essentially working the same as if you were a nurse down.

When I've had administration fuss about a person who's on the phone to administration every 5 minutes because mom wants "fresh" ice, rather than the hour old ice in her full insulated mug, or we didn't respond promptly to call bells (read: live in the room) I do the "nurse hour vs. shift hours" matrix, showing how much time that family has taken out of the shift. I also point out how much extra time that I spent charting on that pt, when I could have been doing more 1 to 1 direct observation of my unstable post CVA pt, or person with a crappy heart who's going to the heart center on the first chopper out, etc.

This is still sorta on topic, I guess, but why do these people seem to think threatening to leave AMA makes a difference to me? If you're well enough to leave AMA -- LEAVE.

That is EXACTLY what I feel too, to the point where it is tempting to say to people 'would you like fries with that' but I truly think the sarcasm would be lost.

Goodness do not say that...they will be cold before you could get them back and they would have something else to complain about!!!

Seriously though..it is just out of control...

I think the best solution to this PITA problem is to spend a little more money on Nursing assistants. With as sick as people are going into the hospital these days, and the amount of teaching and re-educating the web-md masses we have to do, there is little time to run back and forth to get ice chips, and oh I need a spoon, and oh can I have pain medicine, oh and can I get another blanket. When you are trying to get admissions done, and calls to docs, and meds, and dressing changes done, and Q1 hour bloodsugars, and serial labs, and Q1 hour neuro/vasc checks and vitals... throw in having to set up CRRT and there is not much time to even take care of your own bodily functions, let alone get your patient cleaned up out of GIB stool in a timely fashion.

Our critical care techs/nursing assistants are amazing and it hurts when they aren't there. I would love hospitals to pay our NA's a little better and hire more of them. They seriously help me to do a great job at work and I let them know it often. Problem is there isnt very many of them and they end up being overly used and abused and out on medical leaves because they hurt themselves on the job.

With the family dynamics we have in the hospital we need to take care of the pt. and the family and sometimes it takes a "village" to please a PITA.

I am very tempted to send this posting in it's entirety to the administration of my hospital. Very eloquently says what needs to be said!

2 days ago, a thread that promised to get interesting went south and got locked, and other recent threads could end up that way if they go south. Within the last 6 months, some others nearly ended up the same way. This is a good place to vent and share stories about PITA pts./family members, and share coping strategies on how to deal with the nonsense. It's possible for people to respectfully debate and disagree without letting personal attacks shut down a good thread. (I've even respectfully disagreed with a moderator.)

But there really is no need to bash people who vent, especially when there are multiple threads on the same subject, indicating that what people are venting about is a widespread problem. (Maybe someday, Allnurses.com will have a PITA pt./family member forum of its own.)

Society has changed a lot over the years. It used to be that people respected nurses and treated them with respect. Now, there are more and more people with the "Burger King" selfish entitlement mentality. They want what they want when they want it----right NOW!! They don't care or think about other peoples well-being or feelings as long as they get what they want when they want it, and to heck with everyone else.

The healthcare industry has changed a lot over the years. Now, instead of focusing on peoples health needs (anyone remember the Quiet-Hospital Zone signs?), they focus on "customer service" to attract profits. And the "customer service" focus feeds into peoples attitude of selfish entitlement, instead of setting limits on behaviors that compromise other peoples health and safety.

This scares me, since I have family members who could come to harm because a selfish entitled person bullies the nurse so much with their ridiculous demands and drama, that the nurse doesn't get a chance to check on my family member in time to catch something serious and maybe save their life.

Years ago, there were no specific laws against assaulting healthcare workers like there are now, and there should be laws like this for all healthcare workers. Years ago, no one thought about the need for metal detectors in the ER or hospital, now they are in some facilities and they are badly needed.

There is a shortage of nurses willing to put up with abuse, and it's only going to get worse unless the healthcare industry gets their priorities straight and holds people responsible for their own behavior instead of blaming it on how a nurse "presents herself". Years ago, a woman in an abusive relationship had little resources and protection (and got blamed for the abuse). Now, they do; and nurses should have the same resources and protection also.

(rest of post deleted for space saving)

i agree with the sentiments expressed in this thread. what i don't understand is why our peers find it necessary to bash us for venting . . .