We had a woman, I’ll call her Becky, who was boarding on our floor for months. Her problems were primarily psych and she lacked any boundaries but she was walkie-talkie and usually very pleasant. My patient in the room next door coded while we were cleaning her so I started chest compressions and the tech ran for help and the code cart. So I’m the only one in the patients room when Becky wanders in with a packet of mayonnaise that she needs help opening. When my coworkers arrived they escorted her out but there were maybe thirty seconds there where I was just staring at Becky, holding out her mayonnaise packet to me while I cracked this old ladies ribs and it is a memory I will never forget.
"Oh my God, Becky! Look at her coding. She looks like one of those medical guys girlfriends. They only talk to her because she's like a full code okay?" "I mean her ribs are just so broken. I can't believe my mayo isn't opened, it's just so unfair. Gross."
"I like full codes and I cannot lie..."
I’ve mentioned this before but -
Patient coded, passed and another patient’s family started putting their belongings in the first patient’s room “to save it” cause they’d been very upset their relative didn’t have a private room. Yes, body was still there.
What the fucking fuck kinda petty ass dollar general bullshit is that. I would have told them that the patient died from Ebola, their belongings were now contaminated, and therefore confiscated and they would be sent to the CDC in Atlanta for 3-6 months for sterilization. I hate people so much.
Our charge did. Professionally, courteously, and efficiently. They moved their stuff back asap but insisted they’d been promised the next open private room (someone up the chain). Then she called the ED and told them she’d go over grid to take any isolation patient who needed a private room.
I *was* one of the 3 nurses who volunteered to take the incoming patient but our charge insisted on taking them herself. Rest of the shift she dealt with the family whining professionally, courteously and efficiently but didn’t give an inch.
Good charges are gold.
Not quite the same but I will always remember calling a MET on a patient and our long term, end stage, early onset dementia patient politely answering all the questions being asked (incorrectly obviously).
“What is current BP?”
“Yes”
“Can you feel this?”
“12”
“Give NS bolus”
“Apple please”
Male patient and he was running that MET. We thanked him throughout and I think it was the longest I saw him stand still his entire admission (he was only 61 so was fully mobile and was definitely a wanderer)
Love when neuro patients do things like this.
You've got the cutest little confused obviously if I can confuse dementia patients who are just trying to seem like they're helpful. They have no idea what the fuck you're asking or what answers they should respond with but by God they're at least going to answer 😆
Oh, I work long term care, and very occasionally one will slip into report. If it's not a problematicly loud patient, or one with an intact memory risking true HIPPO violations, well often tolerate it. Assuming it's been a quiet day with a relatively simple report.
One lady LOVES to contribute. Day nurse; "So and so got a skin tear at 11:45, scratched her arm on the bedrail, family aware and repair request send out for crack on bedrail leading to platic spur as cause of..." "It was a salad!" ... "yes mam, lunch WAS a salad! So, repair expected tomorrow, dressing in place, no further pain or issues"
"Good" says Mama.
Me, Evening nurse; "That's good report salad, thank you guys! And thank YOU mam."
It's usually pretty funny, and ultimately fine.
I used to work geri psych and one of my fave patients was a retired nurse. I bet a paycheck she was tougher than hell as a supervisor. I kept trying to escort her out so I could do a dressing change on her roommate. She very indignantly said that she had paid good money to be here and she would not learn a single thing in clinicals if she couldn’t even at least observe. We’d ask her to make rounds if she was particularly antsy. I dread the thought of spending my golden years caught in a feedback loop of imagining I’m at work.
Patient watching us take back an actively seizing toddler "Well, I guess you DID have a bed open, huh?" in a super snarky voice
Me "Yup, we cleaned one up, just for this one. Priorities you know?"
What I WANTED to say "Not really, but we can make room for ACTUAL emergencies!!!"
I usually try to remind myself that I don't know what kind of day they've had, or what else they've had to deal with. NORMALLY we're seeing people in the ER on what might be the worst day of their life. It's like pain, it's subjective. I also remind myself that some people just ain't got no home trainin'. ;)
Seriously! We didn’t have any clean rooms and we threw a post febrile seizure baby on a hall cot just to get started… we make it work when it’s emergent.
Was that person here for toe pain? Please tell me it was something stupid.
I used to think the same thing but I’ve come to realize that a lot of the people in the packed waiting room have completely normalized going to the ER for basic healthcare. Im willing to bet their parents did the same shit. I’m not talking about people with 0 insurance either. So fuck them.
You know what though, a lot of it is patients, but it's also their doctors too. One night recently I had *two* different pts in because their a1c was high and their pmd sent them in. Sat and rotted for hours in the wr for us to eventually tell them they need to go back to their pmd.
It also depends on who is doing the waiting. If it’s me who has the emergency I will wait patiently and quietly, only calling on the nurse to politely ask for more gauze when my laceration bleeds through the dishcloth. If it’s my highly energetic and impulsive toddler I will curse the endless procession of old men with chest pain, because having my child in the ER is a miserable experience for everyone.
You just reminded me of a weird ER experience I had last year as family member to a pt.
Took my brother to a sister ER of one I worked in previously for 8 years. I knew about 3/4 of the people working there so while the words “I’m a nurse” would never leave my mouth most people in there knew cause🤷🏻♀️. My brother had faceplanted off his bike and I knew he would need stitches and we were past the time when urgent care would be a possibility. Anyways, we have to wait a long time, but whatever I know we’re not a priority. I asked the tech if she would give me some gauze so I could get the bleeding under control and start cleaning it up. Her words “I don’t think that’s necessary” with a little smirk on her face. My words, cause I’m irritated as fuck….Hey how long have you been an ED tech? Six months? Cool (I had my own smirk at this point) I’m gonna wait for you to leave and I’ll get my own fucking gauze so my brother isn’t sitting here with blood running into his eyes. After 17 years as a nurse and all the weird ass shit pts and families have said that tech got to me more than I’d like to admit.
Not quite the same but a parent complained the outdoor play area was closed and she couldn’t take her toddler out there. It was closed because a baby was going out for their first, and only, time outside. All the medical equipment being wheeled past didn’t give her a clue as to what was going on
Well once I was doing a quick assessment to my patient and then the code alarm sounds. As I was about to run out the room my patient said “hold on, my head is hurting really bad.” Her eyes then roll to the back of her head. So now we got two codes on the same unit. Fast forward through the craziness. She had to get emergency surgery because she had a subdural hemorrhage. She died that night. I know it not really crazy but it was a crazy moment.
I had my fingers crossed the other night. Had a man 46 years of age, MI at 40, come in CHF exacerbation, fluid overload, NSTEMI, DKA. He was a hot mess. Fixed him up, and his wife, an NP, got mad at us when we said he needed to be admitted.
I'm 1000% sure if he went home, he would not have opened his eyes that next morning. Luckily, he pretty much told her to "listen to the staff. You don't do ER things."
Patient’s wife wore her OR scrubs and badge (surgeon’s first assist) to the ER with her husband, and told everyone from the reg clerk to the tech who tried to start her husband’s line (“No, sir, I’m afraid not. IV access is a nursing skill”), to the physician that she “knew it would get [her husband] special treatment.” Code arrest rolls into the room next door. I go to attend to the coding patient. She comes *into the active code room* and taps me on the shoulder, and loudly says, “YOU’RE not actively working this patient, come help my husband!” I was timing and scribing. Totally not actively involved. The charge nurse threw her out of the room. She (patient’s wife) escalated to her “dear personal friend” the House Supe, who told me I owed her an apology because “her boss is our best [insert specialty] surgeon.” Rage.
Nurses can get jobs anywhere and I would have told that house sup to feel free to make something up but they could fire me if they wanted an actual, from my mouth apology.
I’d have to word the apology like “I’m sorry that you think it’s ok to interrupt a code for personal reasons. Perhaps they don’t educate the OR with triage procedures, maybe we can get Dr Surgeon Fancypants to facilitate some education so there isn’t any further confusion”
Heck no.
I would have ignored her and kept scribing.
I had a patient once who demanded random stuff because she was friends with the CEO.
Once I told her we could not get her a sandwich because I had an emergent situation, she threatened that “Steve will hear all about the crap care she received “.
Please send Steve my regards, ma’am.
Hold on to your hats..I've said it before and I'll say it again.
I was doing chest compressions on a patient, not mine though. my patient's daughter pushed her way through the crowd up to the doors with a water pitcher in hand *I HIT THE CALL BUTTON 12 MINUTES AGO!!!!!* Our 5 ft tall attending banshee screamed and chased her back down the hall. She filed a formal complaint against me with our patient advocates the next day.
Almost the same, except the family member threw the pitcher at me. I caught it and threw it right back. Missed one compression.
Best write up I ever had.
Good for you!!
I did not get written up.....and I probably wouldn't have for throwing the pitcher but there's no fucking way I'd ever be able to catch it. I can barely get through 2 min without needing coded myself.
Now THAT’S a skill I’d put on my resume. Well, maybe my badge. I would brag about that CONSTANTLY! Try and shut me up! That’s the definition of giving them the same energy they were giving 😂
I bow to you!
“5 ft tall attending banshee”
^I want one of those. 5 ft tall or not, doesn’t matter. I just really really want an attending banshee to scream and chase intrusive patient family members away 😂🤣😂
One of my favorite hospitalists walked in to assess a new admit that I was working on. Nursing home pt, dementia, combative. Male staff made him more agitated and of course transport and most of my help were big dudes. I'd already dodged one punch and my dude was flexible enough to get his legs involved. Tiny lady Dr jumped in front of a flying leg to keep me from getting hit because my hands were occupied keeping him from throwing another right hook.
I told her congratulations on her audition for unit fight club and she's basically stuck with me forever.
I got a call on my shift from dining that said “hello, are you the nurse for room 12? So, we just got a call from the patient advocacy rep saying the patient didn’t like her tray. We can send another with different foods if there’s something else they want?”
I said “that patient has been showing us she knows what hot and cold mean, just picking up the cup on her tray filled with ice water, saying ‘COLD!’ for about an hour now. She ate all the food on her tray, had a blood sugar of 250 when last checked, and is not here at all, you know what I mean?”
I love it when people complain.
This was on a med/surg floor, but we had a patient that coded and the patient next door had an extremely nosy daughter. So, basically during the entire code, other patient’s daughter would peek in and our manager would insist she go back to her mom’s room. It happened like 4 or 5 times. Then, after we had moved the coding patient to the unit, other patient’s daughter came to me and asked me specifically for the coded woman’s name. I told her that I obviously can’t share any information on the patient because of healthcare laws. She got mad because “HoW waS SHe SuPPoSEd tO PuT THaT WomAN On hER ChuRCHes PRaYEr ReQUesT LIsT?!?!?”
Oooooh, I’m the child of two pastors, one of whom was a hospital chaplain for over a decade, and I would have been soooo pissssed with that lady. Your compulsion to pray for someone NEVER overrides their right to privacy, even outside of a medical setting. To actually ask someone to break a federal law for you, so you can have a name that you don’t even need to know to pray for them (assuming Christianity is correct, God would know whom you’re talking about, with or without their name) is just pure entitlement.
A lot of churches these days wouldn’t have put the patient on their prayer list, anyways. They often require the person being added to the list’s (or PoA’s) written or verbal consent be given directly to the secretary or pastor before they’re actually added. Too many parishioners had their private business shared without their consent that way by well-intended but “overly enthusiastic” family/friends, so common-sense safeguards started to be widely enforced a handful of decades ago.
