Your Pet Peeves in Nursing..

Nurses General Nursing

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I absolutely totally detest being called, "Honey" or whatever other terms of endearment catches the person's fancy. Please stick to professionalism- I have a name, please use it. Tried to put myself in other's shoes and use the term and it was so foreign and unnatural to me.

This peeve, irks me to no end:uhoh3:.

Specializes in ED. ICU, PICU, infection prevention, aeromedical e.

I don't like when I am giving a med to my patient and the patient or family member asks me "What are THEY giving me?". Who is They? I'm the one taking care of you. I can tell you what I'm giving you but you better ask THEM what they are doing in your room!

(stupid, I know. But it does bug me)

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele/Onc.

Pts who remember 15 minutes after the doc has left that they haven't pooped in 3 days. Then I have to call the MD for a laxative. THEN I get PO'd the MDs who order a bottle of Mag Citrate for same patient instead of a couple of senokots or colaces. Heck even a scoop of miralax in OJ or MOM is better than Mag citrate. YUCK!

Pts who don't ask docs any questions, then ask me all the quesitons after the doc has left. And docs who spend 30 seconds with a patient and don't take time to answer their questions!

Pts who come to the hospital then refuse everything. "That's not what I take at home" "Why do you need to keep drawing blood?" I just want to say, "Why did you come to the hospital if you don't want us to actually treat you?"

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Specializes in Psych.

Being out of supplies. I worked at one place that ran out of alcohol prep pads. How is that possible? They're only used every day. Order them in crates.

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care.

What all of you said, and then 1 more. Nurses who don't use common sense. Like sending me a patient as a result of a code called, "his BP is in the 60's, he's very unstable" And i get this sweet little emaciated man, slap a peds cuff on him, and his BP is stable 108/45.....call the nurse "did you use a adult cuff?" "yeah, we didn't have a peds." Made my night easy cuz he really didn't need the ICU, but oh well:uhoh3:

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele/Onc.
Being out of supplies. I worked at one place that ran out of alcohol prep pads. How is that possible? They're only used every day. Order them in crates.

LOL!! We ran out of 1000cc bags of NS once.:eek: Kept having to use 500cc bags....that made for a long day! Changing out IV fluids all day long. How does a hospital run out of Normal Saline??????:uhoh3:

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1. Nurses have to take up the slack for all departments, and when something isn't right it always come back on the nurses.

2. New policies instituted by the hospital governing body for changes in nursing policies without ever consulting the floor nurse to see what is best for their unit. Most of these decision makers have been behind a desk for 20 years, and barely even walk onto a nursing unit.

3. Nurses who are always too busy to take an admission

4. Floor nurses can be talked meanly to by doctors and other departments and we are just supposed to take it. Whatever happened to please and thankyou?

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Have a co-worker who used to use the term "baby" to talk to me or other co-workers.

I have no idea why she did that. It has stopped tho and I'm glad.

It just may be one of her weird things she does tho, because she will also answer a question with "Huh?' I used to repeat my question when she would answer like that but I started noticing how she was answering so I stopped repeating the question and now just wait for a reply and she would go ahead and answer the question with an appropriate reply.

I've come to think it is just habit because this is not an uneducated person.

Maybe the "baby" thing was habit, too, because she had small grandchildren she was raising when she came to work there. Maybe the baby thing was a carry over from the grandchildren. and even tho is it a pet peeve to me I've tried to be patient with her.....I don't think she realized that she was actually doing either of these ...the baby or the huh things.

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Specializes in Oncology.

*Coming into a room to find tubing still hanging from a drug d/c'ed 3 days ago

*Coming into a room to find no extra IV fluids in the room. Bonus points if the person's maintenance rate is 250ml/hr or above.

*No flushes or alcohol wipes in the room

*Someone walking off with my stethoscope!

*Seeing charted assessments that are way off base- charting someone who's on a facemask as being on room air, etc. Bonus points when I catch myself making these mistakes. Extra bonus points when I get home and realize I did this.

*Patients who are super dooper weak/dizzy/lightheaded and don't call for help getting up.

*Two particular aids who will remain nameless. For various reasons. Bonus points if they're on together and they both come up to me separately to complain about the other one.

*When I go into a room at the beginning of a shift and I have a drip 10 minutes away from running dry and no one has called pharmacy for a new bag. Bonus points for really important stuff, like levophed.

