I once roomed with an elderly woman who needed a diaper change every so often. But she had some mental issues and would call for them for various other nonexistent reasons (“please have my driver come get me, I’m going home”). It became a “boy who cried wolf” issue and she spent an hour one day in a soiled diaper because no one came to change it after she called.
And here I was with serious nausea, smelling it. They had to open the window.
To the folks in the hospital administrative office:
I don’t want to hear any more complaints from you regarding the untimely delivery (by me) of the daily newspapers to your office. You’re supposed to be open at 8 but you usually run late, by which time I am busy answering the phone, helping to process patients for registration, transporting patients or escorting them all over the place, giving directions, answering questions, receiving more papers/rosters that I have to organize and mark, etc.
So excuse the hell out of me for not getting your precious papers to you until later. I realize it would kill you to have to walk a few yards down the hall to get the papers on your own, but I thought the patients were supposed to come first, since it is a freaking HOSPITAL.
You know, as a patient or visitor, I will gladly turn up on time, be patient about meds and visits from the doctor and all of that, on one condition.
Hospital floor nurses? If you’re talking to a patient who’s hard of hearing: CLOSE THEIR DOOR. Because when you don’t and you stand there explaining procedures and diagnoses with them, you’re spreading their personal information hither and yon, plus you’re disturbing everyone in earshot.
And when you’re talking to one another about patients and their procedures and drugs and diagnoses? Don’t do it in the hallway in earshot of other patients’ rooms unless you know how to damn well LOWER YOUR VOICES.
When my mom was hospitalized a couple of years ago, I knew that the woman in the room next door was a nun, and all the details of an ongoing gynecological issue she’d been dealing with for some 20 years in private before it became too much. And when I say “became too much” I got to hear exactly what that meant, which was ugly and embarrassing and made poor Sister Mary Joseph cry as she was explaining it to the doctor on the first day mom was there, yet was being talked about loudly by two nurses while they loitered around a randomly placed drugs cart/computer right outside mom’s room. And Sister Mary Joseph would’ve heard them talking all about it too, if she hadn’t been deaf in one ear. It was unconscionable. There is no excuse for me ever hearing two nurses talk about anyone’s vagina (or anything else) in a hospital hallway. None.
Good nurses rock my world. One saved my life some years back, though I don’t think either of us realized at the time. But this seems to be a new and disturbing trend and the lack of professionalism it exhibits is appalling.
Dear Ortho Ward:
Is it really crazy to expect you to have a freaking pair of crutches so your perfectly lucid patient, who unfortunately has 2+ years of experience walking on crutches, can get to the actual bathroom instead of being forced to use a bedpan? (Somehow they found some quickly when I threatened to hop to the bathroom on one foot, or scoot on the floor on my rear end.)
Also, is there really a need for every single freaking CNA, etc. to come wake me up to introduce him/herself at shoft changes, regardledss of whether they needed to see me for anything otherwise? When I finally complained anbout being constantly awakened for no good reason, the response was “oh, so do you want us to put up the ‘no visitors’ sign?” Hell no, I want to see my actual friends and family, but a) they tend not to show up at 6 a.m., and b) I actually want to see them.
And yet they keep telling everyone how HIPAA is a sacred set of laws and we all have to be confidential about everything. What a joke. Considering the fact that our medical records are probably being transcribed in Pakistan right now, privacy is apparently no longer a concern.
The last time I was in the ER with a family member and we were waiting hours in the hallway to be discharged (we should have just walked out!), we could hear absolutely every detail of every patient’s condition and situation, because the acoustics in that hallway make it impossible not to hear it all.
Yep. I called to ask about my mom’s condition when I woke up worried (it was early morning & she didn’t have a phone in her room yet) and was told that they couldn’t tell me anything because I hadn’t been listed as her next of kin…
Last week we were in the ER, and I overheard everything about the poor young woman in the next room. She was younger than I was, and the doctor explained to her parents out in the hallway that she was never going to go home again. (Terminal cancer.) It occurred to me on the way home that it was really unfair in another way: I was saddled, thanks to the doctor’s high volume, poorly located discussion with the family, with that family’s sorrow (especially after the mother started to weep) when I needed to be focused on my own issues.