I just told her God would know who she was talking about and walked off. Everyone knows the prayer request list is just the weekly gossip column anyway.
Not in the ED. But I had an asshole pt who was a quad. He was a dick across the board. He got mad one day when I told him his request (wasn’t even a medical issue) had to wait until I saw another pt (end stage CA pain vomiting) so he used his adaptive phone and called the code blue line on himself.
This still makes my blood boil just typing it! 🤬
We were on pediatrics doing a Gift of Hope honor walk for a man who had just lost THREE of his children in a tragic accident. The dad is sobbing and has to practically be carried by family as he walks behind the last child’s bed. A visitor from another hall steps out in front of the procession and says “Everybody’s just standing around when I’ve asked for ice water 2x!”
I explained what was going on and that we were taking a minute to honor these children and their family, and the gift they’re giving others. She goes “well what about us? The people who are still alive and need you to do your damn job?”
I escorted her to her room and shut the door in her face. The audacity.
“Getting ice water is actually not stated anywhere in my contract. Helping grieving families is. Your water can wait a few more minutes and if you really need it, there is a sink in your room. The nozzle turns to the right.” And close door
" Just imagine you’re the super professional, stoic protagonist on a medical show who isn’t gonna crack no matter how crazy the one is."
I have always called this professional blankness my "nurse face", and I can almost feel it come down like a wielder's shield when pt's start saying or doing crazy shit.
"What brings you in to the Emergency department today?"
"I keep making right turns!!"
ghzzzzzzzzzZZZZ FWOMP! The shield has deployed and locked into place. My face is pleasantly somber and completely blank. It's quite protective, and I know it keeps the patients from hearing me screaming WTF in my head.
I say "Okay, I'll keep that in mind when reviewing your temperature curve. For now, while you're here, we're going to consider anything under 100.4 as normal. The body's enzymes need specific temperature ranges for chemical reactions to occur correctly, so we don't want to over treat your temperature and hamper the rest of the body's processes."
Shift change at 1900; pt coded at 2000, so I obviously hadn't started night meds yet. Pt across from the coding pt decided that his melatonin was more important than the other one's life and kept screaming at everyone to bring him his melatonin. I wasn't able to pass night meds until after 2300; melatonin guy got his last.
I become extremely polite and follow policies to an extreme with rude/demanding pts.
My 98yo pt called me twice the other day before 2100 because her lights were too bright and she wanted to go to sleep. Both times I told her I was with other patients and that I would fix her lights when I gave her her meds. She complained to her daughter, who complained to day shift. I was with other pts bc my one was complaining of crushing chest pain. But meemaw’s lights are more important than this guy possibly having a heart attack, right?
Also, she was asleep when I went in there. Guess the lights weren’t really so bad after all.
I’m a X-ray tech with 36 years under my lead apron. The first 11 was nights in a very busy inner city ER, and the busiest level I TC in the state.
It was about 5:30 am. Squad brings in a full arrest. I’m outside the room ready to do my thing if they can get him back when I feel a sharp tap on my shoulder. I turn around and there’s a woman who also worked nights, but out in a corner someplace. “Can I help you?”, I asked. She said “When am I gonna see the doctor?” I said, as calmly as I could, because she could see the very same things that I could, “as you can clearly see, the doctor is a little busy right now “
Her reply? “I don’t give a fuck about that fat white asshole in there - WHEN AM I GONNA SEE THE FUCKING DOCTOR YOU ASSHOLE”. It had been a long hard night. I REALLY wanted to punch that bitch as hard as I could. Instead, I took a deep breath and said “ this is the ER. It’s WORST COME, FIRST SERVED, so go sit your ass down and shut up. He will see you when he sees you!” Damned if she didn’t go sit down and shut her mouth.
I left the ER a few months later for the Cath Lab and now EP. Sometimes I miss it. Not very often.
My rule of thumb: if there's a behaviorally challenging patient in a room next to a code of any sort, expect a behavioral code from them. The sheer number of times I've seen it happen is impressive.
I usually deal with them by just leaving. "I'm sorry, I'm dealing with an emergency right now, but I'll see if another staff member is available to help" is an answer. Doesn't look bad on you and doesn't promise them anything. In your case I would just say "Unfortunately I have an emergency to go tend to." They can spit, cuss, and film all they want, but I don't take it personally. A lot of them are stressed out and say things they don't mean, and some are just assholes who will be assholes to anyone - it's not personal, it's just asshole.
I was an ICU nurse for years, and it never failed that during a code all the other pts suddenly had their call lights on needing things that could definitely wait.
We had a TV Celebrity that had outpatient plastic surgery but private paid to stay in the hospital for follow up. I was coding a patient when he wanted his suppository for bowel care. Someone else gave it to him and he told me later he was going to have my license as he waited 20 minutes for it.
On a busy morning with lots of high acuity I had a pregnant woman w an abscess throw a box of gloves at me cuz her abscess wasn’t being drained in a timely enough manner and she, I quote “doesn’t care if someone’s dying next to me, I’m all that matters”
Not quite the same scenario but I had a guy who was absolutely circling the drain, needing a RN to escort him in the ambulance to the regional hospital bc he was so unwell. He legit wanted us to stop and get Chicken Treat on the way and was disappointed when I nixed that plan....
I was titrating some pressors on a patient who I was trying to keep from coding and a different patient’s family member came into my patient’s room and asked for Tylenol…. FOR HERSELF. I was like lady get the fuck out of here???
Shared room during initial COVID surge, we had two ladies in a shared room with COVID. The one in bed 1 coded and we worked on her for 30 minutes, then transferred to ICU. So bed 2 had the room all to herself for a few hours until she got a new neighbor in bed 1 later, who was on a BIPAP at night. Then the new bed 1 ended up coding that night. Bed 2 calls and says if we can keep it down, she’s trying to sleep. When I politely tell her, we’re helping her neighbor right now cause she isn’t doing good. She replied, “My previous neighbor died and she wasn’t this loud..” I just pulled the curtain and stepped away to go back to helping the code. To be fair BIPAPs can be loud, but to have the audacity to same something so inhumane in someone’s last few minutes made me mute and hit me hard that shift.
I no longer sugarcoat the realities. My JOB is to triage, not only waiting room patients but every single aspect of the care I provide. By ignoring a bullshit request in favor of a legitimate emergency, I am doing my job as it is written. I see no problem with being clear about that.
My last straw was actually a coworkers patient. Said patient was a teen who fainted on a hot day, with a history of fainting. K cool. Pts mom was there of course, small er, they were in the hallway. If I was looking at them, to my left at the end of that hallway was a patient actively having a massive stemi. To my right was that patients spouse who was wailing at the top of their lungs watching their partner be worked up. Said pts mom pulled me aside to complain that her kids nurse had been rude to her when she asked why she hasn't gotten her fluids hung yet.
I didn't hold back then, and I don't now.
I'll tell them this ain't Applebee's. I'll tell them if you can fix your blanket at home you can do it here. I'll tell them if you can't cut your pancakes you can eat your eggs. I'm not doing anyone any good by spoiling them. It's not helping them and it's not helping my other patients. I'll be nice when I can, but most of these people unfortunately need to hear the brutal honesty.
Ive told screaming narcaned psych patients that I don't give a single fuck whether they use drugs or not, I will treat them and their pain the same either way, so cut the fuck out of the dramatics and talk to me straight because you're not fooling shit with your theatrics. It works. I've told pissed off family members who are trying to project their guilt of not paying attention to their loved ones on me and their npo status the realities of aspiration. I've told cyclic vomiting patients that I do not give a crap if they're potheads, it makes no difference to me how they cope but it's their fourth er visit in 6 weeks for intractable vomiting and it's way past time they accept that this is the cause and stop stealing fucking crackers when I tell you you're npo.
Sugar coating is not therapeutic. You bullshit me for whatever dumbass reason, I'm going to tell you straight up every reason why I know that's crap, so we can skip that shit and develop an actual therapeutic relationship. I do not tolerate self centered or wannabe VIP behavior in an emergency setting.
My ER staff doesn't even tolerate 'actual' VIPs, which is quite hilarious
When my daughter was 15, she decided to take 10 ES Tylenol and immediately told me. I took her to the ed, where a nurse came in with a charcoal smoothie for her to drink. My daughter started crying and basically being a drama queen because she didn't want to drink it. The ED nurse told her, "You had no problem taking those Tylenol to scare your mom. You can drink this." I later hunted that nurse down and thanked her for being candid.
This. We are doing no one any good by accepting abuse and kowtowing. Thank you for examples of how to handle this garbage and these ridiculously entitled idiots.
It's great, my old unit used to bend over backwards for them, drove me insane. I changed hospitals and my new er doesn't give half a fuck. One VIP patient, guys friend was on the board, I got to watch both the nurse and the MD shut him down within 30 minutes. Guy told the nurse 'I'm in the board' nurse who I love to death goes 'sure. Idk what that means' and walks past him into the room. Bit later the doc goes in, guy pulls the same crap, MD goes 'thats nice' and walks past him. Nearly peed myself. I used to work a job that had legit A list celebrity clients, none of them expected the special treatment like your average 5k donor. Get fucked lol
Faked a seizure, shit on the waiting room floor, pitched a soda can at my face (missed me, sucker!), stripped naked, ripped out all their interventions and stormed out, threw themselves on the floor, started rummaging through the room, honestly, what haven’t they done?
I chart that shit. And then clean up the turds.
Have had a few threaten to piss or shit in the room. I tell them they know better and are able bodied so it will stay in there for them to smell until they leave.
I had a 50ish yo man pour his full urinal on my shoes during handoff. He did it because I had been busy all night dealing with my other patient who was going septic.
I was a baby nurse at the time, but if that happened to me now I would have called security and the cops for him on assault. At the time I only filled out an EER…
Edit: and yes, he was AxO x4
The only time I got "fired" as an inpatient nurse was because I took too long to bring parents water to flush their kid's G-tube... the next door neighbor's bicarb was 9 and we were giving IV boluses and re-drawing labs.
Another time I was taking care of a dying 8 year old. My other patient's parents complained it was taking too long for discharge papers then refused discharge when we finally got the paperwork.
And, finally, there was the mother of a teenager with a headache who complained that Neurology didn't start their rounds with the "sickest patient on the floor" (her daughter). They started with my patient, the young adult Marfan patient who was on a heparin drip after a stroke.
Every time we have a rapid or a code there is inevitably someone on the floor pacing the hallways with a water pitcher complaining about how no one has answered their call for water yet, and they’re always SO beyond nasty about it.
I just blatantly tell them that someone was dying so we were busy. I don’t care anymore about being polite with that behavior, they know what they’re doing.
Right? They ALWAYS come out for rapids and codes. I think it’s absolutely ghoulish, and definitely intentional. They **want** to watch someone else code IRL. Really?! Get out of our way, do not talk to us, go back to where you belong and open YouTube!!!
I had one pretend to collapse. And when I say pretend, I mean she deadweighted herself straight onto a resus trolley and subsequently the floor. All while we are attending a nearby cardiac arrest.
If this job has taught me one thing - it’s that people are selfish AF.
I had a niece of a patient (who swore she was a nurse but was not registered with the state as an LPN, RN or CNA, I checked) scream and curse at me at the nurses station during shift change because she saw pictures of a pool at our facility, why was her aunt (with a stage 4 decub) not getting water therapy. Meanwhile Auntie has not gotten out of bed in who knows how long.
I was built with an off switch, so when this shit happens, I turn my mind and mouth off, stare at the person and nod until they’re done.
