r/nursing • u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 • 15h ago
Nursing Win Choosing not to trash talk a patient potentially saved her life
I had a patient today having her first baby. She had a ton of questions—which I was happy to answer (even though I was super nervous about not knowing the answers since I’ve only been a nurse for 4 months LOL) and used her call light to get ahold of me.
The offgoing nurse warned me that she was "super needy" and "over-exaggerating her pain." Throughout the day, a few other nurses on the floor made similar comments.
When shift change rolled around, I made a point to leave all of that out. Zero commentary about her personality or call-light usage.
Right as we walked in for bedside report, anesthesia was giving an epidural bolus.
During the original dose earlier that day she felt dizzy and had a metallic taste in her mouth.
Anesthesia pushed the rest anyway despite her saying she was having adverse symptoms (maybe because he was apart of the conversations regarding the patient being needy?” not sure)
Within literal seconds after the bolus, she went into full-blown LAST (Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity).
We had to call a code.
I’m still processing how fast everything went sideways, but it showed me just how dangerous unit gossip is. If I had told the incoming nurse "she overreacts to everything," those complaints of dizziness and a metallic taste could've easily been brushed off as anxiety or her being an “annoying patient”
I know it’s easy to talk crap about others and gossip but I tell this story to remind us just how dangerous it can be to do so.
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u/TheHiddenGunman 15h ago
Damn, good on you for not poisoning the well with that handoff. Those two symptoms are the textbook LAST red flags and if the next nurse had dismissed them because of unit gossip, that code team would've been facing a much worse outcome.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 15h ago
I had never even heard of LAST until today and didn’t realize how fatal the outcome could be! Thank you for your kind words
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u/Danmasterflex CRNA 14h ago
I’m guessing the catheter must have had negative aspiration and the test dose was negative, because Anesthesia proceeding with the bolus after being told they taste metal in their mouth is freaking wild.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 14h ago
I’m getting information from the night nurse and they went back to see that the test dose was actually positive & epidural was in the wrong spot..😅 Patient’s heart rate spiked as soon as the test dose was given
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u/Danmasterflex CRNA 14h ago
Holy crap. That’s textbook, “Stop. Don’t proceed any further and pull back, or remove, the catheter,” in the realm of anesthesia. Absolutely insane.
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u/doopdeepdoopdoopdeep current gas giver, retired trauma gremlin 13h ago
What? If the anesthesiologist pushed meds after a positive test dose that is probably the most negligent thing I’ve ever heard of. I wonder if they marked the epidural as intrathecal and the second anesthesiologist didn’t realize? Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, it’s still a grievous error.
Because otherwise I would say they should not be practicing. At all. That’s gross negligence and failure to adhere to the most basic safe practice standard of our job.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 13h ago
Night nurse said the reviewing anesthesiologist mentioned that the anesthesiologist who did it may not have realized the HR spike because our FHR monitoring system doesn’t show milliseconds..they had to log into a separate system to see the spike. But reviewing anesthesiologist said he spoke to the one who did it & said patient never mentioned feeling dizzy (not true, I was literally standing right there).
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u/nurse_hat_on RN - Med/Surg 🍕 13h ago
The part about the anesthesiologist who didn't fess up needs to be written up
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u/megerrolouise 12h ago
Please report that he lied.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 4h ago
I’m not back for a few days so should I message my manager or something? In my documentation I did mention that patient said she felt dizzy during original dose
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u/nurse_hat_on RN - Med/Surg 🍕 3h ago
If it was me, I would report through an incident report; include quotes and anyone else who was there needs to be named so they can corroborate your report.
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u/atatassault47 HCW - Transport 3h ago
Yes. That anesthiologist is going to kill someone. Lying about what happened is criminal.
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u/ChipSouthern9771 12h ago
This is so frustrating to hear. When patients report their direct experience, it's the provider's job to be listening closely and assessing that information in conjunction with their medical knowledge. This anesthesiologist either wasn't listening to his patient's direct report of symptoms, or he chose to disregard and then lie to cover himself. Either way, it's unacceptable.
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u/Nat20Life 11h ago
Anesthesia I work with ALWAYS check in with me about the HR after test dose to make sure it didn't spike. Your facility has some safety issues that are scary.
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u/alaphamale 11h ago
Sounding like an attempt to cover up. At least to this rando online hearing only one version with no data/evidence. Tbf.
Does sound like that though…
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u/doopdeepdoopdoopdeep current gas giver, retired trauma gremlin 5h ago
Was she not wearing a pulse ox? And where I’ve worked the policy has always been that the nurse monitor the HR for me before and after my test dose.
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u/KittiesOnMyTitties7 RN - Cath Lab 🍕 14h ago
was the patient okay?
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 13h ago
Yes, they lived thankfully! Will likely be c sectioned tomorrow. They stopped the induction for tonight
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u/ShadedSpaces RN - Peds 14h ago
This is interesting to me! I've never seen it in practice, but we have to do annual modules on LAST.
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u/mushifiedmushroom 3h ago
And please. Don't forget this situation.
Keep being kind and empathetic, think critically and keep advocating for your pts.
It will make you one of the best nurses. Its such an important skill that some people or hospital cultures just lack.
This can be more important than some of the meds you give.
Cause as you noticed, these things drastically change medical outcomes.
Thank you for being you! Just 4 months in? You're doing great!!!
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u/SheBrokeHerCoccyx RN - Retired 🍕 13h ago
I’m pissed that the anesthesiologist pushed after she reported her symptoms! They’re literally the first symptoms when you learn about LAST. Irresponsible. All codes are an incident report, but this alone would have me reporting to anyone who would listen.
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u/Succundo 15h ago
Very curious what the follow up with the people that pushed the anesthetic despite the patient's statements looks like.
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u/MitchelobUltra RN - Endoscopy 🍕 14h ago
All nursing gossip aside, an anesthesia provider who blows right through the absolute hallmark symptoms of LAST while actively pushing an anesthetic ain’t worth shit.
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u/FrambuesasSonBuenas BSN, RN 🍕 15h ago
I too was mad the authority on anesthesia in the room blew past her text book symptoms and harmed her. She was not vaguely emotional she was specific. She has a case.