Dear doctors’/surgeons’ offices:
When you screw things up and give a patient papers telling him/her to be at the hospital on such and such a date at a certain time for a particular surgery, transmit that info
Dear doctors’/surgeons’ offices:
When you give a patient papers telling him/her to be at the hospital on such and such a date at a certain time for a particular surgery, transmit that info TO THE HOSPITAL. Just imagine how you would feel if you went all night with nothing to eat or drink and then found that your surgeon is not there, the surgery is not on the books, and you’re screwed until they can reschedule it for another time and day. Get it together, folks.
Dear patients–fortunately just a few of you:
Your doctor did not just tell you to go to the hospital for no reason. There must be some reason why you were sent. If you have no paper or no idea which procedure is being done, at least be willing to give your name. And there is no need to get belligerent when we ask you for the spelling of said name. Names have very different and often unexpected spellings. We cannot locate your name in the computer system if we cannot spell it correctly. A little help, please.You know, I used to want to be an RN. But dealing with my 80-year old mother in law has shown me what real life patient care would be: an exercise in frustration and despair, not my dream of coolly and efficiently saving lives.
For example, I know exactly why they ask the same questions over and over again: because they get a different answer! It’s fun! Sometimes my MIL has no allergies, sometimes she does. Sometimes she has no problems with her hands, sometimes she has terrible, unremitting carpal tunnel. On and on. Between her mind, her memory and her deafness, it’s a crap shoot. It’s also a big part of why I accompany her: to provide the freaking history. She can’t even remember which decade she lost her gall bladder for pete’s sake. She can’t hear them call her name to come in to the room.
But dayum, this (public, teaching) hospital is just as obtuse as she is. I introduce myself as the daughter-in-law and tell the history/examining person that Ma is hard of hearing and could they please talk loudly. I have to KEEP reminding them (and this is in the geriatric clinic) and they STILL don’t talk loud. I know it sucks, I hate it too, but she can’t hear you unless you talk loud.
I also understand that the personnel don’t have time to read her chart - it’s a stack of paper taller than I am - no one can read that shit. On the other hand, it’ll help you a lot while you read those films if you know that the missing kidney, ovary, adrenal gland, spleen and some other shit I’m forgetting are actually accounted for in surgeries done right here in your hospital.
It’s pretty discouraging to think that so many of these complaints just come down to hospital administration giving a shit and spending the money they need to spend. The hospital business is radically different from any other business I’ve ever seen. It seems that in a hospital, even the simple, easy stuff doesn’t seem to be addressed, like providing enough interpreters. That does not bode well considering they have the most difficult challenges imaginable: human life and human suffering.
Yes I do expect to take my morning meds at 0500 - I brought them with me with the knowledge and permission of my surgeon. If I do not actually get all 4 heart meds at 0500, about half an hour later I will get palpitations, my BP tends to shoot back up to 210/190, I start picking up auras for my migraine. If I can not get my meds on the schedule my body is accustomed to, I get to add 2 more heart meds to the crap I already have to take. I have spent a lot of time working with my cardiologist to determine what to take and when so I don’t end up with some pretty nasty side effects from drug combinations.
So I may not die, but do you really want to deal with a seriously cranky migraining patient with a BP that is inexorably headed back up to pop the skull levels? All my meds are already sorted into pill keepers,and I already dose myself 4 times a day on a very stringent schedule and have for a number of years now.
Patients and their families who have been annoying recently:
Elderly couple comes in. Man needs MRI but has forgotten to take pain pill that will help him keep still. He asks me for a Tylenol. I tell him I don’t have any and couldn’t give him one if I did. He insists that no one will know if I just slide it across the table to him. Then he asks to see an R.N. to get a Tylenol. Then his wife finally tells him to stop causing problems and says she’ll go back home and get the pill. Ummm…couldn’t she have brought it along in the first place? And are nurses dispensaries?