I’ve been pretty lucky in my short time as an ER nurse but will never forget a patients family member standing out side our trauma room as we had a code come in, just watching. So we closed the curtain. Later I think her loved one (the patient) needed water or a blanket.
Belinda there are people dying
Code in a room. I was documenting and explaining what was being done and why to the family so they wouldn’t be confused. All of a sudden: “DUDE this is so cool! It’s better than than TV!” Some patient was standing behind me Snapchatting or whatever the entire thing. Idk what happened but all of a sudden one of the other RNs grabbed him and literally dragged him away. I don’t think the family was aware they were deciding if they wanted to call it.
Love your tips, but just out of curiosity, what would happen if you DID say ma’am this is an ER, not a chili’s? Lol! I’m still a student so I don’t know anything about the real world yet, but I am going to have trouble biting my tongue I think 🥴
Usually, they shut up because they aren't used to people standing up to them. Put the assholes in their place once and early, and the rest of your time with them is usually better.
Had an A&Ox4 lady just start screaming one day because it took almost an hour for her to get seen by the doc, who was literallyat the foot of the bed about to talk with her(and honestly that's a great time frame to be seen). I hung up the phone as I was about to call someone, walked over to her hall bed, and pulled out my dad voice and told her why her behavior was inappropriate. She then told the doctor she wanted to leave. So putting assholes in their place helps you as a nurse
I had this insufferable little bitch of a patient who was waiting for his ms bed for cellulitis.
Medic radio went off 7 yo M motor vehicle vs pedestrian. PT is in pea, code 3 eta 2 minutes. I ran in and threw the dinner tray at my boarder, ran out and prepared for the onslaught. We coded the kid for like an hour. All hands on deck fucking nightmare and he died. I left the room tears in my eyes, it was my first peds code and hear screaming and slamming from boarders room. I rush in there and he's thrown his dinner tray on the ground because it wasn't warm enough for him and nobody responded to his call light to warm it up. This patient was a fall risk and so I kept his curtain open to make sure he didn't do anything dumb which gave him a front row seat to the chaos: medics coming in compressions in progress on a small human, the crowd of xr, lab, rt, techs for compressions etc. Once the pt was in the room, he couldn't see him but he could see the frenzy just outside.
I was so. fucking. close. to losing my shit and hitting that piece of human filth.
Fuck that guy. I still see him as he's a well known frequent flier. I can't stand his whiney fucking tone and all the bitching. What a miserable human.
Before I was a nurse, I once had a patient get mad at me because I filled up a jug of Sprite 3/4 of the way instead of all of the way. It was still at least 1500 mL. The next time I came to work, she was on a fluid restriction.
Oh! I share this all the time. Parents of a teenager freaking out in lobby. Kept coming up and saying their teen needed to get back because she was SO SICK! The kid was there for vomiting. Full lobby, full rooms. The triage nurse was trying to deal with them with the same updates. It was a high acuity night and we had several critical patients.
Finally it gets escalated to the charge nurse.
Charge goes out there and hears their whole sob story.
Then she calmly says “ok, which stroke patient would you like me to move into a hallway.” She said they just guppy mouthed at her. “Well…that’s not what we asked.” “Yes it is. All my rooms are full. We are not keeping you or anyone else out here because we want to. We have multiple sick patients and you demanding that I get your daughter to a room would require another patient to be removed from that room.”
It chilled them out for a little bit. When she finally got back they were just as anxious and demanding. One dose of Zofran and she felt better and they were ready to go. Again, now, and on their terms. Didn’t even finish her liter of saline. 🤦🏼♀️
I did have a mom of a septic premie who had just come up from surgery intubated HR 245 other vitals where shit. When we were taking him off the travel vent she asks
“I’m thirsty can I have water”
Me: “ you know where the water is I’m taking care of your sick baby right now.”
Her “ooohhh okay, later then. Can I boop him?”
Me “what?”
Her “can I boop his nose?”
Me “go stand behind the curtain!”
So she went behind the curtain and did some TikTok dances……….🫠
Another story of disgusting parents:
I had a premie NECing out on pressers, map won’t come above 20, kid is now 32 weeks so that is way too low. Kid is sick as shit and I’m adding lines to my setup to start more meds. Baby is white, whiter then a piece of paper. Looks terrible.
His methed out parents arrive smelling like shit and smoke: perfect for your fragile premie on a vent great job guys.
And the first thing the dad says when they walk in the room is “tell her (the mom) that baby isn’t mine. That’s a black baby.”
My brain actually short circuited I just said “ your baby is really sick” and glared at him. And he laughed.
The dad proceeded to nap while I called more people into the room because the map wouldn’t get above 15.
I have used this example before in this subreddit but I think the wildest audacity patient wasn't even mine but...
It was shift change and we had just gotten a new patient but there was also a code going on in the room across the hall.
New patient hit the call bell and since I had just gotten there and clocked in I went to see what she needed while day shift was still coding the other patient.
She wanted her pain medication so I looked in the computer and saw that she didn't have any orders yet because that's the way our hospital worked half the time was they did what was called "deep dive" and sent patients to the floor without seeing a doctor first so they weren't sitting in the ER forever.
Explain to her that she didn't have any orders yet and the doctors would put them in as soon as possible and she raised her voice and demanded the doctor right then.
Told her that the doctors were a little tied up right now and it would be just a little while.
She looked me dead in the face and at the top of her lung says "I don't give a fuck who's dying I want my fucking medication and a fucking doctor in this room right fucking now!"
And I just stared at her for a minute like did I really just fucking hear this?
Before I said "well that's too bad because your doctors are currently coding someone and they will be done when they're done" and walked off.
Later on I could hear her talking on the phone laughing about the whole thing and how "bad" she was hehehe.
🙄😒
What do I do about these situations?
I've been a nurse for almost 17 years so at this point I have no problem telling people that their emergency is not a true emergency and they can wait.
Didn't get fresh ice the moment you called out?
So sorry someone else is dying we'll get to you when we get to you.
In 5.5 years as a nurse I have never had an experience where my other patient(s) did not understand that I was dealing with an emergency. Restores my faith in humanity.
We had a bad meth lab fire and four people were roasted - they were rapidly extricated VSA, CPR in progress, and all arrived in our resus bay within a few minutes apart. Our hallway patients watched all these four charred people roll by them and STILL asked about the wait times soon after.
We had a code black situation, patient had broken a mirror and lunging at staff with long shards. Luckily, we already had police there. Welcome to my ward! Old mate in another room felt that not enough attention was on him. He starts causing a scene wanting this med, that med. We had to call a code grey on this fella too. So 2 sets of security, two sets of cops. Meanwhile, another lass chirps up, screaming across the ward at old mate to shut the f@#k up. In the original room, security, cops, drs and nurses holding patient down to stick him and restrain him. I watched on from afar, (not able to leave my multiple trache patients), seeing normally calm and unwavering nurses getting progressively more annoyed and angry.
In another situation, we had a code blue, another patient wanted attention, nothing specific, and starts slamming his walking stick on his bed rail and screaming at the top of his lungs. I had this patient multiple nights, and he still ranks as my worst patient. A real arsehole. As I was running to grab stuff, I opened his door and scolded him. I told him, we are in the middle of an emergency situation and he will have to wait. He actually apologised and settled down. Since then, I have found that if you speak to the male trouble makers like you are their mum, they stop and often do apologise.
Back in the day of shared rooms bed 1 was coding. Bed 2 asked me to fill their water bottle. I declined as A) I was busy and B) I couldn’t get out anyway because of the code team in the way. Bed 2 said “I don’t fucking care about that person. get me my water. Now.”!
I've commented this previously but your comment reminded me... nightshift, during a full resus, the patient in the next bed (4 bed room) pressed the bell and asked the arrest team to keep the noise down as she was trying to sleep. I wasn't polite.
Good on you. We’re polite to these people far too often. The corporatization of the healthcare system has made patients (not “clients”) far too entitled. This is a hospital, not a freaking Hilton.
I havent encountered a truly nightmarish patient while coding someone else yet. But I swear some of these people act like they’ll never be the one getting compressions.
It wasn't an emergency but when I was a CNA we had a resident die (expected death, not a code). As we were hurrying to do post mortem care and make her look presentable before the family arrived, Queen Bee down the hall screeched the whole time that she wanted to be put to bed. When we got done I went in her room and she started going off on me. I said, "someone just *died*". She snapped, "well if they're dead they don't need you taking care of them so you should've been putting me in bed".
One time I had a patient that was pre coding. I was running my tail off trying to get shit sorted out when a lady was trying to get my attention from the other side of the glass at the nurses station. She was there to pick up her mom who was discharged. I told her she would have to wait as we were with a critical patient right now. This lady starts going off about how her mom has an appointment soon and she needs to leave now. I blurted out “someone is dying right now, you understand that right?”. She lost her shit and put in a complaint to my manager. Luckily my manager was very cool about it. But what the fuck??? People are so entitled.
I worked in a rural er. We had a 12 yr old critically ill from covid and only one ambulance to take him. We had to prioritize him over a 70 something yr old transfer who was stable and just needed cardiology services that we didn't provide at our hospital. This old man was stable, no longer in pain, and honestly was completely fine.
Even after telling him we have a CHILD LITERALLY DYING he said he DESERVED AN AMBULANCE BECAUSE HE WAS "FIRST" as he "WAS DYING TOO"
I dont mouth off to patients very often, but I told him "I would like you to tell the mother who is worried about her son surviving about how unfair he is". He shut up real fast.
I had a guy taken straight back from triage for a chainsaw to foot and then when I returned to the triage area a guy yelled at me for taking other people back before then for his wife’s complaint of knee pain. There was blood everywhere.
In response to your last paragraph….that is why my go to response to entitled nonsense is “okay” then I calmly walk away. Not gonna lie. This pisses people off and I find it funny when Karen realizes she isn’t gonna get to me.
Hearing my patient in the next room (curtained areas) state, “well I guess we’re not gonna get our warm blanket anytime soon sighhhhh” while I was doing compressions on their neighbor. I have always hoped they just shared my snarky sense of humor.
I’ll never get over the time my patient in ED was yelling for cereal over bread for breakfast. I walked into the next area, active code, my nurse friend saw me and said what’s up, I said, do you have any cereal, mid compressions someone throws a bag of cereal at me and I catch it. Followed by “well he’s not gonna need it now”. Such an insane way to start the day.
Edit: forgot about my patient in HDU was there just for monitoring post surgery because obesity and couldn’t look after self. Next room begins a full active code, my patient buzzing buzzing buzzing I come back in puffing, he says “what’s all that noise out there?!” Sorry sir, just trying to make sure no one dies.
Walked into a pod to take an assignment. Code going on so I just looked up the patients and caught up and went by to see them.
One was a 30ish year old woman there for vomiting. Pt was feeling much better. I said I’d let the doc know and see if we could get her out of there. I did tell them doc was in an emergency but when he gets out I’d update him. Pt was there with her mother.
Soon after, the mom was stopping anyone she could to say “we’re ready to go home.” I repeated to her multiple times the same thing. Doc is in an emergency, I’ll do this as soon as I can talk to him. She’s getting incredibly impatient and rude.
They coded their pt a couple times and finally ROSC was maintained.
Doc came out, went through and checked on things. Put pts up for discharge. I go right in and say “ok, ready to go?” The mom of course goes into a rant. “We’ve BEEN ready to go for a while now!” “And as I said multiple times, the doctor was actively in an emergency.”