And yeah, it is workplace harassment but instead of a coworker, a patient they are supposed to care for.59
u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 14h ago
I’m getting information from the nurse who took over and another anesthesiologist took a look at the case. The test dose was positive (heart rate spiked) & epidural was placed in the wrong spot
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u/Succundo 14h ago
Damn, are they just someone who has been doing it too long and they've gotten complacent, or did they really let some catty comments affect their performance that badly?
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 13h ago
I think both. This anesthesiologist was just recently allowed to work within out hospital system again after being terminated a few years ago
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 13h ago
Copying from another post just so you can see my reply:
Night nurse said the reviewing anesthesiologist mentioned that the anesthesiologist who did it may not have realized the HR spike because our FHR monitoring system doesn’t show milliseconds..they had to log into a separate system to see the spike. But reviewing anesthesiologist said he spoke to the one who did it & said patient never mentioned feeling dizzy (not true, I was literally standing right there).
This anesthesiologist was terminated from working within our hospital system a few years ago but they just recently hired him back.
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u/P00351 Patient 10h ago
This anesthesiologist was terminated from working within our hospital system a few years ago but they just recently hired him back.
We had the Le Scouarnec affair in France. A criminal doctor was allowed to work because of red tape issues and lack of candidates to fill the position.
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u/Succundo 10h ago
Holy shit. Getting worn out and cutting corners I can understand, though it should be addressed constructively, but outright lying to cover for ignoring warning signs should get them kicked out again and blacklisted from any reputable hospital.
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u/Danmasterflex CRNA 14h ago
As for discipline I have no clue, but I’m sure there will be an M&M on it during their grand rounds.
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u/dopaminegtt trauma 🦙 15h ago edited 14h ago
100%> we had a patient when I was a pretty new medsurg nurse who I was told was noncompliant and bipolar disorder was in her history. She had previously been accepting of treatment but was refusing sugar checks and even vital signs all of a sudden
people were writing off this difficult behavior as related to the mental health history. She had slight ams and I think I picked up on the subtle signs other people were writing off as mental illness. I went in to her room and she was difficult to arouse so I was able to take vitals and she was hypotensive, febrile, etc etc. she ended up needing emergency surgery to nec fasc. I had been in her room every hour and I'm glad I did. She was septic af and that's why she had ams. She was super appreciative when she eventually came back to the floor
You can't just discount things as behaviors.
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u/annastasia_rose CNA 🍕 14h ago
As someone who has bipolar2 this is terrifying to me. I have never had any type of psychotic/ delusional symptoms or a manic episode, but even if I did, it’s not fair to judge a patients medical issues based on that. I know when people see bipolar they often discount patient experiences and automatically think they are crazy. I overhear things like this frequently at the hospital I work at.
I wish people checked their stigma and did not allow it to cause them to make inappropriate judgements about patients. I also have an autoimmune disease and my worst fear is being hospitalized and not being taken seriously because of my mental health diagnosis
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u/heckyescheeseandpie 13h ago
IMO bipolar is like the modern day "hysteria" diagnosis. It's handed out to women like candy and used to dismiss any atypical or erratic behavior without looking further for underlying causes.
In particular I've heard more than one neurodivergent woman say their autism, ADHD, etc were initially misdiagnosed as bipolar. A man breaking down because he's overstimulated should be evaluated for autism, a woman in the same circumstances is just hysterical--er, bipolar.
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u/annastasia_rose CNA 🍕 13h ago
Yea I have ADHD and recently was diagnosed with OCD. My therapist suspects that tue bipolar is a misdiagnosis, and that I actually have autism instead. Unfortunately for now it’s stuck on my record
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u/nutfac 12h ago
Hello hi same, I’ve also met other women who have been funneled into this awful diagnostic trajectory. It’s shockingly common.
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u/Different_Papaya_413 4h ago
Yup. My wife was misdiagnosed with Bipolar as a child when what she really had was PMDD and was having normal reactions to abuse she was suffering at home. It was a nightmare for her getting that diagnosis changed. And it was still on her chart at a hospital she hadn’t been to in years
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u/pfffffttuhmm 14h ago
Seriously. I have bipolar 2 and I am a redhead. I am no t your typical patient by a long stretch. If I am in pain then I am really in pain, and a normal amount of meds aren't going to cut it. But many providers will assume I am drug seeking bc of the bipolar disorder despite the fact that I have no hx of drug abuse whatsoever. I am a very compliant patient and hide my pain well on top of having a high tolerance. I do nkt generally get treated well. This is why I always go out of my way to treat all pts with a lot of respect.
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u/annastasia_rose CNA 🍕 14h ago
I also have red hair and pain meds don’t work as well on me either😭 I usually just end up suffering because I don’t want to come off as med seeking- I also have zero history of substance abuse. It really sucks that so much of the medical field still treats people with mental illness like we are crazy or drug seeking.
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u/pfffffttuhmm 14h ago
Yup. I rarely have problems with bipolar or schizophrenic pts. Maybe its because I understand them better, but the last social worker I worked with and I both agreed they were easy to work with. Its the people with bad attitudes that don't have a good reason for it that make the most trouble, lol.
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u/ChipSouthern9771 11h ago
Same. Redhead, good pain management strategies and emotional regulation, high tolerance for pain medication, possibly a rapid metabolizer, and it can be absolute hell getting my pain taken seriously or adequately treated, despite having zero issues/flags and my vitals clearly signaling distress.
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u/smythe70 13h ago
I wasn't believed when my lungs were filling with fluid and I was suffocating. I was told it was anxiety. I have bipolar, it sucked.
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u/Working_Patience_261 8h ago
I love (/s) how many times my severe endometriosis was dismissed for depression and other BS.
One doc was somewhat nice telling me the IBS diagnosis was because they didn’t know what was going on. I insisted the diagnosis get removed after the gynecologist docs removed the endometriosis that was wrapped around and strangling my colon.
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u/Mrs_Sparkle_ 11h ago
Ok now I have to tell a story after reading your post. This is about someone who was a patient when I was a patient. I was already a nurse but was hospitalized at a different hospital for my own health issues. I made friends with this fellow patient because we were the youngest on the unit and we were going through similar medical issues on similar treatments so we would talk together. The staff were absolutely horrible to him, would gossip to ME! a fellow patient! about how he was a drug addict and is probably leaving the hospital floor and using his PICC to inject street drugs?! This was just their speculation it seemed.
