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They may be the reason you have a job, but sometimes patients can be a giant pain in the you-know-what! We wanted to know what you wish they would stop doing (over…and over…and over again!), so we asked our Facebook fans for their top patient pet peeves. We know some of these will sound very familiar to you! Get ready to nod in agreement…and laugh while you’re at it!
The top 10 things you wish your patients would stop doing!
1. When they call me into their room to get Cokes or snacks for their visitors. Also, when they refuse care when the aide or I offer it, and they tell their visitors that they haven’t been bathed or had their linens changed…when they’ve refused it at least twice. Okay, and when they special-order wonderful-looking food (when I don’t have time to eat) and then insist it’s disgusting. Hmmm, this was all just yesterday!
—Cindy Flynn
2. I wish they’d stop hunting me down if I don’t come to their room IMMEDIATELY for a nonemergency.
—Ar Gy
3. Asking before they even see a doctor when they are going to be discharged…
—Mary Christa Wright
4. I am tiny and look young. People assume I am a student and ask, “When will you be a real nurse?” This real nurse has a master’s. =)
—Nancy Elisabeth
5. When the patient’s family in the delivery room asks, “How much does the baby weigh?” one minute after birth…when you are trying to get the baby to breathe. I always want to say, “Do you see a scale?” LOL
—Tammy Beemer
6. What I hate is how they see us all as one person: “You never gave me my meds yesterday” when “I” have had the last four days off.
—Marjorie Hays
7. I’m a nurse practitioner and I wish my patients would stop showing up late for their appointments and expect to be seen. It puts me behind and makes it bad for everyone who comes on time. And the lies they tell me about why they are late! The best is when they tell me they got a call to come later because I was running behind. That simply does not happen!
—Wendy Adams Rivard
8. I wish some patients would stop having 100 family members in the room when I’m trying to work. I don’t mind them having visitors at all—in fact, it makes me glad when they do. I just wish they would leave the room for the moment I’m there so I can maneuver around appropriately. It’s a lot of “fun” stepping over a bunch of feet or children, or having 20 eyes all on you when you’re just hanging a bag of fluid or meds.
—Andrea Webb
9. Being asked “Who’s ‘waiting’ on me?” If I was a waitress, I could’ve saved a lot on tuition. I usually answer with “I’ll be your nurse this shift.”
—Christine Steele
10. My big pet peeve is when the family calls at odd hours of the night (I work in a nursing home that has minimal staff on third) to get information on their family member and say, “Well, I called because I know you can’t be too busy when everyone is asleep” and expect a full report. Another is when family members ask me when the patient is going to die. I recently had someone call me and say they needed to know when the patient was going to die so she could have the plane tickets ready and time off from work. When I told her I had no way of knowing, she stated, “You’re a nurse, you’re supposed to know this stuff!”
—Lauriel Finch
What do you wish your patients would stop doing?!
RN
Registered Nurse
When a patient has every flat surface in the room covered with “stuff” and half a dozen visitors that sit around & watch as I try to juggle the food tray and clear a spot to put it.
RN
Registered Nurse
when you bring them their meal tray and they say “But I didn’t order this”
Caption Contest
Caption Contest Winner!
RN
Registered Nurse
Short-arm-syndrome upon admission – who wipes their butt at home?
Have had recently several family members of several different patients texting other family members who are ‘medical experts’ EVERYTHING we are doing OR not doing for their family member! You can just see their busy brains going, ‘Aha, I am texting that right now’! And then there go the fingers, tap, tap, tap, looking at us doing our thing, tap, tap, tap, looking at us, tap, tap, tap…………..that is a drive me crazy thing!
I hate it when family members crowd up the rooms so much that other residents can’t get in
As an aide I completely relate to #1, I’m here to take care of the patient, not wait on their families hand and foot, if you haven’t been there all day helping with your family member, you don’t get a courtesy tray just because you showed up at meal time. And I get super frustrated when nurses or my supervisor tell me a patient has claimed to not been offered a bath or linen change when I’ve asked and they refused or told me they’d let me know when they wanted it. I usually have up to 18 patients by myself, that’s 18 linen changes and 18 baths on top of everything else I have to do, and I kill myself to get it all done…so please don’t lie when we both know you were offered both.
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