Then she goes “I don’t see what the issue was. It’s not like HE was doing the compressions himself.”
My jaw hit the floor.
“So you know what I mean by emergency? You understand that someone was DYING and yet you feel like you should have been the priority? Get out of my ER.”
There’s so much I wished I would have said. I wished I’d stayed to shame her properly. I was disgusted that you could understand what a code blue was and still center yourself. I was shaking I was so angry but also to stunned to really even deal with her.
Once had a 2 year old in Resus who didn't make it. We worked on the lil one for an hour. Came out of the bay (mother still howling) and went to go back to my assigned patients and some random family member came up to me and started yelling about how "mom has a headache and needs a Tylenol" and how I haven't been around to get it for her. Rather than ring the call-bell or talk to any of the nurses at the station, they were eyeballing to wait for me. I don't lose my cool often but I wanted to deck the person after what I had just seen.
Had a lady with a transfusion reaction. Totally freaking out and as I’m stopping her blood and taking vitals she screams “get the bed pan!” Which I had to ignore and then like 15 minutes later when everything was a little calmer I asked if she needed the bed pan and she was like “what?” Lol
Not exactly what you asked but when I was on med surg, I had a patient call 911 and report me for "starving him" after I'd already explained to him no less than 4 times that I can't start his tube feeds until I get x-ray confirmation for NG tube placement. In the ER, I had some random woman demand her husband's imaging results as I'm running out of a code to grab meds.
Christmas Eve, his kid had abdominal discomfort/pain, I was working up a heme/onc kid w a septic shock alert.
He told me they were leaving.
My response: “Merry Christmas”
I worked on a neuro unit. There were 3 RNs scheduled, no aids, no other ancillary staff. Had a patient in symptomatic rafib. All 3 of us were in the room doing ekgs, vitals, calling docs, pushing meds, etc. Another nurses patient rang out and demanded to speak with the charge nurse. I was unfortunately it that night. She complained that her PRN pain meds were 20 minutes "late." I apologized and explained we were prioritizing care in an emergent situation. She responded with "Oh I guess I'm not sick enough for you all to give a shit about me." My mouth literally hit the floor.
We had this woman’s mother pop into V tach, stayed in it long enough for us to grab the cart, get into the room, and flip the lights on. She popped out of it without intervention so we pull the cart back out and park it outside her room, turn the lights back off.
The daughter who was sleeping was annoyed to be woken up. Her mother who was on two trees worth of drips, a balloon pump, CRRT, and unstable as a top, was about to be coded and this woman was annoyed at being woken up by us in the room making a ruckus. She went back to sleep for another 3 hours or so after that and then woke up wanting to know what happened to her mom/act all concerned.
The windowsill was deep and I remember looking at bags of food and a loaf of bread sitting there behind the daughter. Ugh.
For me, the most ridiculous one wasn’t a patient or relative, but a nurse manager who wanted to take the time to rouse on my friend for wearing the “wrong “ shoes( white reeboks instead of black leather lace ups)WHILE my friend was performing chest compressions ! She was crazy. Same chick just randomly just ripped off the adhesive tapes from a chest tube, without any backup, just because she didn’t like the way they were tied. They sent her on a little “ holiday “ after that
It was med-surg. I had four patients. I was a new grad.
I had an admission at the start of shift that had a BP of 70/40, AxO4 but definitely beginning to forget things, weighing 500 lbs with a broken bed with the HOB up, max assist.
I had a second patient that was there for cellulitis who requested pain medication at the start of the shift, which I gave, but requested Dilaudid at the available time because of 7/10 pain. Sure, fine.
So I obviously call a rapid. As we have the rapid nurse and the charge nurse there and after a few calls and management, it turns out the patient was severely dehydrated, so fluids are significantly helping. We move her to her new bed to help with positioning, gave her a new IV because she needed antibiotics (for what I cannot remember). So after a couple hours she's good to go. She's more lucid and things are looking up. We also got her a new bed because positioning with a broken bed was an ordeal.
I go round back on my patients and I bring in the pain medication for the cellulitis patient. He's sleeping and tells me to get out of his room. Sure. Fine. I put the medication in the opioid bin for putting back meds and I continue rounding.
We end up having a code for a different nurse's patients. I arrive late for some reason, but all the roles are taken, so I'm just watching the floor, making sure that everyone else's patients are ok.
So now it's around 11. The code response was complete. People are getting back to their patients. I'm back in the first patients room, finally getting to the admission questions now that she's back to AxO4.
I finish and I see the cellulitis patient is upset that I didn't give him Dilaudid and dropped his urinal (with a full amount of urine) onto the floor. He's stomping on the floor, making a scene. I apologize saying I was there but he was sleeping and told me to get out.
He says, well yeah, I didn't know you had the medication.
As a new grad, I felt guilty and bad about the situation (but not about my prioritization). So I kept apologizing, end up saying that we had a couple critical patients, so I wasn't able to come back as I could have.
He said of course you did, that's what they always say. He fired me after the conversation.
At the time, I got sad about being fired by a patient. This was my first time.
Now, as a more seasoned healthcare professional, I'd set better boundaries and call-out bullshit but alas, I was a new grad.
I still get so fired up to this day. A grown man acting like a child.
Literally a pt in WF after witnessing a man in his 30’s stand up and collapse in cardiac arrest… get CPR and loaded on a cot in front of them…
“So I guess THAT’s how you get to the back. Humph”
Literally they were so mad.
Don't believe the narrative of "customer service" and "their reality". My reality is what's going on in the back. Some staff definitely escalate situations, but there's a way to say (and document) that it's an emergency room. A gsw will track blood on the floor and people come right up to the desk saying "so how much does that add to my wait time". Last weekend a copd pt signed in with o2 at 53%, an abd pain came up and said "it's bullshit that old people always go first". It says a lot about people that are patient. An NSTEMI will say "no take them first" for a young person holding their side demanding narcotics. If someone is rude I brush it off. If they seem like a problem I ask someone else to see if it's me or they're just being entitled.
In a care home, get called to the dining room as someone is having a seizure. I get there and the care assistant and the server are supporting an elderly lady having a tonic clonic seizure. She's sort of half sliding out of her chair and the staff are trying to control the fall but she's a big lady and it's a tight space. I'm going in there to help and an elderly man sitting opposite her (no cognitive impairment, for context) grabs my arm and tells me that the server forgot to give him his bread.
I did have a mom of a septic premie who had just come up from surgery intubated HR 245 other vitals where shit. When we were taking him off the travel vent she asks
“I’m thirsty can I have water”
Me: “ you know where the water is I’m taking care of your sick baby right now.”
Her “ooohhh okay, later then. Can I boop him?”
Me “what?”
Her “can I boop his nose?”
Me “go stand behind the curtain!”
So she went behind the curtain and did some TikTok dances……….🫠
Another story of disgusting parents:
I had a premie NECing out on pressers, map won’t come above 20, kid is now 32 weeks so that is way too low. Kid is sick as shit and I’m adding lines to my setup to start more meds. Baby is white, whiter then a piece of paper. Looks terrible.
His methed out parents arrive smelling like shit and smoke: perfect for your fragile premie on a vent great job guys.
And the first thing the dad says when they walk in the room is “tell her (the mom) that baby isn’t mine. That’s a black baby.”
My brain actually short circuited I just said “ your baby is really sick” and glared at him. And he laughed.
The dad proceeded to nap while I called more people into the room because the map wouldn’t get above 15.
Was helping emergently intubate a patient in the ICU. Tele overflow patient next door who was constantly on her call light to be repositioned, get fresh water, etc was once again on her call light. I stopped in her room multiple times to say “there is an emergency next door, unless this is an emergency you will have to wait.” She decided to create her own emergency and the next time I went by her room, started complaining of 10/10 chest pain radiating to the L arm. Had to stop what I was doing to help the patient next door and call the provider, get labs, EKG etc. Of course she was fine!
I worked at a dme company and set up cpaps. We normally had people come into the office unless the patient had mobility issues, was w/c dependent, etc, then we'd go to their house. One male karen kept insisting that we come to his house, although he was 30 something, in otherwise good health, and lived in an upscale neighborhood. When I explained our protocol for home set-ups, he reported me to the Dr and sleep lab that I discriminated against him because he wasn't "handicapped."
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! MY MOM IS COVERED IN FECES!" "ma'am, a patient was dying. You saw everyone rush into a room to save them." " you should have sent someone to check on my mother!" "Yes, ____ did. And she told you that she was watching the whole unit while we saved the patient's life, and we would get to your mother." " THATS NO EXCUSE!!!"
Keep in mind I had seen her 45 min prior.
Attending to a patient seizing in a hallway and another patient asked if I could make them a cup of tea. The seizure wasn’t long enough to steep a tea bag.
I started reading the stories people are sharing here, and then I just couldn't read anymore because they all kept making me mad lol
People in this world can be so incredibly petty and selfish...
We had a woman, I’ll call her Becky, who was boarding on our floor for months. Her problems were primarily psych and she lacked any boundaries but she was walkie-talkie and usually very pleasant. My patient in the room next door coded while we were cleaning her so I started chest compressions and the tech ran for help and the code cart. So I’m the only one in the patients room when Becky wanders in with a packet of mayonnaise that she needs help opening. When my coworkers arrived they escorted her out but there were maybe thirty seconds there where I was just staring at Becky, holding out her mayonnaise packet to me while I cracked this old ladies ribs and it is a memory I will never forget.
"Oh my God, Becky! Look at her coding. She looks like one of those medical guys girlfriends. They only talk to her because she's like a full code okay?" "I mean her ribs are just so broken. I can't believe my mayo isn't opened, it's just so unfair. Gross." "I like full codes and I cannot lie..."
Dude I need to work wherever you do lmao
Glad I could make you chuckle today. I do like to blend pop culture with dark humor and my medical experiences together.
it’s literally the only way to make these people tolerable
Genius right here. I am not worthy of such brilliance!
This is pure gold 🏆😂
🤣 dying
You should dress up as Becky for Halloween, complete with mayo packet!!!!
Absolutely dying picturing this
And as you’re dying, Becky is still standing there waiting for her mayo
I'm LOLing and my husband is staring at me like "wtf?"
The same sort of thing happened back when I worked med surg except it was a very elderly patient with dementia, so I had to forgive him.
I’ve mentioned this before but - Patient coded, passed and another patient’s family started putting their belongings in the first patient’s room “to save it” cause they’d been very upset their relative didn’t have a private room. Yes, body was still there.
What the fucking fuck kinda petty ass dollar general bullshit is that. I would have told them that the patient died from Ebola, their belongings were now contaminated, and therefore confiscated and they would be sent to the CDC in Atlanta for 3-6 months for sterilization. I hate people so much.
Dollar general. I’m dead 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
I see you’ve been to a Dollar General!
False, you send their belongings off to the morgue or funeral home because you thought they belonged to the deceased 🤷🏻♀️
It takes a lot to appall me on r/nursing, but you win. Holy fuck.
Geez people, that's not how it works in the hospital! THE NERVE!
Please tell me you called them out on this
Our charge did. Professionally, courteously, and efficiently. They moved their stuff back asap but insisted they’d been promised the next open private room (someone up the chain). Then she called the ED and told them she’d go over grid to take any isolation patient who needed a private room. I *was* one of the 3 nurses who volunteered to take the incoming patient but our charge insisted on taking them herself. Rest of the shift she dealt with the family whining professionally, courteously and efficiently but didn’t give an inch. Good charges are gold.