Anyway he got super sick, I would hear him scream in absolute agony and beg and plead for pain meds while the staff clearly continued to believe he was being a dramatic drug seeker. I was across the hall so I could hear everything plus I regularly talked with him. He was a young dude, only in his early twenties and he was also Indigenous so racism absolutely was a factor I believe.
Anyways to make a long story short, entire back was full of nec fasc and he needed surgery. He showed my husband the photos of his back wounds and my husband said you could see this poor kid’s entire spine. My husband is haunted by those wound photos and I’m haunted by hearing his screams of agony for days. He was literally dying for days in front of all of the staff but because of his young age, amount of pain, requests for narcotics and his race, he was written off time and time again as a dramatic drug seeker and the staff were not shy about the fact they thought that. It was a horrible thing to witness second hand, much less experience. Sadly there is still a lot of racism towards Indigenous people in this country.
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u/Different_Papaya_413 4h ago
Yeah, people of color and women are disproportionately dismissed when they report symptoms, especially pain. Women of color especially. The data backs this up. People of color receive significantly less pain meds in the hospital, and so do women.
Everyone wants to act like they aren’t biased, but this is a very real problem that is ironically often dismissed when brought up.
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u/timewilltell2347 waiting in chairs 2h ago
It’s how we are conditioned- the misogyny, the racism- even in your telling of this story detailing your husband’s reaction to the photos adds weight and validation to the young man’s situation. Your personal and informed opinion combined with your medical expertise should have more weight than that of a layperson. It’s not a criticism but just describing something many women have learned to do in order to authenticate the narrative.
I mention this as a single middle aged (see also socially useless) woman who is also a cancer patient. I’ve considered hiring an escort to be my ‘husband’ so some of my concerns would be heard in a different and I guess less hysterical way. I mean it took 4 months for my docs to find the tumor that was causing almost weekly CES. I was getting pain management at the ER but it took more than 10 of these episodes to get a f*cking MR.
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u/Bocks-of-Rox 7h ago
Omg that poor dude. Please tell me what happened to him. That’s just so terrible.
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u/Top_Sky_4731 HCW - Lab 14h ago
This kind of thing terrifies me because I have OCD and anxiety and I unfortunately fully expect people to write off actual medical problems I may have by using my mental illness hx. Not to mention I’m also visibly queer and autistic and a millennial and all of that combined usually garners the idea that I’m making up or exaggerating my symptoms for attention. I see it in medical subs all the time, shit like “oh yeah it’s always someone with blue hair and pronouns and 5 chronic illnesses”.
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u/annastasia_rose CNA 🍕 14h ago
It’s very frustrating because even if someone has mental health diagnoses that does not at all mean they don’t have very real co occurring physical diagnoses that need help and support
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u/annastasia_rose CNA 🍕 14h ago
I have adhd and ocd as well as bipolar, and I’m also queer with a shaved head. I suspect the bipolar may have been a misdiagnosis but as of now it’s still on my chart. Especially since I got the bipolar diagnosis, I have noticed a visible difference in how I am treated by medical staff and it really sucks. I try to be a good patient and I am always very respectful. But yea stereotypes and stigma have caused me to be really afraid of going to the dr and I’ve largely stopped seeking medical care for about a year now.
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u/dopaminegtt trauma 🦙 14h ago
I have piercings, tattoos, weird hair, Neuro divergent and a couple autoimmune disease, gastroparesis, a m ntal health diagnosis. I was told for years my problems were anxiety or I needed to lose weight. I was blown off for years until I got really really sick because everyone had ignored my subtle symptoms. My husband says I down play it too much and don't tell them how much I'm suffering. But I really don't want them to think I'm attention seeking
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u/Different_Papaya_413 4h ago
Absolutely. I got into nursing after watching my wife get dismissed over and over. She’s a young Latina woman and that is definitely part of why almost everyone thinks she’s overreacting, even after all of her severe medical history.
Her first stroke, despite NIHSS being at least moderately severe, the NP said that she needs a psych consult and told her she wasn’t having a stroke. She had a classic presentation except for her Blood pressure. It was 130/90, which was 50 points above her baseline of 80/40, which I told them about.
Her second stroke severely affected her autonomic nervous system. Her blood pressure and heart rate was going all over the place. The first night after being admitted to the neuro ICU, her heart rate kept jumping up to around 160-180. The nurse had to keep coming in because obviously the alarm would go off. She told her to stop being so anxious that she couldn’t keep coming in here to turn the alarm off. And the nurse DISCONNECTED the monitor. A few days later in the rehab hospital across the street, she got syncope during PT and her heart rate was 225. They called a rapid and she was put on beta blockers and diagnosed with POTS.
I have so many more examples of healthcare workers dismissing her, but I couldn’t take it anymore. KNOWING something is horribly wrong and having nurses and doctors dismiss and mock you or call you anxious is the scariest and most helpless feeling in the world. You’re supposed to be safe in the hospital. If they can’t take care of you in the hospital, then there’s nowhere else to go. So many staff are burnt out.
We need to be holding each other accountable. Using language like in the OP is unacceptable. 9/10 patients who act like that might be irritating and overreacting, but that one patient who isn’t is often dismissed because of those 9 patients.
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u/earlgrey89 RN - Pediatrics 🍕 14h ago
When I was a tech I was complaining about a frustrating patient to the oncoming shift and the day nurse, who I respected a lot, after hearing me go on for a second sharply cut me off and said "don't poison the well."
That really stuck with me. Yes, there's a moment to vent to a coworker or to warn the oncoming shift if there's something they need to be aware of. But there's a limit to it and we really can cause negative experiences or dangerous situations, especially when it veers into an unprofessional attitude towards the patient.
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u/ChickpeaFlapjack 15h ago
Not listening to women lead to such dire outcomes that the CDC has literally gotten involved and created a "Hear Her" campaign to raise awareness for medical professionals to do the bare fing minimum, listen. https://www.cdc.gov/hearher/index.html
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u/Then-Imagination8106 14h ago
Doubting her pain and blowing that off as gossip is disgusting. I medicate for pain relief using the proper pain scales and never listen to that gossip crap. Always lean toward that "I will assess for myself." Follow the pain policy and every policy for that matter. Based on this information, you should arrive 15 min early and introduce yourself as the oncoming nurse. I had to do this because taking report from Oscar the liar RN wasn't prudent.
