Worst information given in shift report!!!

[AMARTIN1]

What has been some of the worst information you've ever been given during shift report on your patients? Don't you just hate hearing "i don't know" or "i'm not really sure" when it comes to essential information like last BM, last BS on a diabetic patient or I & O's (especially on surgical patients)?

[ByTheLake]

Thanks for all the feedback. As a new nurse ...

Yes! Thank you! I'm at the 1/2 way point in nursing school right now, and so far we have not been taught a darned thing about giving report (what to include/not include, how to be concise yet thorough, how to organize it), and I'm wondering if/when they will cover it. Certainly I haven't *heard* any reports I would want to emulate (nothing remotely like KaroSnowQueen's example). And with some clinical instructors, pre-conference can regularly run well past report, so we don't even get the bad examples then ;-)

[lil'bit]

I was told in report one morning that one of my patients had come in during the night with a fractured tibia and that the doc tried to do an ORIF in the ER but was unsuccessful, so he will probably try to do a closed reduction in the OR today. In addition to this I was told about another patient who had an abd wound vac and a wound on his thigh where they had removed skin to try to graft to the abd wound. No problem there right? Except when I asked how he got the abd wound she said she didn't know she hadn't asked him.

[cathy54]

I hate to say it, but if your course is ANYTHING like mine was, you will NOT get any instruction. Insead you will have to figure it out by yourself, and endure the sighs, and caustic remarks to your face and behind your back, of the other, more experienced nurses. I still make mistakes, don't gossip and I really try not to be ugly, but I might leave something out. If I do I call from my cell.

[anichols]

have a nurse where i work staff that got upset that i didn't include every minor detail (bm's and sugars, etc. are written on the paper i turn over to her but she needed to hear them) and complained about inadequate report...but when i began giving detailed ones she'd leaf through a magazine or such rather than listen.....btw--i also work agency and please any of you out there who deal with us don't get all bent out of shape if it's our first time in a building and you don't get every last detail on someone--we can only tell you what we were told by the tired nurses leaving and rushing through report and what we saw...which first time in a new ltf trying to identify people w/out armbands is usually like "they're breathing here's the vitals i got no complaints from 'em". we're more concerned with right meds/right pt and keep 'em alive and we have no clue who these people are excepting what we wrote down during the shift! (i've been given reports at new places before that only say to "watch so-and-so...bye" and have no clue about any other pts health problems or who to crush meds for, etc--please give relevant info on all pts to us!). and lastly, as a former weekend opt. person...update weekenders on new developments that happened through the week! may be old news to you but they don't like finding out at 9 that the iv atb that the weekender didn't know the last-room pt was on was to be hung at 7!

[Thunderwolf, MSN, RN]

have a nurse where i work staff that got upset that i didn't include every minor detail (bm's and sugars, etc. are written on the paper i turn over to her but she needed to hear them) and complained about inadequate report...but when i began giving detailed ones she'd leaf through a magazine or such rather than listen.....btw--i also work agency and please any of you out there who deal with us don't get all bent out of shape if it's our first time in a building and you don't get every last detail on someone--we can only tell you what we were told by the tired nurses leaving and rushing through report and what we saw...which first time in a new ltf trying to identify people w/out armbands is usually like "they're breathing here's the vitals i got no complaints from 'em". we're more concerned with right meds/right pt and keep 'em alive and we have no clue who these people are excepting what we wrote down during the shift! (i've been given reports at new places before that only say to "watch so-and-so...bye" and have no clue about any other pts health problems or who to crush meds for, etc--please give relevant info on all pts to us!). and lastly, as a former weekend opt. person...update weekenders on new developments that happened through the week! may be old news to you but they don't like finding out at 9 that the iv atb that the weekender didn't know the last-room pt was on was to be hung at 7!

Good points. We often need to be more considerate and informative to our oncoming agency nurses.

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

When I was a student nurse in clinicals on a medical unit, I was given a 23 yr old female in for status asthmaticus.

What the reporting nurse forgot to tell me was that the pt was 8 mos pregnant.