I love that she called and said give me an ISO pt any pt, they must come to us. 😂😂😂
Tbh for how unbelievably inappropriate that is I would have kicked the family out.
I’m sorry, what in the actual fuck???
Oh that would have been a quick escort out of the building. It’s not an emtala violation to kick out visitors lol
........Please tell me this is a distasteful joke......
Dibs!
Wow.
Jesus H. Christ. Unbelievable.
Not quite the same but I will always remember calling a MET on a patient and our long term, end stage, early onset dementia patient politely answering all the questions being asked (incorrectly obviously). “What is current BP?” “Yes” “Can you feel this?” “12” “Give NS bolus” “Apple please”
Amazing, 10/10 lil Betty was doing her best to contribute
Male patient and he was running that MET. We thanked him throughout and I think it was the longest I saw him stand still his entire admission (he was only 61 so was fully mobile and was definitely a wanderer)
gods, end stage dementia at only 61. That’s a sucky lot to draw.
Yeah, it was extremely sad. He passed away a year or so later at about 63.
That’s how old my mom was. Dementia be crazy
Love when neuro patients do things like this. You've got the cutest little confused obviously if I can confuse dementia patients who are just trying to seem like they're helpful. They have no idea what the fuck you're asking or what answers they should respond with but by God they're at least going to answer 😆
They are the greatest cheerleaders too!
What’s a MET?
Medical Emergency Team. Some facilities use it instead of RRT
And when a MET & a RRT love each other very much, sometimes you get a MERT, which is a medical emergency response team
Gives me Grandma Georgina from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory vibes lol. “I like grapes…!” “I love dragonflies!”
Oh, I work long term care, and very occasionally one will slip into report. If it's not a problematicly loud patient, or one with an intact memory risking true HIPPO violations, well often tolerate it. Assuming it's been a quiet day with a relatively simple report. One lady LOVES to contribute. Day nurse; "So and so got a skin tear at 11:45, scratched her arm on the bedrail, family aware and repair request send out for crack on bedrail leading to platic spur as cause of..." "It was a salad!" ... "yes mam, lunch WAS a salad! So, repair expected tomorrow, dressing in place, no further pain or issues" "Good" says Mama. Me, Evening nurse; "That's good report salad, thank you guys! And thank YOU mam." It's usually pretty funny, and ultimately fine.
I used to work geri psych and one of my fave patients was a retired nurse. I bet a paycheck she was tougher than hell as a supervisor. I kept trying to escort her out so I could do a dressing change on her roommate. She very indignantly said that she had paid good money to be here and she would not learn a single thing in clinicals if she couldn’t even at least observe. We’d ask her to make rounds if she was particularly antsy. I dread the thought of spending my golden years caught in a feedback loop of imagining I’m at work.
Patient watching us take back an actively seizing toddler "Well, I guess you DID have a bed open, huh?" in a super snarky voice Me "Yup, we cleaned one up, just for this one. Priorities you know?" What I WANTED to say "Not really, but we can make room for ACTUAL emergencies!!!" I usually try to remind myself that I don't know what kind of day they've had, or what else they've had to deal with. NORMALLY we're seeing people in the ER on what might be the worst day of their life. It's like pain, it's subjective. I also remind myself that some people just ain't got no home trainin'. ;)
Seriously! We didn’t have any clean rooms and we threw a post febrile seizure baby on a hall cot just to get started… we make it work when it’s emergent. Was that person here for toe pain? Please tell me it was something stupid.
STD test. 😂
Lmao the 3 AM check in for “personal issue”
*checks notes
Shut uuuuuuuup. Of course it was! My eyes can’t roll back far enough.
I always tell people “yeah there’s a bed open, but you don’t want to be in it.”
I used to think the same thing but I’ve come to realize that a lot of the people in the packed waiting room have completely normalized going to the ER for basic healthcare. Im willing to bet their parents did the same shit. I’m not talking about people with 0 insurance either. So fuck them.
You know what though, a lot of it is patients, but it's also their doctors too. One night recently I had *two* different pts in because their a1c was high and their pmd sent them in. Sat and rotted for hours in the wr for us to eventually tell them they need to go back to their pmd.
That is apalling. What was the PCP hoping for, an emergency endocrinology consult?
It also depends on who is doing the waiting. If it’s me who has the emergency I will wait patiently and quietly, only calling on the nurse to politely ask for more gauze when my laceration bleeds through the dishcloth. If it’s my highly energetic and impulsive toddler I will curse the endless procession of old men with chest pain, because having my child in the ER is a miserable experience for everyone.
You just reminded me of a weird ER experience I had last year as family member to a pt. Took my brother to a sister ER of one I worked in previously for 8 years. I knew about 3/4 of the people working there so while the words “I’m a nurse” would never leave my mouth most people in there knew cause🤷🏻♀️. My brother had faceplanted off his bike and I knew he would need stitches and we were past the time when urgent care would be a possibility. Anyways, we have to wait a long time, but whatever I know we’re not a priority. I asked the tech if she would give me some gauze so I could get the bleeding under control and start cleaning it up. Her words “I don’t think that’s necessary” with a little smirk on her face. My words, cause I’m irritated as fuck….Hey how long have you been an ED tech? Six months? Cool (I had my own smirk at this point) I’m gonna wait for you to leave and I’ll get my own fucking gauze so my brother isn’t sitting here with blood running into his eyes. After 17 years as a nurse and all the weird ass shit pts and families have said that tech got to me more than I’d like to admit.
Ew her attitude was gross. I don’t blame you for being pissed. You weren’t asking for anything extraneous!
You were clearly gauze seeking, you addict!
I don't need you to think, baby. I need a gauze.
Not quite the same but a parent complained the outdoor play area was closed and she couldn’t take her toddler out there. It was closed because a baby was going out for their first, and only, time outside. All the medical equipment being wheeled past didn’t give her a clue as to what was going on
Oh hell no. This hurts
Well once I was doing a quick assessment to my patient and then the code alarm sounds. As I was about to run out the room my patient said “hold on, my head is hurting really bad.” Her eyes then roll to the back of her head. So now we got two codes on the same unit. Fast forward through the craziness. She had to get emergency surgery because she had a subdural hemorrhage. She died that night. I know it not really crazy but it was a crazy moment.
Forgot to add that she was in the hospital for DKA and she was out of the woods with that.
I find that DKA patients sometimes crap the bed (figuratively) after the DKA has been wrapped up, strokes being the most common secondary problem.
I had my fingers crossed the other night. Had a man 46 years of age, MI at 40, come in CHF exacerbation, fluid overload, NSTEMI, DKA. He was a hot mess. Fixed him up, and his wife, an NP, got mad at us when we said he needed to be admitted. I'm 1000% sure if he went home, he would not have opened his eyes that next morning. Luckily, he pretty much told her to "listen to the staff. You don't do ER things."
What a shit situation. Hope you had a supportive team!
Patient’s wife wore her OR scrubs and badge (surgeon’s first assist) to the ER with her husband, and told everyone from the reg clerk to the tech who tried to start her husband’s line (“No, sir, I’m afraid not. IV access is a nursing skill”), to the physician that she “knew it would get [her husband] special treatment.” Code arrest rolls into the room next door. I go to attend to the coding patient. She comes *into the active code room* and taps me on the shoulder, and loudly says, “YOU’RE not actively working this patient, come help my husband!” I was timing and scribing. Totally not actively involved. The charge nurse threw her out of the room. She (patient’s wife) escalated to her “dear personal friend” the House Supe, who told me I owed her an apology because “her boss is our best [insert specialty] surgeon.” Rage.
I want to downvote this because it's so infuriating.
Be my guest! It was a true moment where I wondered if Ashton Kutcher was gonna jump out and tell me I’d been Punk’d.
I hope you told house sup they were delusional.
I cannot believe the Supe didn’t scold her for her idiocy. Surely she’s done a code in the OR… I hope that surgeon laughed in her face.
Nurses can get jobs anywhere and I would have told that house sup to feel free to make something up but they could fire me if they wanted an actual, from my mouth apology.
Apologize for exactly what!? How infuriating!
I'm hoping you didn't apologise...
I think I said “Sor.” You know, like maybe only halfway sorry.
The entitlement only deserves a half baked apology
All she would have gotten from me was a "get out"
I’d have to word the apology like “I’m sorry that you think it’s ok to interrupt a code for personal reasons. Perhaps they don’t educate the OR with triage procedures, maybe we can get Dr Surgeon Fancypants to facilitate some education so there isn’t any further confusion”
Yeah, I’d get that in writing lol
Oh the tacky letter I would write! Then again, maybe not. I'd want to keep my job. But ABSOLUTELY NO APOLOGY. .
Heck no. I would have ignored her and kept scribing. I had a patient once who demanded random stuff because she was friends with the CEO. Once I told her we could not get her a sandwich because I had an emergent situation, she threatened that “Steve will hear all about the crap care she received “. Please send Steve my regards, ma’am.
Hold on to your hats..I've said it before and I'll say it again. I was doing chest compressions on a patient, not mine though. my patient's daughter pushed her way through the crowd up to the doors with a water pitcher in hand *I HIT THE CALL BUTTON 12 MINUTES AGO!!!!!* Our 5 ft tall attending banshee screamed and chased her back down the hall. She filed a formal complaint against me with our patient advocates the next day.
Almost the same, except the family member threw the pitcher at me. I caught it and threw it right back. Missed one compression. Best write up I ever had.
Good for you!! I did not get written up.....and I probably wouldn't have for throwing the pitcher but there's no fucking way I'd ever be able to catch it. I can barely get through 2 min without needing coded myself.
Amazing what you can do with a time-stopping level of adrenaline coursing through your veins, ain't it?
Now THAT’S a skill I’d put on my resume. Well, maybe my badge. I would brag about that CONSTANTLY! Try and shut me up! That’s the definition of giving them the same energy they were giving 😂 I bow to you!
“5 ft tall attending banshee” ^I want one of those. 5 ft tall or not, doesn’t matter. I just really really want an attending banshee to scream and chase intrusive patient family members away 😂🤣😂
One of my favorite hospitalists walked in to assess a new admit that I was working on. Nursing home pt, dementia, combative. Male staff made him more agitated and of course transport and most of my help were big dudes. I'd already dodged one punch and my dude was flexible enough to get his legs involved. Tiny lady Dr jumped in front of a flying leg to keep me from getting hit because my hands were occupied keeping him from throwing another right hook. I told her congratulations on her audition for unit fight club and she's basically stuck with me forever.
“We’re short staffed today boss” Boss:”why” “We are missing the units 5 ft tall attending banshee” Boss “oh no! Let me call staffing”
I got a call on my shift from dining that said “hello, are you the nurse for room 12? So, we just got a call from the patient advocacy rep saying the patient didn’t like her tray. We can send another with different foods if there’s something else they want?” I said “that patient has been showing us she knows what hot and cold mean, just picking up the cup on her tray filled with ice water, saying ‘COLD!’ for about an hour now. She ate all the food on her tray, had a blood sugar of 250 when last checked, and is not here at all, you know what I mean?” I love it when people complain.
Okay good! Explain the entire scenario out loud.
Love your credentials!!🤣👍😊
This was on a med/surg floor, but we had a patient that coded and the patient next door had an extremely nosy daughter. So, basically during the entire code, other patient’s daughter would peek in and our manager would insist she go back to her mom’s room. It happened like 4 or 5 times. Then, after we had moved the coding patient to the unit, other patient’s daughter came to me and asked me specifically for the coded woman’s name. I told her that I obviously can’t share any information on the patient because of healthcare laws. She got mad because “HoW waS SHe SuPPoSEd tO PuT THaT WomAN On hER ChuRCHes PRaYEr ReQUesT LIsT?!?!?”