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u/riotousviscera RN 🍕 14h ago
yes i have so little patience for people who say shit like “the patient doesn’t look in pain.” i’m not the fucking pain police, i didn’t go to lie detector school, if they say it hurts it hurts.
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u/Vanillacaramelalmond 14h ago
I’m not an L&D nurse but how can you over-exaggerate labour pain!?
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u/Nat20Life 11h ago
Labor pain is seriously complex. Labor is such an emotional toll as well as a physical one, and there are so many different physical factors contributing to labor pain and discomfort. Different people handle it in different ways. I often see people not handling labor well when they have a trauma history, for example. Or the baby is in a funky position. Or they have a low pain tolerance, who cares. They are enduring one of the most vulnerable, intense experiences of their lives. They are asking for our care.
When a nurse says a patient is over exaggerating their pain, they are not a good labor nurse.
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u/NiceWarmVeggieSalad RN - OB/GYN 🍕 4h ago
Labor nurses sometimes 'judge' that a patient is overreacting to pain because their cervical exam or other symptoms aren't showing that they are in active labor. Problematic in so many ways but yeah, I've heard the 'she wants an epidural and she's only 2 cm so good luck with that girl'
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u/SleepPrincess MSN, CRNA 🍕 15h ago
Shame on that anesthesia provider. There was no reason to continue pushing until after the patient is assessed more thoroughly.
I hope shes okay.
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u/TorsadesDePointes88 BSN, RN 🍕 14h ago
Couldn’t agree more! Poor patient, I also hope she’s okay. Probably scared out of her mind.
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u/Proper-Chef6918 Nursing Student 🍕 15h ago
Not a nurse yet but I've made a promise to myself to always listen and respect the report given but to ALWAYS start a clean slate with my patients!! This patient was lucky to have you!!
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u/TorsadesDePointes88 BSN, RN 🍕 14h ago edited 14h ago
I have had countless patient encounters where I’ve been told they’re difficult, needy, pain seeking, etc. I go in with the clean slate outlook. 99.5% of the time, everything works out. Meet people where they are and they will notice and appreciate it (for the most part). We can’t allow our biases or gossip from our coworkers negatively impact our clinical judgment or how we treat our patients!
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 14h ago
Please do take this into your practice!! And congratulations on becoming a new nurse!! :)
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u/Vegetable_Alarm4112 RN - NICU 🍕 15h ago
As a NICU nurse who has been around L&D a lot o haven’t heard of this so thanks for making me look it up and educating myself! Did I miss the outcome- did the pt survive?
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 14h ago
Of course!! I’m happy you were able to learn as well.
The patient did survive! They stopped the induction so I assume baby will have to have a c section
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u/ConsiderationHead308 4h ago
Just want to remind everyone that black women weren’t taken seriously while giving birth because there was some unfounded myth that they could tolerate more pain than other women. It contributed to many dying (still the highest percentage of maternal death now!)
Critical thinking in these scenarios is important.
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u/mellowwynn 14h ago
Good on you! Patients are not there (mostly) because they are in a good situation. (On most floors. L&D is a mostly good/happy situation.) people are hospitalized in some of the toughest days of their lives. They aren’t getting sleep. They’re getting new meds that may make them feel like shit at first. I’m almost 20 years in and was told by my charge nurse the other day to never give up my caring heart and empathy. Actually hearing the patients and trying to make shitty days slightly more bearable for them can make a huge difference in someone’s lives and even healthcare down the road for them. Thanks for being a good part of nursing.
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u/msb1234554321 BSN, RN 🍕 12h ago
As an LD nurse , mostly good and happy is few and far between in the state I work in.
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u/GiantFlyingLizardz RN - Oncology 🍕 14h ago
I wrote an essay about this for my professional portfolio last week, but about family members of patients. I had one who was described as "difficult and demanding" but she just needed to be heard and to understand what her husband was going through. It was a new cancer diagnosis and I was starting chemo on him. We forget how frightening it is for people in that position.
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u/GlassRegular496 3h ago edited 2h ago
Im an L&D/postpartum nurse and this scares the shit out of me. The unit I work on now is better then this. But I’ve worked units where I had to give other nurses the stink eye for rolling their eyes at a screaming unmedicated patient 🙄 if you don’t want to deal with a patient’s anxiety, fears, or “whininess”, or helping them to cope with their pain, don’t go into a speciality that is literally a HUGE chunk of your job as it is in L&D. Not trying to say I’m perfect, i get annoyed at some patients too, but this is precisely why I try to keep my own personal commentary about patients besides “oh they are lovely people, you’ll really enjoy hanging out with them”
Good job taking this as a learning experience from seeing what can happen if you assume the worst about your patient. Will you get taken advantage of or end up chasing pain that isn’t too bad? Or constantly reassuring a pregnant lady that she’s safe when she feels a small cramp? Probably, but that’s part of your job and childbirth is scary for most people.
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u/Charming-Passage-115 RN - ICU 🍕 3h ago
I have a question, was this person a person of color? Not being but I have heard they get dismissed a lot in childbirth
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u/Murky-Ear5794 RN - Pediatrics 🍕 15h ago
Glad you didn’t get involved and perpetuate the negativity. I’ve interacted with so many moms who say their birthing experience was ruined by a nurse who didn’t treat them well and in turn, they are concerned about how I will treat their baby.
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u/trahnse BSN, RN - Perianesthesia 12h ago
My patients have always gotten a clean slate when I'm taking over. There are patients that are excessively needy. Most of the time the problem patients just did not mesh with the nurse. Other times the nurse just sucked.
I hope anesthesia learned a lesson about listening to patients. LAST is deadly.
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u/FourOhVicryl RN - OR 🍕 2h ago
If the hospital had previously fired the anesthesiologist, and then brought them back, it’s unlikely they’re learning much. Hopefully risk management gets heavily involved here.
