Nurse Tech and me: [look of complete confusion]
Patient: You know what I mean?
...um, what?!
Patient: okay, I'm going to go for my walk [off the floor] now.
Me: Mr. C you cant go off the floor, you need to stay hooked up to wall suction.
Patient: NO. I'm going for my walk!
Me: Mr. C, I'm sorry but I just spoke to the doctor and he says you have to stay on the floor.
Patient: I dont care what he says! I'm going for my walk!
Me: Well you just got that chest tube placed today and in order for it to properly work, you need to be connected to suction, otherwise we might as well not have put it in.
Patient: You dont understand. I'm going for my walk no matter what. I take my walk everyday.
[the doctors walk onto the floor and here the patient screaming at me]
Doctor: Mr. C, why are you yelling? Why are you yelling at the nursing staff?
Patient: Because she wont let me take my walk!
[turns to me]: Its not your fault. You dont understand. You're new.
[I am fuming and about 3 seconds from punching this guy in the face.]
[Arguments between them continue for a minute or two.]
Doctor: Ok fine, you have 10 minutes. You can go.
...are you F-ing kidding me?! I spent 5 minutes arguing with him that he cant go and then you're going to just cave in like that?! WHY?! now this patient is going to think he can do whatever the hell he wants. And everyone knows the only reason he wants to go for his 'walk' is so he can smoke outside. Not to mention the fact that now I look like the idiot/bad guy for insisting he cant go (per YOUR orders!) and then you go ahead and change your mind. ughhh. doctors.
Doctor: I know you're really busy, but just when you get a chance, Mr. M wants you to go in there and give him his pain meds right away.
Me: Okay, I'll get there.
Doctor: Well, you know how he used to be in the military? Well he wanted me to "order" you to go in there.
Me: HA!
Doctor: yeahhh... so just whenever.
Doctor: Oh, and how's Mr. C? --Wait, you have both of them tonight? Who did you piss off to get stuck with that assignment?
...1st of all, patient, you dont get to tell me what to do. you can go ahead and try it and see how well that works for you. 2nd, you know its bad when even the doc feels sorry for your patient assignment...
Doctor: So, Mr. M is still complaining of pain. Can you go ahead and just give him his Dilaudid?
Me: Sure, you want me to give him his dose early? Or give him a one-time now? He's not due for another 2 hours.
Doctor: We'll give him an additional one-time dose. And go ahead and give him his Phenergan now too. Hopefully that'll just knock him out.
...haha such good patient care. and SOOO necessary at times. :)
Patient: Is there someone here above your charge nurse?
Me: You mean as far as nursing staff? No. Our manager comes in at around 0630.
Patient: So its just you, the charge nurse and the doctor?
Me: During the middle of the night, yes. But more people will come in in the morning. Why?
Patient: I want to talk to someone. I want to leave.
Me: What do you mean?
Patient: I want to leave!! I dont feel like I'm getting good care here.
Me: Can I ask why you feel that way?
Patient: Because! No one seems to care. No one cares about my pain.
...Meanwhile I am in the process of administering his Phenergan (a potent anti-nausea drug that has a really strong sedative side effect) and I just handed him his extra dose of pain medicine, AND I have barely seen my other 3 patients since starting my shift b/c I'd been in his room all night long. Yeahhh. You're getting terrible care. Shut the F up.
Me: Hey, did you guys talk to Mr. M about decreasing his pain meds?
Doctor [rolls her eyes and gives me attitude]: Ugh, yeah. Dr. G had a long talk with him yesterday about weaning him off the pain meds.
Me: ...okay... its just that I've been giving him pain meds round the clock and he's still been complaining of 10/10 pain.
Doctor: Well, yeah. He's gonna do that. Do you not know the patient?? Come on, Nikki. Is this your first time dealing with him?
...listen, bitch. 1st of all, dont talk to me like I'm stupid. I've been working on this floor a hell of a lot longer than you have and I know how to handle drug-seeking patients. 2nd, I would bet my entire life savings that neither Dr. G nor any other doctor on the team had a "long talk" with the patient seeing as you are never in the patients' rooms for more than a minute and a half. 3rd, dont you find it a little weird that you decide to decrease the frequency of his pain meds to every 6 hours when we've been giving it to him every 4hours on the dot? And then when you go in and see him in pain, decide to give him his meds an hour before his 4hr time is up. Yeahhh. Cant even make it the full 4 hours, but go ahead and decrease him to every 6. Makes perfect sense to me.
ahhh the joys of your first shift back from vacation... :-p