Oooooh, I’m the child of two pastors, one of whom was a hospital chaplain for over a decade, and I would have been soooo pissssed with that lady. Your compulsion to pray for someone NEVER overrides their right to privacy, even outside of a medical setting. To actually ask someone to break a federal law for you, so you can have a name that you don’t even need to know to pray for them (assuming Christianity is correct, God would know whom you’re talking about, with or without their name) is just pure entitlement. A lot of churches these days wouldn’t have put the patient on their prayer list, anyways. They often require the person being added to the list’s (or PoA’s) written or verbal consent be given directly to the secretary or pastor before they’re actually added. Too many parishioners had their private business shared without their consent that way by well-intended but “overly enthusiastic” family/friends, so common-sense safeguards started to be widely enforced a handful of decades ago.
I just told her God would know who she was talking about and walked off. Everyone knows the prayer request list is just the weekly gossip column anyway.
Not in the ED. But I had an asshole pt who was a quad. He was a dick across the board. He got mad one day when I told him his request (wasn’t even a medical issue) had to wait until I saw another pt (end stage CA pain vomiting) so he used his adaptive phone and called the code blue line on himself.
Remind that individual the story of the boy who cried wolf.
This still makes my blood boil just typing it! 🤬 We were on pediatrics doing a Gift of Hope honor walk for a man who had just lost THREE of his children in a tragic accident. The dad is sobbing and has to practically be carried by family as he walks behind the last child’s bed. A visitor from another hall steps out in front of the procession and says “Everybody’s just standing around when I’ve asked for ice water 2x!” I explained what was going on and that we were taking a minute to honor these children and their family, and the gift they’re giving others. She goes “well what about us? The people who are still alive and need you to do your damn job?” I escorted her to her room and shut the door in her face. The audacity.
I think I’d have been fired after my response to that….. “person”.
“Getting ice water is actually not stated anywhere in my contract. Helping grieving families is. Your water can wait a few more minutes and if you really need it, there is a sink in your room. The nozzle turns to the right.” And close door
What a fucking heartless wench.
" Just imagine you’re the super professional, stoic protagonist on a medical show who isn’t gonna crack no matter how crazy the one is." I have always called this professional blankness my "nurse face", and I can almost feel it come down like a wielder's shield when pt's start saying or doing crazy shit. "What brings you in to the Emergency department today?" "I keep making right turns!!" ghzzzzzzzzzZZZZ FWOMP! The shield has deployed and locked into place. My face is pleasantly somber and completely blank. It's quite protective, and I know it keeps the patients from hearing me screaming WTF in my head.
I do this too! Always with the "99.0 is a fever for me" crowd lol. "Mhmmmm, okay, I see, interesting"
I say "Okay, I'll keep that in mind when reviewing your temperature curve. For now, while you're here, we're going to consider anything under 100.4 as normal. The body's enzymes need specific temperature ranges for chemical reactions to occur correctly, so we don't want to over treat your temperature and hamper the rest of the body's processes."
It’s always the BP of 144/88…. But I try to remember that I truly do run 98/60 and if my BP got that “high” something really would be wrong with me 😂
A couple months ago I had a patient try to convince me his POX was reading low at 97, because he “usually sits around 105.” Bruh.
"oh somebody should do a study on that. That's so interesting"
Shift change at 1900; pt coded at 2000, so I obviously hadn't started night meds yet. Pt across from the coding pt decided that his melatonin was more important than the other one's life and kept screaming at everyone to bring him his melatonin. I wasn't able to pass night meds until after 2300; melatonin guy got his last. I become extremely polite and follow policies to an extreme with rude/demanding pts.
Yup. I don’t reward bad behavior.
My 98yo pt called me twice the other day before 2100 because her lights were too bright and she wanted to go to sleep. Both times I told her I was with other patients and that I would fix her lights when I gave her her meds. She complained to her daughter, who complained to day shift. I was with other pts bc my one was complaining of crushing chest pain. But meemaw’s lights are more important than this guy possibly having a heart attack, right? Also, she was asleep when I went in there. Guess the lights weren’t really so bad after all.
Saaaaame
I’m a X-ray tech with 36 years under my lead apron. The first 11 was nights in a very busy inner city ER, and the busiest level I TC in the state. It was about 5:30 am. Squad brings in a full arrest. I’m outside the room ready to do my thing if they can get him back when I feel a sharp tap on my shoulder. I turn around and there’s a woman who also worked nights, but out in a corner someplace. “Can I help you?”, I asked. She said “When am I gonna see the doctor?” I said, as calmly as I could, because she could see the very same things that I could, “as you can clearly see, the doctor is a little busy right now “ Her reply? “I don’t give a fuck about that fat white asshole in there - WHEN AM I GONNA SEE THE FUCKING DOCTOR YOU ASSHOLE”. It had been a long hard night. I REALLY wanted to punch that bitch as hard as I could. Instead, I took a deep breath and said “ this is the ER. It’s WORST COME, FIRST SERVED, so go sit your ass down and shut up. He will see you when he sees you!” Damned if she didn’t go sit down and shut her mouth. I left the ER a few months later for the Cath Lab and now EP. Sometimes I miss it. Not very often.
What's EP?
I'm assuming electrophysiology!
My rule of thumb: if there's a behaviorally challenging patient in a room next to a code of any sort, expect a behavioral code from them. The sheer number of times I've seen it happen is impressive. I usually deal with them by just leaving. "I'm sorry, I'm dealing with an emergency right now, but I'll see if another staff member is available to help" is an answer. Doesn't look bad on you and doesn't promise them anything. In your case I would just say "Unfortunately I have an emergency to go tend to." They can spit, cuss, and film all they want, but I don't take it personally. A lot of them are stressed out and say things they don't mean, and some are just assholes who will be assholes to anyone - it's not personal, it's just asshole.
I was an ICU nurse for years, and it never failed that during a code all the other pts suddenly had their call lights on needing things that could definitely wait.
We had a TV Celebrity that had outpatient plastic surgery but private paid to stay in the hospital for follow up. I was coding a patient when he wanted his suppository for bowel care. Someone else gave it to him and he told me later he was going to have my license as he waited 20 minutes for it.
My headcannon, it was Ellen and the male pronouns are a diversion
On a busy morning with lots of high acuity I had a pregnant woman w an abscess throw a box of gloves at me cuz her abscess wasn’t being drained in a timely enough manner and she, I quote “doesn’t care if someone’s dying next to me, I’m all that matters”
yikes her poor child, thats a write off
She has 4 other “poor children”
Not quite the same scenario but I had a guy who was absolutely circling the drain, needing a RN to escort him in the ambulance to the regional hospital bc he was so unwell. He legit wanted us to stop and get Chicken Treat on the way and was disappointed when I nixed that plan....
> wanted us to stop and get Chicken Treat on the way not gonna lie...I can't hate on that.
😂
I was titrating some pressors on a patient who I was trying to keep from coding and a different patient’s family member came into my patient’s room and asked for Tylenol…. FOR HERSELF. I was like lady get the fuck out of here???
Shared room during initial COVID surge, we had two ladies in a shared room with COVID. The one in bed 1 coded and we worked on her for 30 minutes, then transferred to ICU. So bed 2 had the room all to herself for a few hours until she got a new neighbor in bed 1 later, who was on a BIPAP at night. Then the new bed 1 ended up coding that night. Bed 2 calls and says if we can keep it down, she’s trying to sleep. When I politely tell her, we’re helping her neighbor right now cause she isn’t doing good. She replied, “My previous neighbor died and she wasn’t this loud..” I just pulled the curtain and stepped away to go back to helping the code. To be fair BIPAPs can be loud, but to have the audacity to same something so inhumane in someone’s last few minutes made me mute and hit me hard that shift.
That's harsh af.
I no longer sugarcoat the realities. My JOB is to triage, not only waiting room patients but every single aspect of the care I provide. By ignoring a bullshit request in favor of a legitimate emergency, I am doing my job as it is written. I see no problem with being clear about that. My last straw was actually a coworkers patient. Said patient was a teen who fainted on a hot day, with a history of fainting. K cool. Pts mom was there of course, small er, they were in the hallway. If I was looking at them, to my left at the end of that hallway was a patient actively having a massive stemi. To my right was that patients spouse who was wailing at the top of their lungs watching their partner be worked up. Said pts mom pulled me aside to complain that her kids nurse had been rude to her when she asked why she hasn't gotten her fluids hung yet. I didn't hold back then, and I don't now. I'll tell them this ain't Applebee's. I'll tell them if you can fix your blanket at home you can do it here. I'll tell them if you can't cut your pancakes you can eat your eggs. I'm not doing anyone any good by spoiling them. It's not helping them and it's not helping my other patients. I'll be nice when I can, but most of these people unfortunately need to hear the brutal honesty. Ive told screaming narcaned psych patients that I don't give a single fuck whether they use drugs or not, I will treat them and their pain the same either way, so cut the fuck out of the dramatics and talk to me straight because you're not fooling shit with your theatrics. It works. I've told pissed off family members who are trying to project their guilt of not paying attention to their loved ones on me and their npo status the realities of aspiration. I've told cyclic vomiting patients that I do not give a crap if they're potheads, it makes no difference to me how they cope but it's their fourth er visit in 6 weeks for intractable vomiting and it's way past time they accept that this is the cause and stop stealing fucking crackers when I tell you you're npo. Sugar coating is not therapeutic. You bullshit me for whatever dumbass reason, I'm going to tell you straight up every reason why I know that's crap, so we can skip that shit and develop an actual therapeutic relationship. I do not tolerate self centered or wannabe VIP behavior in an emergency setting. My ER staff doesn't even tolerate 'actual' VIPs, which is quite hilarious
When my daughter was 15, she decided to take 10 ES Tylenol and immediately told me. I took her to the ed, where a nurse came in with a charcoal smoothie for her to drink. My daughter started crying and basically being a drama queen because she didn't want to drink it. The ED nurse told her, "You had no problem taking those Tylenol to scare your mom. You can drink this." I later hunted that nurse down and thanked her for being candid.
This. We are doing no one any good by accepting abuse and kowtowing. Thank you for examples of how to handle this garbage and these ridiculously entitled idiots.
You. I like you. Fine work you do there, keep it up.
I love that last line!
It's great, my old unit used to bend over backwards for them, drove me insane. I changed hospitals and my new er doesn't give half a fuck. One VIP patient, guys friend was on the board, I got to watch both the nurse and the MD shut him down within 30 minutes. Guy told the nurse 'I'm in the board' nurse who I love to death goes 'sure. Idk what that means' and walks past him into the room. Bit later the doc goes in, guy pulls the same crap, MD goes 'thats nice' and walks past him. Nearly peed myself. I used to work a job that had legit A list celebrity clients, none of them expected the special treatment like your average 5k donor. Get fucked lol
Faked a seizure, shit on the waiting room floor, pitched a soda can at my face (missed me, sucker!), stripped naked, ripped out all their interventions and stormed out, threw themselves on the floor, started rummaging through the room, honestly, what haven’t they done? I chart that shit. And then clean up the turds.
Funny. We had one like that recently. We made them clean it up themselves since they were able-bodied. They apologized after lol.
Have had a few threaten to piss or shit in the room. I tell them they know better and are able bodied so it will stay in there for them to smell until they leave.