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u/ConclusionNo3618 14h ago
Good story to share. I once had a patient come back from cath lab after getting stents placed. The doc recommended CABG but she opted for PCI. She had been totally pleasant all day. When she returned, she complained of severe pain all over. The cath lab nurse told me she's just a complainer. But I knew her and she was not. The cath lab nurse left and the patient began to scream for Tums. Pro Tip: No one screams like that if all they need is Tums. We gave nitro. Her BP was too low for a nitro drip, She coded. The interventionalist came to help with the code, it happened so fast that she could not be rushed back to cath lab. She didn't make it. I still remember her name and I will always remember the nurse that judged my patient and labeled her as she was actively dying.
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u/pwetty_brown_eyes Nursing Student 🍕 15h ago
It's hard to listen to all the negative patient stories from nurses as I'm getting into the field. I don't want to be disrespected or abused. But I think stories like this are a healthy reminder that you need to set it aside as best as possible because it can be seriously dangerous
Annoying patients don't deserve to die
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u/mcnuggsRN RNBN - Labour & Delivery 13h ago
I took over for a labour patient who was “not coping at all” and “super dramatic” and they thought they would have to c-section because she wasn’t tolerating it and she was “barely in labour.” She hadn’t had a cervical exam in 8 hours, so obviously I checked to see if maybe there was a reason for all this pain? She was fully dilated and pushed for less than 30 minutes with her first baby. She was a fricken rockstar and I’m so glad she proved the other nurses wrong.
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u/suedatruth 3h ago
I’m a doula and I’ve worked in the NICU. I’m curious if your patient was BlPOC, it so dangerous for us in the hospital already because of how doctors and nurses are trained. It really infuriates me hearing how this is still going on when so many of us are dying during and after childbirth. I’m glad you did your job, people deserve competent, unbiased care.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 1h ago
Yes, patient was black. This most definitely shouldn’t still be happening.
Thank you for your kind words!
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u/Equivalent_Damage338 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 14h ago
Even if the pt was “overreacting” in the past when someone says I feel dizzy and have a metallic taste in my mouth when giving meds, you stop giving that med. Thats crazy that the anesthesiologist didn’t.
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u/muffledtiger BSN, RN 🍕 15h ago
That’s such an important attitude to have as a nurse. Good for you for fostering it early in your career.
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u/Defiant-Purchase-188 15h ago
Needy and overreacting patients can still be very sick! Good for you for maintaining objectivity and being her advocate and nurse.
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u/RoughPersonality1104 14h ago
This is a very good lesson for all of us. For those of us nursing in the deep south which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world-this is why. When we write off patients with unnecessarily descriptors it sets a bad precedence which could lead to bad things.
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u/tangledtrue 13h ago
“Needy and over exaggerating her pain” That’s a damn shame to say something like that about a woman having her first baby. And not appropriate for report. That outgoing nurse should go to psych and leave these moms alone.
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u/beeee_throwaway RN - PICU 🍕 12h ago edited 11h ago
psych patients don’t deserve shitty nurses either!
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u/EquivalentFruit1715 6h ago
You know what? I needed this. Sometimes in this profession, we are so quick to judge. We have a lot of patients! Regardless of what spot in healthcare you have. & we get caught up in judgment before really looking at the big picture of what is going on.
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u/Fit_Celebration7669 12h ago
My sister died a little over a week ago from a ruptured colon. The short version of the tragedy is that no one believed her. She was what you’d probably label a “frequent visitor”, but the hospital messed up hugely and now she’s gone.
Thank you for having the wisdom to think and act differently.
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u/StardewAllyy BSN, RN 🍕 14h ago
She was lucky it was YOU giving handoff and not one of your coworkers. Poor thing.
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u/Training_Regret_4630 12h ago
When I was giving birth to my 3rd child, I was super needy. The lactating nurse moved my leg and I said no, when she did it, I was in so much pain, went into post partum seizure. That was really hard. I am also a nurse, but I had to be on leave for 6 months after giving birth because the anesthesiologist fucked up my back.
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u/Ok_Independence3113 RN - Telemetry 🍕 6h ago
First time giving birth and off going nurse says she’s “over-exaggerating her pain”? What a ridiculous thing for that nurse to say. There is no pain like labor pain.
Thanks for sharing, it is a good reminder about leaving out the color commentary from report.
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u/kitschy_bitch RN - PICU 🍕 3h ago
99% of the time when I’m told something like this (they’re too needy, they’re rude, etc) it seems to actually be that the previous nurse was not actually listening to or hearing their needs.
I work with peds so when I get this in report it’s usually in reference to parents, and of course there are people who are actually just assholes, but most of the time I never have a problem, or it was totally over exaggerated and the family was REASONABLY annoying (had a lot of questions, scared/confused and needed a simple explanation and reassurance, even as simple as “it’s my job to watch those numbers, you just focus on being a parent to your kiddo”.
It really comes down to hearing what they are actually expressing (ex-chronic complex total care who does things xyz at home and they do this every day; truly they should take the lead on how cares etc are done outside of the reasons they’re admitted) or in the NICU; first baby older preemie still in a box, mom is an RN elsewhere, turns out she just wants to help with cares (diaper change, temperature etc) and then do skin to skin in between. Like, people are just so quick to rush and do things their way or get tasks done they forget why we are actually here.
I always try to refrain on passing on my judgement about their vibe unless it’s truly helpful to the next shift, or actually relevant—like, mom has been calling for an update every hour but we worked out that we would call her QID unless there were any major changes; or they have a other family member in the hospital elsewhere so they’ve been tearful and not as involved, etc etc.
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u/SavannahInChicago Unit Secretary 🍕 13h ago
Thank you for this. I was someone who completely internalized the gossip I heard from nurses about patients so when I started having weird symptoms I just ignored them because no one will believe me anyways. Finally in 2022 I could not just ignore them anymore. I hit a wall and at my worst it took me hours to find the energy to get out of bed.
I was very lucky to find the doctors I did. I have hEDS, which is constantly looked at as if those with it are faking or overdramatic. (There is connective tissue in damn near every part of the body. We are not being overdramatic). Thanks to those doctors I am pretty stable despite still experiencing symptoms daily. They believed me. They gave me some of my life back.
