Patients have some crazy requests sometime

[Poohlovr]

In a lot of hospitals the nurses don't have time do much of anything but pass the meds and take care of emergencies. They don't have the TIME for fluffing your pillow and feeding ice chips even if they wanted to. Everyone has to prioritize at work but when a nurse does it...someone calls them cold and uncaring because they have no choices.

The truest words I have seen written.

Rare is the day that I get out of work on time. Rare is the week that I'm not supposed to go back to the hospital on my day off for some sort of meeting or another. Even rarer is the day off that I don't get a call asking if I can come in to work.

I wish I had the time to do everything the patients ask of me. Simply put, I don't. I run up and down the halls passing pills and "putting out fires" If one of my patients goes bad and requires extra time, the rest go on auto-pilot. Meds are late, Dressing changes are late (or, put off for the next shift to do).
My day doesn't have any extra time allowed for emergencies.

/Most days, I finish doing my assessments and passing my 8 a.m. meds at 10 or 10:30.
If it's 10, I can start charting for a few minutes. If it's 10:30. I start passing my 11:00 meds. Charting will have to wait.
After 11:00 meds, I do my insulin injections, then I start charting.
If it's a day that my stomach thinks my throat has been slit, I might grab something to eat,assuming I have time (I take a a tv dinner, cause it's faster) at this time. Somewhere between lunch and 1:00, I have to get all of my charting in (and that's a lot--if you want to hear in detail all of the charting I am required to do--either by law or my hospital as a result of industry lawsuits, I'll be glad to tell you--in detail. Rest assured taht we are supposed to chart every two hours on each patient).For the next two hours, I finish my medications (I also have 1,2 and 3:00 meds.) I have to do chart checks, review new orders to make sure I haven't missed any during the day when I make checks for new orders every time a doctor sees a patient, chart vital signs (which I take--not my aides)
At 2:00, if nothing urgent is going on , I tape report for the on-coming shift. Then I finish meds and finish charting. Somewhere in this day, I have had to do dressing changes, make doctors calls if there is a change I need to report, draw labs, change IVs that have gone bad, change IV tubing that is 3 days old, talk to ancillary services and the lab umpteen times, and answer questions from doctors more times than I can count (after all, it's easier to ask the nurse, than to look it up themselves). I also answer call lights all day, because the aides are busy ,too. I help my aides with bed changes and
with "clean ups" This is on a regular day, with no emergent pateint concerns.

No, I don't have time to do all of the things I am asked to do--get cokes, coffee, ice, go buy newspapers, talk with family members multiple times a day on the phone and in the hall, sit with mom or dad who gets lonely or confused or combative....the time is simply not there.

If you don't like it, you can help-- coordinate your family--one person to get information on how moms night was and that person can tell everyone else. Trust me, if 10 people call, the answer is still going to be the same and I really don't have time to go through that with each family. (BTW--did you know that HIPPA prevents me from giving out information now except to the POA??? Don't get ticked at me if I tell you "I'm sorry--I'm not allowed to give out that information", 'cause I'm not allowed to). Someone from the family can be there for the confused patient to help re-orient or calm or simply to talk. The family cannot expect me to get coffee, cokes, etc for them. I am there for the patient. I don't have time to wait on them, too. We have a cafeteria--use it.

If we are short staffed, I will have extra patients, but, I am not allowed to tell anyone that we are short.
If I have patients who require extra care, some patients will not see me as often as they should. I am sorry for that, but, it's true.Don't expect me to drop everything cause mom needs kleenex, or her face washed or anything not urgent. I will get to it, but, be patient. Don't call for the nurse i mom needs to be cleaned up. Ask for the aide. I will do it, but, that leaves other parts of my job hanging, while the aide might be available to do it right away. If I am truly pressed for time,that's all I'm going to do anyway--get the aide.

If the next shift is short, I may be mandated to stay to help fill their holes. If not, it is still frequently 4 or 4:30 before I finish my day that was supposed to end at 3:00 and can go home.

Now, lest you think I am an uncaring nurse, I'm not. Nor do my patients see me that way. At work, we have a "Better Care" awards program. There is one criteria and one only for receiving this award-- a patient or their family, has to write a note to management complimenting the care you (And yes, you must be named in the letter) gave. I have 4 of these awards, and will get a fifth next quarter. The most one could have (if you had gotten one every time since their inception, which no one has, is 8.(No matter how many notes you get each quarter, you still receive only one award)
I feel blessed to know that despite everything, my patients appreciate what I do for them and recogonize that I am doing my best and working my hardest.

I do not want to leave nursing and I am not going to leave because some people don't understand the therapeutic value of making these events and these people human. It just allows me to deal with what I do and see on a daily basis . But, I will tell jokes about nursing. I will tell funny stories, just like all of these.
No matter what some of you may say, that does not make me a bad nurse. I am one of the best nurses you will ever hope to get.

Now, did I tell you about the elderly gentleman who kept taking his colostomy bag off? Whenever we would bend down to clean him up and get it fixed back up, he would say "while you're down there, why don't you just grab my..."---oh my--I can't even type what he asked us to do while we "were down there", but I bet you can guess!