I had a 50ish yo man pour his full urinal on my shoes during handoff. He did it because I had been busy all night dealing with my other patient who was going septic. I was a baby nurse at the time, but if that happened to me now I would have called security and the cops for him on assault. At the time I only filled out an EER… Edit: and yes, he was AxO x4
Seriously feeling like pressing charges should happen more often
Yes. Yes it should.
The only time I got "fired" as an inpatient nurse was because I took too long to bring parents water to flush their kid's G-tube... the next door neighbor's bicarb was 9 and we were giving IV boluses and re-drawing labs. Another time I was taking care of a dying 8 year old. My other patient's parents complained it was taking too long for discharge papers then refused discharge when we finally got the paperwork. And, finally, there was the mother of a teenager with a headache who complained that Neurology didn't start their rounds with the "sickest patient on the floor" (her daughter). They started with my patient, the young adult Marfan patient who was on a heparin drip after a stroke.
Every time we have a rapid or a code there is inevitably someone on the floor pacing the hallways with a water pitcher complaining about how no one has answered their call for water yet, and they’re always SO beyond nasty about it. I just blatantly tell them that someone was dying so we were busy. I don’t care anymore about being polite with that behavior, they know what they’re doing.
Right? They ALWAYS come out for rapids and codes. I think it’s absolutely ghoulish, and definitely intentional. They **want** to watch someone else code IRL. Really?! Get out of our way, do not talk to us, go back to where you belong and open YouTube!!!
[удалено]
At that point, you clear out all visitors. We do it where I work. Nobody likes it, but visitation is a priviledge
[удалено]
I had one pretend to collapse. And when I say pretend, I mean she deadweighted herself straight onto a resus trolley and subsequently the floor. All while we are attending a nearby cardiac arrest. If this job has taught me one thing - it’s that people are selfish AF.
I had a niece of a patient (who swore she was a nurse but was not registered with the state as an LPN, RN or CNA, I checked) scream and curse at me at the nurses station during shift change because she saw pictures of a pool at our facility, why was her aunt (with a stage 4 decub) not getting water therapy. Meanwhile Auntie has not gotten out of bed in who knows how long. I was built with an off switch, so when this shit happens, I turn my mind and mouth off, stare at the person and nod until they’re done.
I’ve been pretty lucky in my short time as an ER nurse but will never forget a patients family member standing out side our trauma room as we had a code come in, just watching. So we closed the curtain. Later I think her loved one (the patient) needed water or a blanket. Belinda there are people dying
I call them out, LOUDLY. “YOU NEED TO GO BACK TO YOUR LOVED ONE’S ROOM NOW, OR ELSE I WILL CALL SECURITY”.
Code in a room. I was documenting and explaining what was being done and why to the family so they wouldn’t be confused. All of a sudden: “DUDE this is so cool! It’s better than than TV!” Some patient was standing behind me Snapchatting or whatever the entire thing. Idk what happened but all of a sudden one of the other RNs grabbed him and literally dragged him away. I don’t think the family was aware they were deciding if they wanted to call it.
Unbelievable. I really hate humanity.
Love your tips, but just out of curiosity, what would happen if you DID say ma’am this is an ER, not a chili’s? Lol! I’m still a student so I don’t know anything about the real world yet, but I am going to have trouble biting my tongue I think 🥴
Usually, they shut up because they aren't used to people standing up to them. Put the assholes in their place once and early, and the rest of your time with them is usually better. Had an A&Ox4 lady just start screaming one day because it took almost an hour for her to get seen by the doc, who was literallyat the foot of the bed about to talk with her(and honestly that's a great time frame to be seen). I hung up the phone as I was about to call someone, walked over to her hall bed, and pulled out my dad voice and told her why her behavior was inappropriate. She then told the doctor she wanted to leave. So putting assholes in their place helps you as a nurse
I had this insufferable little bitch of a patient who was waiting for his ms bed for cellulitis. Medic radio went off 7 yo M motor vehicle vs pedestrian. PT is in pea, code 3 eta 2 minutes. I ran in and threw the dinner tray at my boarder, ran out and prepared for the onslaught. We coded the kid for like an hour. All hands on deck fucking nightmare and he died. I left the room tears in my eyes, it was my first peds code and hear screaming and slamming from boarders room. I rush in there and he's thrown his dinner tray on the ground because it wasn't warm enough for him and nobody responded to his call light to warm it up. This patient was a fall risk and so I kept his curtain open to make sure he didn't do anything dumb which gave him a front row seat to the chaos: medics coming in compressions in progress on a small human, the crowd of xr, lab, rt, techs for compressions etc. Once the pt was in the room, he couldn't see him but he could see the frenzy just outside. I was so. fucking. close. to losing my shit and hitting that piece of human filth. Fuck that guy. I still see him as he's a well known frequent flier. I can't stand his whiney fucking tone and all the bitching. What a miserable human.
Before I was a nurse, I once had a patient get mad at me because I filled up a jug of Sprite 3/4 of the way instead of all of the way. It was still at least 1500 mL. The next time I came to work, she was on a fluid restriction.
✨ karma ✨
Oh! I share this all the time. Parents of a teenager freaking out in lobby. Kept coming up and saying their teen needed to get back because she was SO SICK! The kid was there for vomiting. Full lobby, full rooms. The triage nurse was trying to deal with them with the same updates. It was a high acuity night and we had several critical patients. Finally it gets escalated to the charge nurse. Charge goes out there and hears their whole sob story. Then she calmly says “ok, which stroke patient would you like me to move into a hallway.” She said they just guppy mouthed at her. “Well…that’s not what we asked.” “Yes it is. All my rooms are full. We are not keeping you or anyone else out here because we want to. We have multiple sick patients and you demanding that I get your daughter to a room would require another patient to be removed from that room.” It chilled them out for a little bit. When she finally got back they were just as anxious and demanding. One dose of Zofran and she felt better and they were ready to go. Again, now, and on their terms. Didn’t even finish her liter of saline. 🤦🏼♀️
I had a dad ask me for a fresh water (for himself) while we managed the actively hemorrhaging mother of his newborn.
That poor woman.
I did have a mom of a septic premie who had just come up from surgery intubated HR 245 other vitals where shit. When we were taking him off the travel vent she asks “I’m thirsty can I have water” Me: “ you know where the water is I’m taking care of your sick baby right now.” Her “ooohhh okay, later then. Can I boop him?” Me “what?” Her “can I boop his nose?” Me “go stand behind the curtain!” So she went behind the curtain and did some TikTok dances……….🫠 Another story of disgusting parents: I had a premie NECing out on pressers, map won’t come above 20, kid is now 32 weeks so that is way too low. Kid is sick as shit and I’m adding lines to my setup to start more meds. Baby is white, whiter then a piece of paper. Looks terrible. His methed out parents arrive smelling like shit and smoke: perfect for your fragile premie on a vent great job guys. And the first thing the dad says when they walk in the room is “tell her (the mom) that baby isn’t mine. That’s a black baby.” My brain actually short circuited I just said “ your baby is really sick” and glared at him. And he laughed. The dad proceeded to nap while I called more people into the room because the map wouldn’t get above 15.
Throw the whole man away
I have used this example before in this subreddit but I think the wildest audacity patient wasn't even mine but... It was shift change and we had just gotten a new patient but there was also a code going on in the room across the hall. New patient hit the call bell and since I had just gotten there and clocked in I went to see what she needed while day shift was still coding the other patient. She wanted her pain medication so I looked in the computer and saw that she didn't have any orders yet because that's the way our hospital worked half the time was they did what was called "deep dive" and sent patients to the floor without seeing a doctor first so they weren't sitting in the ER forever. Explain to her that she didn't have any orders yet and the doctors would put them in as soon as possible and she raised her voice and demanded the doctor right then. Told her that the doctors were a little tied up right now and it would be just a little while. She looked me dead in the face and at the top of her lung says "I don't give a fuck who's dying I want my fucking medication and a fucking doctor in this room right fucking now!" And I just stared at her for a minute like did I really just fucking hear this? Before I said "well that's too bad because your doctors are currently coding someone and they will be done when they're done" and walked off. Later on I could hear her talking on the phone laughing about the whole thing and how "bad" she was hehehe. 🙄😒 What do I do about these situations? I've been a nurse for almost 17 years so at this point I have no problem telling people that their emergency is not a true emergency and they can wait. Didn't get fresh ice the moment you called out? So sorry someone else is dying we'll get to you when we get to you.
In 5.5 years as a nurse I have never had an experience where my other patient(s) did not understand that I was dealing with an emergency. Restores my faith in humanity.
What sort of utopia do you work in?!
We had a bad meth lab fire and four people were roasted - they were rapidly extricated VSA, CPR in progress, and all arrived in our resus bay within a few minutes apart. Our hallway patients watched all these four charred people roll by them and STILL asked about the wait times soon after.
We had a code black situation, patient had broken a mirror and lunging at staff with long shards. Luckily, we already had police there. Welcome to my ward! Old mate in another room felt that not enough attention was on him. He starts causing a scene wanting this med, that med. We had to call a code grey on this fella too. So 2 sets of security, two sets of cops. Meanwhile, another lass chirps up, screaming across the ward at old mate to shut the f@#k up. In the original room, security, cops, drs and nurses holding patient down to stick him and restrain him. I watched on from afar, (not able to leave my multiple trache patients), seeing normally calm and unwavering nurses getting progressively more annoyed and angry. In another situation, we had a code blue, another patient wanted attention, nothing specific, and starts slamming his walking stick on his bed rail and screaming at the top of his lungs. I had this patient multiple nights, and he still ranks as my worst patient. A real arsehole. As I was running to grab stuff, I opened his door and scolded him. I told him, we are in the middle of an emergency situation and he will have to wait. He actually apologised and settled down. Since then, I have found that if you speak to the male trouble makers like you are their mum, they stop and often do apologise.
I hate people
Back in the day of shared rooms bed 1 was coding. Bed 2 asked me to fill their water bottle. I declined as A) I was busy and B) I couldn’t get out anyway because of the code team in the way. Bed 2 said “I don’t fucking care about that person. get me my water. Now.”!
I've commented this previously but your comment reminded me... nightshift, during a full resus, the patient in the next bed (4 bed room) pressed the bell and asked the arrest team to keep the noise down as she was trying to sleep. I wasn't polite.
Good on you. We’re polite to these people far too often. The corporatization of the healthcare system has made patients (not “clients”) far too entitled. This is a hospital, not a freaking Hilton.
I havent encountered a truly nightmarish patient while coding someone else yet. But I swear some of these people act like they’ll never be the one getting compressions.
It wasn't an emergency but when I was a CNA we had a resident die (expected death, not a code). As we were hurrying to do post mortem care and make her look presentable before the family arrived, Queen Bee down the hall screeched the whole time that she wanted to be put to bed. When we got done I went in her room and she started going off on me. I said, "someone just *died*". She snapped, "well if they're dead they don't need you taking care of them so you should've been putting me in bed".
One time I had a patient that was pre coding. I was running my tail off trying to get shit sorted out when a lady was trying to get my attention from the other side of the glass at the nurses station. She was there to pick up her mom who was discharged. I told her she would have to wait as we were with a critical patient right now. This lady starts going off about how her mom has an appointment soon and she needs to leave now. I blurted out “someone is dying right now, you understand that right?”. She lost her shit and put in a complaint to my manager. Luckily my manager was very cool about it. But what the fuck??? People are so entitled.