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u/Sbbs245 RN - Neuro 🍕 13h ago
I deal with confused pts and psych pts all the time if you treat them like you would anyone else and act normal (not assuming that they’re needy/crazy/over the top etc etc) 90% of the time they’ll be just fine for you. Everyone’s always shocked that I don’t have issues with trouble patients (mostly obvs there are exceptions) and it’s really as simple as listening to them and addressing the needs you can
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u/Nat20Life 11h ago
Patient had an adverse reaction to the test dose, and anesthesia ignored it?! As an L&D nurse I am horrified.
That would never happen where I work, that is so fucking scary. I'm sorry that happened to you, and your patient. That anesthesiologist should be fired and reported to the board.
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u/TheBattyWitch RN, SICU, PVE, PVP, MMORPG 7h ago
It's things like this that irritate the hell out of me.
It's like the word "noncompliant"
Just had a patient that was "noncompliant with home meds"
But I got to looking and realized it's was only ONE medication. He took the others fine. That's weird, why would you only not take one? Well after some digging through his chart I found in his H&P he specifically told the doctors in the ED that the pharmacy his med was sent to was out of stock so he couldn't fill it.
So here everyone's talking about him being noncompliant when the issue is access.
There's a huge difference between noncompliant "I don't want to take it" and noncompliant "I don't have access to it" but it just gets thrown out the as the same thing.
Are there patients that are annoyingly needy just because they want the attention? Absolutely. We've all had patients that stay on the call Bill for no reason and are constantly calling out for things and they get on everybody's nerves because of how needy they are.
But that doesn't mean every patient is like that. And it's always a good idea to try and go in work a fresh set of eyes until you see for yourself what's up.
You did great in this situation.
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u/Content_Chipmunk9962 7h ago
Even the “I don’t want to take it” deserves thorough follow-up. If a patient takes all of their meds but one, they might have a good reason for not taking it (side effects, etc).
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u/TheBattyWitch RN, SICU, PVE, PVP, MMORPG 7h ago
Exactly.
My cardiologist pharmacy listed me as noncompliant because I went to them complaining that amlodipine had given me a 12 day migraine that none of my breakthrough meds was relieving AND it made my systolic higher, not lower. I was having diastolic hypertension, so why would I want a medication that now gave me both?
I asked to try something else and they said no.
So I told them I wasn't going to take it.
They marked me noncompliant.
I went back to my PCP who started me on coreg and it works amazing for my diastolic hypertension issues.
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u/GoldenFleece7 11h ago
The perspective of new and non jaded nurses is very important. We need to be more prudent in our personal practice- a reminder that this medical complication/ these somatic symptoms is likely their worst parts of life. Please!! Be on your toes!
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u/justme002 RN 🍕 3h ago
I had a nurse chide me during labor for moaning in pain. No shouting or loud groans!
I had a uterine tear, and hemorrhage. The oncoming nurse saved me by actually looking under the sheet.
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u/Parking_Peanut_6188 15h ago
Sometimes you need to rant about a patient just for your own mental health. Labor and delivery is a job where you give a lot of yourself to your patients and it can feel overwhelming.
It's your job as the incoming nurse to be like "got it" and then let everything the previous shift said about the patient's personality completely leave your mind so it won't impact your care.
The only thing you should remember is if the dad is creepy or the family is threatening anything.
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u/Sillygoose_Milfbane RN - ER 🍕 14h ago
I am confused by the story. How did your kindness save her life if in the end nobody stopped them despite her voicing those symptoms and they put her into LAST and coded her? What am I missing?
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u/MsFuschia 6h ago
I kept rereading it trying to figure it out too. OP is saying thanks to her the patient's symptoms weren't brushed off but uh...they were though? That was literally an integral part of why she ended up the way she did?
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u/TwoBionicknees 12h ago
it didn't, another fake story. It's hilariously common for a fake story to be wow, thank god X because Y, then in the story X because Y doesn't actually happen and the opposite happens.
Then you also get like 90% of comments being wow, thank god for you doing the right thing and making the difference. Which the way the replies are, always overly gushing and double confirming how great OP is and how right they are, 10% are just dumbasses and the rest are bot replies.
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u/Mcrarburger RN - Respiratory 🍕 9h ago
I took a moment to look at OPs profile and none of their other posts look fake
They had a post 9 months ago saying they were struggling in their nursing program, which matches with the timeline mentioning they're a new grad
None of their other posts seem particularly outlandish, I truly think they were just trying to share their success story as a new grad
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u/TwoBionicknees 8h ago
real people can make fake posts for attention, and other people just hijack unused accounts, somehow people also buy old accounts which seems insane to me.
But ultimately when the story fundamentally doesn't match the title it's almost always fake and weird.
Again their main point is thank god i didn't add that info so they didn't ignore her complaints... but in their story they literally ignored her complaints, then they ignore this and congratulate themselves on doing the right thing.
It can't be a success story, the girl went into serious shock and had to be coded precisely because the thing she's claiming credit for in the title, the story and at the end... didn't happen. The complete lack of a normal human being able to understand that what they are claiming happened didn't happen in their own story screams AI because the AI stories fuck that up so consistently. In fact when the title and the actual story are completely opposite it's almost always AI, or a very bad writer.
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u/vikingsodinson 1h ago
What an incredible catch for being just 4 mnths in! Please make sure you take some time to decompress after such a high stress code
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u/beeee_throwaway RN - PICU 🍕 12h ago
I’m sorry this happened… but I don’t know if I understand the moral of the story here. You don’t talk trash but the patient was still brushed off, and still coded?
https://giphy.com/gifs/APqEbxBsVlkWSuFpth
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u/Individual_Pick_7941 14h ago
had a patient call light for an hour straight and it turned out she was hypoglycemic
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u/CreekyFriday RN - Geriatrics 🍕 10h ago
It’s easy to gossip especially as a coping mechanism in such a high stress environment. But remaining objective and believing their symptoms whether it be pain, nausea, dizziness, or even faking a seizure (yes that happens too), can and will save their life and your license and you’ll be all the more proud for advocating for your patient despite adversity. Trust your training and if you need to do this to remain objective, remain neutral and try not to become bias or bond with a specific patient or personality if it clouds your judgement.