 

[wilderness01]

Very well written Poohlovr! And we all know that is a typical day. No wonder there is a nursing shortage! Not many would want our jobs. Thanks for writing. People go into nursing because they care about people, some say it would be a calling. We all know it is NOT for the 1. $, which is not enough alot of days, 2. the hours, boy how I love working weekends and holidays or 3. for the gratitude, which most days we all should receive but with some no matter what you did for them that day it still wasn't enough. That's ok though because when I leave for the day I know I did my best. I also have one of the rewards, but ours was also a cash value along with the actual reward. Nice to be recognized but not necessary. I know what kind of nurse I am and I give my patients the best care I can.

 

[Poohnatic]

Thank you, nurses, for all you do. Yep, you've got a thankless job.

I've got a lot of chronic conditions, one of which sent me to 8 doctors in 6 years because "your xray is negative". This was before RSI's were recognized. As a result, I have always been very pragmatic about what I can and cannot do.

Stupid patient trick that I did was after c section number two (high risk pregnancy). I had been on heparin injections throughout my pregnancy, as I'd had a DVT 7 weeks after having my first son.

It had been drummed into my head that I needed to move around after surgery by one of the perinatologists. I asked my nurse (Karin, absolute doll) several times if I could get up and use the restroom, I needed to move. She kept saying, "Darlin, you just had a baby...get some rest!". Well, finally, when her shift was over at 7pm, she took the time to help me up and to the bathroom after my cath had been removed.

Flash forward to about 2am. I decide I need to go, but silly me thinks I can do it myself. I get to the bathroom okay, but start to get lightheaded. I pull the call string as I pass out. Those nurses were quick, I didn't even hit the floor. I came to with 4 nurses in there with me!!! Pulled out 5 staples in the process.

My nurse came in a little while later with my son and said we were having a quiet night, until your mishap...now it's crazy. I told her I'd called every room and said 'insurrection at 2, pass it on.' Made the next few days fun, everyone had a good chuckle over it. That's what happens when you get a crazy like me, thinking that they can do it all themselves !

Suzanne

 

[Maleficent13]

I have worked with nurses for 13 years as their support staff. I currently work with 400 of them. My mother is one. At times in my jobs, when we couldn't staff a nurse, I worked as one in the best capacity I had. Being a nurse is not easy. Having known thousands of them, there are a handful I would kick out of my hospital room if I saw them coming. Sometimes they make me want to scream on a daily basis for their paperwork deficencies and their questions that they've asked a hundred times and can't remember the answers to.

Having said that from my back office standpoint...I have also seen them come back from a patient's home and sit in my office crying quietly from what they've seen. I've seen one who wanted to remove a baby that hadn't been fed in a week, kidnapping be d***ed. I know a nurse who had a patient who died 13 years ago who every spring sighs and says, remember Fred (not his real name)? So if they need to vent, or tell a funny story, even if it's about me, that's okay!

So my funny story:

I was working for an orthopedist about 7 years ago. At the time we didn't have a nurse on staff. I was his office manager. The background on the doc was: he was young, single, gorgeous, and from old southern money. He had just been discharged from the army and was entering private practice for the first time. He was a PEDIATRIC specialist. One day, in the middle of a very busy clinic filled with 4 to 14 yr olds, I call out the name of a new patient who needs to fill out paperwork. Up walks this young (20 something) woman in a BIKINI top and daisy dukes. I ask her where her child is, and she responds, "Oh, the appointment's for me, honey." I blink and ask, "Okay, well, what seems to be the problem today?" She looks me straight in the eye and says, "My bre@stbone hurts. I need Dr. *** to examine me."

I quickly left the front desk area, located my doc, and told him about his new patient...when I could stop laughing! Needless to say, she was less than thrilled when I sat in on the exam.

 

[Disney Doll]

vhoffman,it's too bad you don't intend to visit this thread again, because all I can say to you is that I hope that you reported that nurse if that is truly how she treated you. That is inexcusable behavior. Certainly, you won't get an argument form me. I would also tell you that if I heard a co-worker treating a patient in that manner, I would report her as well. One can ceratinly tell from the tone of your post that the next nurse you encounter is going to have a pretty far distance to go to make up for that! Too bad...

BTW, nursing is far more than a "job"...it is a calling. Not one everyone has, not something everyone can do. Most folks who think it's a job don't last very long. I think the next few years are going to be very telling regarding how important a nurse actually is, because there will be less and less of us stretched thinner and thinner, with patients sicker and sicker and no one able to care for them.

Makes me , because undoubtedly, is is my profession, my calling, that will get the bad rap.

 

[DawnCt]

I worked on a post op/urology floor once and a rabbi asked me to "rub his surgical area". I told him I was a nurse, and that he had the wrong profession. I guess it was more shocking to me at the time because I was 20 something and I assumed that "men of religion" were above that. I guess the priest scandals have taught us differently.

 

[MelessaG]

My sister is an ICU nurse and is often amazed (in a joking manner) at how some of the frail little old men, no matter how weak or how out-of-it; still manage to grab her rear end or flash her deliberately when she is trying to take care of them. Fortunately, my sister has a very warped sense of humor and doesn't get too offended by anything. A personality trait that I think should be a requirement to work where she does.

 

[Disney Doll]

How right you are, MelessaG!!!!!!!!!!!! If I had a nickel for every older man who tried to grab me or flash me, I wouldn't need to work anymore!!!!!!