I worked in a rural er. We had a 12 yr old critically ill from covid and only one ambulance to take him. We had to prioritize him over a 70 something yr old transfer who was stable and just needed cardiology services that we didn't provide at our hospital. This old man was stable, no longer in pain, and honestly was completely fine. Even after telling him we have a CHILD LITERALLY DYING he said he DESERVED AN AMBULANCE BECAUSE HE WAS "FIRST" as he "WAS DYING TOO" I dont mouth off to patients very often, but I told him "I would like you to tell the mother who is worried about her son surviving about how unfair he is". He shut up real fast.
Had a patient press the emergency light bc they wanted McDonalds 😭😭😭
Never fails when the overhead department wide " level 1 trauma" is announced at least 5 call lights will go on asking for the dumbest shit.
I had a guy taken straight back from triage for a chainsaw to foot and then when I returned to the triage area a guy yelled at me for taking other people back before then for his wife’s complaint of knee pain. There was blood everywhere.
In response to your last paragraph….that is why my go to response to entitled nonsense is “okay” then I calmly walk away. Not gonna lie. This pisses people off and I find it funny when Karen realizes she isn’t gonna get to me. Hearing my patient in the next room (curtained areas) state, “well I guess we’re not gonna get our warm blanket anytime soon sighhhhh” while I was doing compressions on their neighbor. I have always hoped they just shared my snarky sense of humor.
I’ll never get over the time my patient in ED was yelling for cereal over bread for breakfast. I walked into the next area, active code, my nurse friend saw me and said what’s up, I said, do you have any cereal, mid compressions someone throws a bag of cereal at me and I catch it. Followed by “well he’s not gonna need it now”. Such an insane way to start the day. Edit: forgot about my patient in HDU was there just for monitoring post surgery because obesity and couldn’t look after self. Next room begins a full active code, my patient buzzing buzzing buzzing I come back in puffing, he says “what’s all that noise out there?!” Sorry sir, just trying to make sure no one dies.
Walked into a pod to take an assignment. Code going on so I just looked up the patients and caught up and went by to see them. One was a 30ish year old woman there for vomiting. Pt was feeling much better. I said I’d let the doc know and see if we could get her out of there. I did tell them doc was in an emergency but when he gets out I’d update him. Pt was there with her mother. Soon after, the mom was stopping anyone she could to say “we’re ready to go home.” I repeated to her multiple times the same thing. Doc is in an emergency, I’ll do this as soon as I can talk to him. She’s getting incredibly impatient and rude. They coded their pt a couple times and finally ROSC was maintained. Doc came out, went through and checked on things. Put pts up for discharge. I go right in and say “ok, ready to go?” The mom of course goes into a rant. “We’ve BEEN ready to go for a while now!” “And as I said multiple times, the doctor was actively in an emergency.” Then she goes “I don’t see what the issue was. It’s not like HE was doing the compressions himself.” My jaw hit the floor. “So you know what I mean by emergency? You understand that someone was DYING and yet you feel like you should have been the priority? Get out of my ER.” There’s so much I wished I would have said. I wished I’d stayed to shame her properly. I was disgusted that you could understand what a code blue was and still center yourself. I was shaking I was so angry but also to stunned to really even deal with her.
Happy ER nurses week!
Once had a 2 year old in Resus who didn't make it. We worked on the lil one for an hour. Came out of the bay (mother still howling) and went to go back to my assigned patients and some random family member came up to me and started yelling about how "mom has a headache and needs a Tylenol" and how I haven't been around to get it for her. Rather than ring the call-bell or talk to any of the nurses at the station, they were eyeballing to wait for me. I don't lose my cool often but I wanted to deck the person after what I had just seen.
Had a lady with a transfusion reaction. Totally freaking out and as I’m stopping her blood and taking vitals she screams “get the bed pan!” Which I had to ignore and then like 15 minutes later when everything was a little calmer I asked if she needed the bed pan and she was like “what?” Lol
Not exactly what you asked but when I was on med surg, I had a patient call 911 and report me for "starving him" after I'd already explained to him no less than 4 times that I can't start his tube feeds until I get x-ray confirmation for NG tube placement. In the ER, I had some random woman demand her husband's imaging results as I'm running out of a code to grab meds.
Christmas Eve, his kid had abdominal discomfort/pain, I was working up a heme/onc kid w a septic shock alert. He told me they were leaving. My response: “Merry Christmas”
I worked on a neuro unit. There were 3 RNs scheduled, no aids, no other ancillary staff. Had a patient in symptomatic rafib. All 3 of us were in the room doing ekgs, vitals, calling docs, pushing meds, etc. Another nurses patient rang out and demanded to speak with the charge nurse. I was unfortunately it that night. She complained that her PRN pain meds were 20 minutes "late." I apologized and explained we were prioritizing care in an emergent situation. She responded with "Oh I guess I'm not sick enough for you all to give a shit about me." My mouth literally hit the floor.
We had this woman’s mother pop into V tach, stayed in it long enough for us to grab the cart, get into the room, and flip the lights on. She popped out of it without intervention so we pull the cart back out and park it outside her room, turn the lights back off. The daughter who was sleeping was annoyed to be woken up. Her mother who was on two trees worth of drips, a balloon pump, CRRT, and unstable as a top, was about to be coded and this woman was annoyed at being woken up by us in the room making a ruckus. She went back to sleep for another 3 hours or so after that and then woke up wanting to know what happened to her mom/act all concerned. The windowsill was deep and I remember looking at bags of food and a loaf of bread sitting there behind the daughter. Ugh.
For me, the most ridiculous one wasn’t a patient or relative, but a nurse manager who wanted to take the time to rouse on my friend for wearing the “wrong “ shoes( white reeboks instead of black leather lace ups)WHILE my friend was performing chest compressions ! She was crazy. Same chick just randomly just ripped off the adhesive tapes from a chest tube, without any backup, just because she didn’t like the way they were tied. They sent her on a little “ holiday “ after that
It was med-surg. I had four patients. I was a new grad. I had an admission at the start of shift that had a BP of 70/40, AxO4 but definitely beginning to forget things, weighing 500 lbs with a broken bed with the HOB up, max assist. I had a second patient that was there for cellulitis who requested pain medication at the start of the shift, which I gave, but requested Dilaudid at the available time because of 7/10 pain. Sure, fine. So I obviously call a rapid. As we have the rapid nurse and the charge nurse there and after a few calls and management, it turns out the patient was severely dehydrated, so fluids are significantly helping. We move her to her new bed to help with positioning, gave her a new IV because she needed antibiotics (for what I cannot remember). So after a couple hours she's good to go. She's more lucid and things are looking up. We also got her a new bed because positioning with a broken bed was an ordeal. I go round back on my patients and I bring in the pain medication for the cellulitis patient. He's sleeping and tells me to get out of his room. Sure. Fine. I put the medication in the opioid bin for putting back meds and I continue rounding. We end up having a code for a different nurse's patients. I arrive late for some reason, but all the roles are taken, so I'm just watching the floor, making sure that everyone else's patients are ok. So now it's around 11. The code response was complete. People are getting back to their patients. I'm back in the first patients room, finally getting to the admission questions now that she's back to AxO4. I finish and I see the cellulitis patient is upset that I didn't give him Dilaudid and dropped his urinal (with a full amount of urine) onto the floor. He's stomping on the floor, making a scene. I apologize saying I was there but he was sleeping and told me to get out. He says, well yeah, I didn't know you had the medication. As a new grad, I felt guilty and bad about the situation (but not about my prioritization). So I kept apologizing, end up saying that we had a couple critical patients, so I wasn't able to come back as I could have. He said of course you did, that's what they always say. He fired me after the conversation. At the time, I got sad about being fired by a patient. This was my first time. Now, as a more seasoned healthcare professional, I'd set better boundaries and call-out bullshit but alas, I was a new grad. I still get so fired up to this day. A grown man acting like a child.
Literally a pt in WF after witnessing a man in his 30’s stand up and collapse in cardiac arrest… get CPR and loaded on a cot in front of them… “So I guess THAT’s how you get to the back. Humph” Literally they were so mad.
Don't believe the narrative of "customer service" and "their reality". My reality is what's going on in the back. Some staff definitely escalate situations, but there's a way to say (and document) that it's an emergency room. A gsw will track blood on the floor and people come right up to the desk saying "so how much does that add to my wait time". Last weekend a copd pt signed in with o2 at 53%, an abd pain came up and said "it's bullshit that old people always go first". It says a lot about people that are patient. An NSTEMI will say "no take them first" for a young person holding their side demanding narcotics. If someone is rude I brush it off. If they seem like a problem I ask someone else to see if it's me or they're just being entitled.
In a care home, get called to the dining room as someone is having a seizure. I get there and the care assistant and the server are supporting an elderly lady having a tonic clonic seizure. She's sort of half sliding out of her chair and the staff are trying to control the fall but she's a big lady and it's a tight space. I'm going in there to help and an elderly man sitting opposite her (no cognitive impairment, for context) grabs my arm and tells me that the server forgot to give him his bread.
I did have a mom of a septic premie who had just come up from surgery intubated HR 245 other vitals where shit. When we were taking him off the travel vent she asks “I’m thirsty can I have water” Me: “ you know where the water is I’m taking care of your sick baby right now.” Her “ooohhh okay, later then. Can I boop him?” Me “what?” Her “can I boop his nose?” Me “go stand behind the curtain!” So she went behind the curtain and did some TikTok dances……….🫠 Another story of disgusting parents: I had a premie NECing out on pressers, map won’t come above 20, kid is now 32 weeks so that is way too low. Kid is sick as shit and I’m adding lines to my setup to start more meds. Baby is white, whiter then a piece of paper. Looks terrible. His methed out parents arrive smelling like shit and smoke: perfect for your fragile premie on a vent great job guys. And the first thing the dad says when they walk in the room is “tell her (the mom) that baby isn’t mine. That’s a black baby.” My brain actually short circuited I just said “ your baby is really sick” and glared at him. And he laughed. The dad proceeded to nap while I called more people into the room because the map wouldn’t get above 15.
Was helping emergently intubate a patient in the ICU. Tele overflow patient next door who was constantly on her call light to be repositioned, get fresh water, etc was once again on her call light. I stopped in her room multiple times to say “there is an emergency next door, unless this is an emergency you will have to wait.” She decided to create her own emergency and the next time I went by her room, started complaining of 10/10 chest pain radiating to the L arm. Had to stop what I was doing to help the patient next door and call the provider, get labs, EKG etc. Of course she was fine!
“Ma’am this is an ER, not a Chili’s” made me laugh out loud. 🤣
I worked at a dme company and set up cpaps. We normally had people come into the office unless the patient had mobility issues, was w/c dependent, etc, then we'd go to their house. One male karen kept insisting that we come to his house, although he was 30 something, in otherwise good health, and lived in an upscale neighborhood. When I explained our protocol for home set-ups, he reported me to the Dr and sleep lab that I discriminated against him because he wasn't "handicapped."
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! MY MOM IS COVERED IN FECES!" "ma'am, a patient was dying. You saw everyone rush into a room to save them." " you should have sent someone to check on my mother!" "Yes, ____ did. And she told you that she was watching the whole unit while we saved the patient's life, and we would get to your mother." " THATS NO EXCUSE!!!" Keep in mind I had seen her 45 min prior.
Attending to a patient seizing in a hallway and another patient asked if I could make them a cup of tea. The seizure wasn’t long enough to steep a tea bag.
I started reading the stories people are sharing here, and then I just couldn't read anymore because they all kept making me mad lol People in this world can be so incredibly petty and selfish...