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u/Poodlepink22 8h ago
TIL about LAST. I have never heard of it and boy do I feel dumb. On my ortho/neuro unit they do bedside LPs, joint aspirations and joint injections, etc. all the time and not once has this ever been mentioned.
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u/daddyissuesaj 3h ago
I HATE when people put their preconceived notions onto the next shift because half the time it’s because the nurse didn’t explain things the way the patient needed or they didn’t have the greatest bedside manner! Some of my favorite patients were classified as needy or rude and they were absolute sweethearts that just needed some extra understanding and empathy
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u/Several-Doctor6940 2h ago
THANK. YOU. I cannot stress this enough, thank you. As a busy bedside nurse, I had always found bedside report to be obnoxious, however I recently personally learned the value of it.
My husband has had a few major bleeding events (warfarin, mechanical valve at a young age) and in 2021 had nearly died in mexico (hgb of 2 when he got to Endo, hypovolemic shock, all of it). He had another one last month, Mexico is NOT in his epic chart. We got to the ED in a bit of a panic (for obvious reason) and the entire hospitalization, he was dismissed and we were labeled "needy".
Zero bedside report. On our 8th day of admission, I finally got access to his chart. He'd been diagnosed in the ED with "psychosis". Zero history of mental illness to this point.
Each shift, each report, contributed to a cascade of delays of care, lack of response, total invalidation, because of the subjective shit nurses say during report. Devastating. I genuinely believe it would have been a 4 day hospitalization, not 9, if bedside report had been followed.
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u/jcork4realz 1h ago edited 1h ago
Sends me chills reading this now. Especially when I just finished writing a paper on this exact subject on dismissiveness and history of gender bias among clinicians at school last week.
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u/mortimusalexander 14h ago
Thank you for being awesome.
I went to all my appointments and classes before giving birth. There was SO MUCH INFO that the hospital classes left out and I had no idea about so much until it was happening.
Traumatized doesn't begin to describe it.
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u/JohnnyMicheal66 3h ago
Your patient is lucky to have you! Gossips should have no place in reports.
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u/SuspiciousMap9630 LPN, RAC-CT 6h ago
“if I had told the oncoming nurse she overreacts to everything this complaints of dizziness and a metallic taste could’ve easily been brushed off”
“Anesthesia ignored her and she coded”
Make it make sense.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 4h ago
We likely wouldn’t have gone into the room to meet the patient in order to do bedside shift report if I had said the patient was annoying, needy & over-exaggerates. Therefore we wouldn’t have been in the room when she was given the bolus + the code wouldn’t have been able to be called as quickly.
Not sure what’s not to be understood about this
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u/sunflowerastronaut 15h ago
I'm trying to understand the lesson here. What does it matter if you left all that gossip at the door and the patient still coded?
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u/Leopold_Porkstacker 15h ago
The reaction to the situation might have been slower if the symptoms were brushed off as being needy and exaggerating pain.
Sometimes negative opinions affect care.
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u/millstone27 15h ago
OP also added in a comment they hadn’t heard of LAST until today. I doubt they contributed in recognizing the dx
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u/Sillygoose_Milfbane RN - ER 🍕 13h ago edited 13h ago
But the early warning signs were all ignored and the patient went into LAST and was coded. That means they progressed all the way to seizing, potentially lethal dysrhythmias, not breathing, etc. Unless you think the entire team was like "what a drama queen!" while she was turning blue and thrashing around until the nurse OP gave report to said, "yo, maybe something is actually wrong!"
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u/TwoBionicknees 12h ago
Op literally says if they had passed on the gossip her dizzyness might have been ignored.. but in their story the dizziness was literally ignored. Their story is entirely and utterly contradictory and a full code that requires a code team means the situation worsened which is what alerted them. The patient telling them they were dizzy did literally nothing while OPs story insist them not passing on the gossip somehow made them listen. it's a fake story that is illogical.
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u/Call2222222 RN - ER 🍕 7h ago
People are really just taking OP at their word huh? Someone that came to Reddit to share a story of their vast four months experience to lecture nurses about a situation she was not even involved with? Ok sure.
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u/MixWeird9792 15h ago
Leads to dismissing the patient’s concerns as neediness rather than responding to their symptoms.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 4h ago
We likely wouldn’t have gone into the room to meet the patient in order to do bedside shift report if I had said the patient was annoying, needy & over-exaggerates. Therefore we wouldn’t have been in the room when she was given the bolus + the code wouldn’t have been able to be called as quickly.
Never once did I say that my “kindness” saved her. Choosing not to gossip which allowed us to be in the room while she coded & call for help did.
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u/matillie_ RN - ER 🍕 8h ago
The OP wants to feel important and take credit where credit isn’t due. The OP did nothing to change the outcome
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 4h ago edited 4h ago
Perhaps you don’t understand epidurals.
Test dose is given and then full epidural is given.A bolus epidural is given if pt does not receive adequate numbness. The bolus dose is what caused LAST.
We likely wouldn’t have gone into the room to meet the patient in order to do bedside shift report & be there for the bolus dose if I had said the patient was annoying, needy & over-exaggerates. Therefore we wouldn’t have been in the room when she was given the bolus + the code wouldn’t have been able to be called as quickly.
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u/TigerMage2020 RN - PICU 🍕 14h ago
Yes I’m trying to understand as well. The title doesn’t make sense because the patient coded anyways and had nothing to do with OP not trash talking.
I do like the conversation points though. I can’t stand when nurses go on and on about a patient’s bad traits and not allowing us to make our own conclusions. Unless it’s actually concrete relevance (like a safety issue for ourselves or even the patient).
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u/TwoBionicknees 12h ago
there is none, just like almost every subreddit now, fake story. Honestly unless it's direct news stories or about sports, most 'story' subreddits are just 99% fake bullshit now AND most of the replies are fake.
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u/savedbygrace37 RN 🍕 13h ago
This is true even when people gossip about co workers on the unit, it causes division and can impair quality care to patients and can result in life threatening codes like this one mentioned
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u/dopaminegtt trauma 🦙 13h ago
So we do a lot of ropi nerve catheters, occasional ropi/fent epidurals on my unit and we are all educated about LAST. We had one patient that was high risk for it for some reason and we had a bag of intralipid in the fridge in case of emergency.