*Family members treating me like their waitress. "Can you get me some ginger ale." "No, did you not see that sign on the door that says you're not allowed to eat or drink in here?"

Uhm...that's it for now! Wow I sound whiny. I really do love my work!

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Specializes in Oncology/BMT.

I could go on about this subject for days...

I recently had an elderly male patient (cute as a button) with a super annoying family. When he returned from the PACU, I asked if I could get him something for pain. I returned with a Percocet and his family was in the room. The wife asked me if he would be receiving an antibiotic because "we have a nurse in the family that said so." I explained that he would be getting Ancef as soon as pharmacy sent it. The daughter gave me this confused look and said, "You are going to give him the Percocet and antibiotic at the same time?" I sure am! Later on, the IV pump was beeping because their was air in the tubing. The son ran out of the room and said that we needed to come quick and his father needed help. Golly, was I shocked to find the patient in bed watching Dr. Phil with a beeping IV pump. And the wife was on the phone with the "nurse in the family." As soon as I pulled the tubing out, the wife asked me what had happened. I simply explained that the IV was done and she reported this to the nurse on the phone.

Where did you all go to nursing school? Oh, you didn't go. Let me do my job! And, yes, you can give Percocet and Ancef at the same time.

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It doesn't bother me too much if a patient calls me by one of those terms.

However, when other STAFF use such terms when talking to me... :mad:

I should have clarified. It doesn't bother me coming from a patient, but it bothers me coming from other STAFF:mad:

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Specializes in Med/Surg.

If I could remember all of them and have the patience to type them out, you all would think I hate my job. :D I really do love it, but have a LOW tolerance for BS and little things that are a result of no common sense, etc, drive me nuts.

I concur with just about everything that's been said already. If you use the last of a multi-dose medication (like a liquid med), PLEASE reorder it, so that when I go to pour a dose and there's two drops left, I don't then have to wait an hour for the pharmacy to send one up. That sort of simple thing, the courtesy factor, is important.

A lot of my pet peeves center around report. We have one nurse in particular who, takes forever to get her profiles for her shift. She'll say she's ready for report, but she hasn't done her shift sheet yet or looked at the profiles for any of her patients (one night, it was 10 minutes after 7, and I asked if she was ready to get report yet~report is supposed to start on the hour~and she said sure, let me just get my profiles...uh, WHAT?). Then, she'll go through and read them and do her sheet instead of actually listening to you, so she'll ask you something you've already said...multiple times. ("What was their blood sugar?" when you mentioned it several facts back). It makes report twice as long and is just aggravating. You'll sometimes repeat the same thing three times. Now, don't get me wrong...I roll in the door RIGHT on time (for some reason, no matter how early of a start I get at home, I can never manage to get there any earlier), but I am ready to GO for report when the nurse I am following is ready.

Another one, lately, is docs that feel that they can order meds that according to our policy, are only supposed to be given in the units. One wrote, "may give xxxx med on x floor." Really? So, you can just decide that? "Just put them on telemetry." Fine, but sometimes we can take the leads off of someone to shower or whatever and forget to call, and it'll be an hour later before the tech calls to say "so-and-so has leads off." I've gotten calls from the tele tech that have been, "I don't know what rhythm they're in" or "they had a 3 beat run of V tach 6 hours ago." I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm really not. So, that is NOT a reliable method of monitoring outside of the ICU. Plus, even if it was, sure, we can monitor...but we don't have a good enough means to intervene if we have to. Besides a crash cart. "We'll just transfer them to the unit if we have to." There are plenty of times that the units are full, and it takes TIME, a transfer to ICU is not an instant happening. We gave a med on the floor the other night (well, the doctor did) that is supposed to be given ONLY in ICU, not even IMCU normally gives that med, as it is a neuromuscular blocker and can cause respiratory arrest. We had an RN in there 1:1 with him, and had him on tele, but that's all we can do. We don't have the manpower to do 1:1 montioring after meds, either, we are not an ICU! We have 6 pts/RN on days or pms, and up to 8 on nocs! Not even pharmacy or our nursing supervisor would back us up when we all said it was not safe for that med to be given on the floor and that the patient should be moved to ICU if he was going to get it. It sucks, it's scary, and I'm afraid it's going to take a sentinel event to open someone's eyes and change this trend. Our floor is becoming one big IMCU, and it's NOT a good thing!

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

Nurses that complain about nit picky stuff but are far from perfect themselves.

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