Your favorite "extra" thing to do for patients

[Nurse Ratched]

We all have things we'd like to be able to do for patients when time allows. We get many many geriatric folks at my work (from home or nursing homes) who haven't had nail care in AGES. I love to get folks trimmed up (discreetly, of course - the policies are so funny about nail care.)

Another nurse I worked with felt like she wasn't doing her job if her bedbound patients didn't get a backrub at bedtime.

What do you like to do special for your patients "just because" (not because some made it a script or a customer satisfaction ploy.)

[norinradd]

Humor. My goal is to make each patient smile or better... laugh. A silly comment, comical gesture or an outrageous story.

Humor tells them I am treating them as a person, not a disease, and reminds them they are still the person they were before illness. I encourage them not to let the disease or challenge define them. They have enough friends and family to tell them how sorry they are for there trouble. I freely talk about their trouble but concentrate on the person. Sometimes you have to laugh or cry. I choose to laugh.

[semstr]

NancyRN,

That's exactly what I was thinking! Everybody is running around and having a hard time giving patients the basic care.

Holisitic nursing? I love it. I teach it. but in the practice you'll hardly have time.

Yes sure in hospice nursing and sometimes in LTC, but even there we have a terrible nursing shortage.

It is an "extra" already to give every patient a real bath in the bathtub every week. Or on nice days go outside with them for a walk.

Sometimes I hate having not enough time, becuase I have to write reports etc.

The best deed then for my patients is my going home!