Your least favorite patient.

Specialties Emergency

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Whats your least favorite type of patient to take care of in the ER.....

Mine would have to be the drug over dose....had one on my last shift the treatment is pretty much the same What we normally get are the ones that havent done it right only taken enough to make them sleepy or beligerent so they dont end up intubated......Its pretty standard care....Large bore IV's monitor....foley....narcan/romazicon....charcoal...which always ends up all over the place........lol.....and sometimes NG tubes...they can be a real work out of your nursing skills....iv's, foley's, ng tubes...an of course restraints and the restraint paper work that goes with it.............Give me a lunger or MI any day.

Specializes in ER, PACU, OR.

easy answer..............

psych............................I mean total psych/nut case. Not somebody on effexor, or 20mg of prozac. I mean really on multuple things, sees things talks to themselve and hears things others don't and become violent.

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I would have to say my least fav patient is homeless patients who smell so so bad you have to wear a mask. We usually help lather themselves in shaving cream cause it absorbs the smell really good. The nurse and I just make them strip and we take a washcloth spray shaving cream all over it and just rub it in all over their body. We don't want them to smell so bad it disrupts the doctors evaluation.

Another favorite patient would be the people coming in with pain (migraine, back pain, ect) who are allergic to morphine, codeine, toradol but not to demerol. Figures. Then they say, "well I usually get 50 phenergan, 100mg demerol, 50 benedryl" Yah, they know what their doing. Then when they get their meds and you come back to re-evaluate they are so drugged out sleepy you ask, "how is your pain or can you rate your pain" and they say, "its still out of control, a 10." However their speech is so slurred and they fall asleep mid sentence. I think they have had enough. Don't you?

Curleysue :(

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Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.

I hate the 20 yp male who is so wimpy with the flu that every time he coughs he gets diarrhea, and poops on himself. Then he wants us to clean him because he is to sick. And his fiancee is going on and on with her poor baby, I love you.

She needs to look at what he is and run like hello

because he is such a whiny wimp

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I hate the 20 yp male who is so wimpy with the flu that every time he coughs he gets diarrhea, and poops on himself. Then he wants us to clean him because he is to sick. And his fiancee is going on and on with her poor baby, I love you.

She needs to look at what he is and run like hello

because he is such a whiny wimp

Happy Valentine's Day Teeituptom! :cheers:

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Oh yeah, I know of at least a handful of frequent fliers who happen to be allergic to every pain med but Dilaudid. How curious.....

One, and only one pancreatitis pt in all my years has actually been decent; most of them while NPO leave the floor to 'smoke' (ie - hitting the vending machine downstairs to boost up their abnormal labs), are either drama queens and/or hostile clock-watchers and strongarm the admitting resident into ordering only what *they* want for pain, not what would work best. :rolleyes:

Scary-orificed psych patients are close to the top of my list as well. Did the RNs and LPNs on psychiatric units totally forget how to care for medical issues once they begin working in lockdown? Because really, it's not safe for anyone to have a paranoid/delusional psychotic with homicidal ideations on a regular floor, just because an IV dose of vanc needs to be hung Q12h.

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my least fav pt=c diff. hands down.

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Oh, my gosh, there are so many.

The teenage princess who has the entire family hovering over her at all times. Who can't swallow a pill - "don't you have that in a liquid?".

The frequent visitor who thinks his migraine headache, back pain, whatever is the most interesting thing in the universe and goes on and on about it as I politely try to exit the room...

The mom who brings in her three children with stuffy noses at 9pm on Saturday.

The drug seeker who is allergic to (I kid you not): all nsaids, toradol, imitrex, haldol, compazine, morphine, dilaudid, stadol, nubain, midrin, esgic, reglan, benadryl... I guess it's some demerol for you then sweetie.

Okay, okay, I could continue on about patients who annoy me, but my real answer to this question is:

A neonate who looks grey, is floppy and just makes those sick kitten sounds with a rate of maybe 60. This is about the scariest patient in the world for me. (I work at a rural hospital with little or no resources.)

A 37 year old man with crushing chest pain, every dysrhythmia in the book, who wants me to say goodbye to his wife and kids for him.

A teenage boy who was stupid while riding his 4-wheeler (or diving into a shallow pond) who has no spontaneous movement below his shoulders and is experiencing priapism.

Anyone with third degree burns over 80% of his/her body.

That's enough. I'm scaring myself.

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Specializes in rehab, antepartum, med-surg, cardiac.
Oh yeah, I know of at least a handful of frequent fliers who happen to be allergic to every pain med but Dilaudid. How curious.....

One, and only one pancreatitis pt in all my years has actually been decent; most of them while NPO leave the floor to 'smoke' (ie - hitting the vending machine downstairs to boost up their abnormal labs), are either drama queens and/or hostile clock-watchers and strongarm the admitting resident into ordering only what *they* want for pain, not what would work best. :rolleyes:

I don't mean to complain or change the subject, but I just had pancreatitis with enzymes out the roof. I didn't eat or drink for 48 hours. I begged my husband to sneak me in a cracker, but he refused. :o I don't smoke, nor did I leave the floor. They were giving me PCA Dilaudid and I only took a total of 3 cc of the stuff (0.1 mg/ml). Didn't like the way it made me feel. Plus it made me nauseous, which I already was.:barf02: I was neither a drama queen nor a "hostile clock-watcher". I honestly just wanted to go home the whole 4 days I was in.

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Specializes in rehab, antepartum, med-surg, cardiac.

To be fair, I don't like having patients that are completely noncompliant either. Psych patients who refuse medication are among my most disliked type of patient. Also, people who want to insult the nurses or techs on a personal level. I want to tell them so badly that I will help them get out the door, but we aren't allowed to.......:chuckle

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May I ask what the Pancreatitis was related to, as the alcoholics with pancreatitis are a different breed altogether.

I don't mean to complain or change the subject, but I just had pancreatitis with enzymes out the roof. I didn't eat or drink for 48 hours. I begged my husband to sneak me in a cracker, but he refused. :o I don't smoke, nor did I leave the floor. They were giving me PCA Dilaudid and I only took a total of 3 cc of the stuff (0.1 mg/ml). Didn't like the way it made me feel. Plus it made me nauseous, which I already was.:barf02: I was neither a drama queen nor a "hostile clock-watcher". I honestly just wanted to go home the whole 4 days I was in.
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Specializes in ER, NICU, NSY and some other stuff.

Or how about a nice, combative, carbueratior cleaner ingesting, listerine drinking fella. Can get a buzz just off their breath. Whatever ya do don't take off their shoes......

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....I might have trouble with Michael Jackson. :coollook: He is just too weird for me. :lol2: (loved "Thriller", though).

NurseFirst

PS MJ was just admitted to an ER in Santa Maria on his way to court.

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