Couple comes in and hands us the doc’s order. We can barely make out what the procedure is, so we ask. Wife snaps, “It’s right there!” We finally realize what it is but cannot locate it on roster because we don’t have it yet. Gotta check computer. We can barely read the patient’s name and it appears to be Tongan or something. We ask for the name. Again: “It’s right there!” Then the hubby speaks up and spells it for us.
And why oh why can’t a certain dept. at said hospital produce a typed roster like all the other departments do? Theirs is handwritten and rather difficult to read.
The rule about children is because of germs and behavior. However, the hospital where I worked allowed siblings of any age to visit in the OB and peds units, and the age limit was waived for hospice patients too.
There were actually a lot more problems with ADULT visitors.
At my old hospital, we hired a technician who had no medical experience, and not long after she started, her FIL was in the hospital and complaining of heartburn, so she went to the pharmacy and told me she was getting him some Tums (we were allowed to give OTC meds to employees who requested them). I told her that she couldn’t do that - that he couldn’t have anything from the pharmacy without a doctor’s order. She didn’t know that.
And when my grandmother was in a nursing home, she was having problems with chronic low sodium (my dad does too, and so do I) and Dad said, “Next time I visit her, I’m going to bring a bottle of salt tablets with me, give them to her nurse, and tell her to make sure my mother takes them!” I also told him that he couldn’t do that, for the same reason.
Gripes from someone who is leading a donation drive for a hospital
This has happened way too many times:
Person I’m talking to: You mean you’re collecting donations for children?
Me: Children and adults.
Person (suddenly much less enthusiastic): Oh. Well, that’s good, I guess.
Somehow the idea of helping adult patients makes my project much less worthwhile?
WTF is so bad about helping adults? What, are they afraid the adults are going to try to sell a gently used Sudoku book so they can score crack?
The donations are going to children, too. Plus, the children are much more likely to have parents or other family members to support them while many adults have no one.
It’s not going to hurt you to make another adult’s day a little bit brighter.
Americans would never stand for that kind of socialized medicine.
How often does a shellfish allergy come up in hospital? That’s some catering department.
Ever heard of oyster shell calcium?
It’s a question we ask to find out if you might be allergic to iodine, which is still used both topically (on the skin) and inside IV lines as a dye for some tests.
If you’re allergic to shellfish, there’s a good chance you’re allergic to iodine, even if you don’t know that because you haven’t had iodine on/in you before.
I ask about banana allergies not so much to intercept the banana on your breakfast tray (although I will) but because it turns out lots of people who are allergic to bananas are also allergic to latex. While I try to keep my kit latex-free (because I don’t want to develop a latex allergy due to overexposure) it’s still good for me to know if you might have a latex allergy so I can tell the phlebotomist to bring latex free gloves and tourniquets - she still uses latex gloves, for some reason.
See, I love nitrile gloves. Better fit than vinyl, plus no nasty latex smell on your hands afterwards. (And pretty colors! I’ve seen them in bright blue, bright purple, and mint green, so far.)
But we do still have latex gloves in some of my department’s (outpatient) exam rooms, and I had one patient ask me, due to her allergy, if I could remove the boxes of latex gloves from the room she was sitting in. O-kay. I smiled and did it. (We don’t even have occasion to glove up during exams very often.)
Yep, I’m a nitrile gal all the way. Those vinyl ones are friggin’ useless for wound care. I’m partial to the purple, just as a fashion statement, but they’re ridiculously hard to find. My office will order the blue for me, after I gave my boss a look much like this: :dubious: and said, “Look, I’m willing to risk tuberculosis, hepatitis, HIV, chicken pox and the cooties from patient contact. But I will *not *let this profession make me unable to use condoms in my off time! NO LATEX GLOVES!” 
If her allergy was sensitive enough, then I’d have moved the gloves, too. Airborne particles of latex (like if someone, I don’t know, bumped into the box and the gloves fell out) could trigger anaphylaxsis. It’s quite likely she was overreacting and isn’t truly *that *sensitive, but who wants to stay late writing an Incident Report?
Nobody likes that.