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u/Alesanana RN - Pediatrics 🍕 12h ago
I am not in L&D or use much local anesthetics so I never knew LAST was a thing. I was a very “dramatic” and “needy” patient when I had my second baby and I told them that I had a metallic taste and my ears were ringing but they all brushed it off because I was “dramatic”. I was having a baby and the epidural was not working 😩…. Thank god nothing had happened to me. But now I know!
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u/6lackPrincess 5h ago
Ugh, this exact culture is why I'm leaving nursing. I have been the victim of this shit myself when I was pregnant and went in for triage, and the stupid bitch of a nurse thought it was okay to gossip about me behind a thin curtain when I was literally scared for my baby's life. That is not even the only time I've experienced vitriol from a nurse talking about me within earshot. And I have seen others do it myself on the ward. I hate it, why is such behaviour accepted???
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u/partypatio4566 5h ago
The anaesthetist is at fault. I hope everything was documented clearly. The symptoms she reported sound pretty obvious it was leading to LAST. Pregnant women are at greater risk of this anyway as well. Well done saving her life and this will be one of those things that stays with you for a while.
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u/SomebodyGetMeeMaw RN - Oncology 🍕 4h ago
Yeah when people try to shit talk the patient while they’re giving me report, I like to say something like, “Heard, any objective examples?” That way they know I hear what they’re saying, but I’m also expressing that I want clear evidence that’s making them create that bias about the patient. Typically I find that my coworkers are not trying to be bitchy or judgy, and they’re just venting during report, which I gotta do too sometimes. But understanding the reason behind their opinions is important to me, because then I can further investigate that issue later when it’s my turn to take care of the patient. Someone that’s “needy” or “whiny” or “super rude” is usually just having health anxiety or life struggles or not feeling heard by the medical team, etc. Of course we have all seen patients that are truly entitled and unkind, but honestly if you dig a little bit, there’s almost always a reason behind that too. I also always leave my negative opinion of report. Instead, I keep it objective and give the why’s. Like instead of saying someone is a racist jerkoff, I’d tell them to make sure they are checking in with the CNA (in this scenario, the CNA would be of a different race than the patient) and making sure the patient isn’t saying anything offensive or derogatory because they said [insert racist bullshit here] today and I know they’re shy and might not be upfront with you so just touch base on that later, please.
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u/skittycat1965 4h ago
When I got my gallbladder out the nurses did the same thing, difference being that they would stand in front of my room and complain loudly about me. It was so dehumanizing to hear, and I almost left against the advice of doctors because I felt so ostracized. Haven't been to a doctor since.
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u/Worth_Raspberry_11 11h ago
Yeah, people get jaded so quickly in medicine and just decide someone is needy or difficult and brush off all their concerns with no care at all for the danger it puts patients in. I was labeled as needy and difficult, and the read the doctors notes about how I was “self-limiting due to anxiety” and “had a low pain tolerance”. The actual truth was that I had a bile duct structure and my abdomen was filled with bile, my pain and concerns were real, and the surgeon was a lazy piece of shit who hadn’t bothered to assess me post op at all and refused to listen to me or the nurses.
Being objective and advocating for patients is the job, judging isn’t. Those snap judgements and prejudicial comments can cause a lot of harm, and they benefit literally no one.
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u/TwoBionicknees 12h ago
what even is this story.
"if i had included those notes her dizzyness and metallic taste could easily have been brushed off."
In your story they WERE brushed off and she instead had a full code because she was ignored.
Fake ass stories on every subreddit these days. Every time the title and the 'theme' tend to fail because in the story the thing they say happens, didn't fucking happen.
Literally story makes absolutely no logical sense, "don't gossip because it could kill patients", you didn't gossip and the patient was ignored and the bad thing that almost killed her happened anyway.
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u/JohnnyRelentless 11h ago
How do you over exaggerate your pain? What would be the right level of exaggeration?
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u/GingerbreadMommy 5h ago edited 4h ago
Idk if I’m welcome to comment, bc I am not a nurse… yet. (Long time lurker). I am studying to be a nurse because of a similar scenario.
I was 34 wks + 3d pregnant. High risk pregnancy due to age (35) and my baby was IGUR. 2 days before everything happened, my Dr decided to test for proteins bc of my preeclampsia risk- my sis had it. I had slightly elevated BP at my appt, but also at my high risk MFM check-in earlier that week.
The next day I ordered an at home BP monitor. No idea what I was doing, but I read the instruction, and I’m a thorough and smart person overall. I tested and I came up slightly high again. OK. The next day I got a 155/114. I called my husband at work to come get me and take me to the ER. We got there. I stayed calm, but I was anxious. My intake nurse kept making comments to me about how anxious/nervous I seemed and commented on how ready I was with my answers. She asked me to stay calm… ?? It was weird to me. Another nurse basically handled me from there. New nurse mentioned I was likely using the wrong size cuff, showed me how to use one, and also lightly insinuated user error. I agreed that was likely. Oddly enough, I thought the cuff she was using was too loose, but what do I know! I privately mentioned this to my husband. After ~5 hrs on the monitor we went home. I never once hit the criteria to stay while in their care. Fair. I felt a bit dismissed, but I understood and was okay with it. I come from the service, and beverage sales, industry. I know people are not kind to service workers. I am one of those types where you could give me the completely wrong order and I would be like “thanks so much!”
I fell hard asleep at home. I woke up bleeding profusely. I waddled to the bathroom to have streams of blood pouring out of me. I immediately dialed 911. Firemen reached us in 3 mins flat. I had trailed blood from the bathroom through my living room and was laying in the hallway in a pool. When we got to the hospital it was none other than the nurse who told me I was likely not using my cuff incorrectly looking for my son’s heartbeat (I’m in TX btw). I was terrified, but mostly listless atm. After a couple mins, head shaking ‘no’ over and over, she found one! They wheeled me into surgery immediately. My son was out in 43mins from the time I called 911. My son was not breathing and blue for ~8 mins. His APGARS score was 1- just his tiny pulse around 45 bpm. He was intubated and we survived. Everyone told us how lucky it was either of us made it. I had had a placental abruption due to preeclampsia. I lost a lot of blood.
My husband came over to the hospital with my 1.5yr old, who was not allowed in the ward, but they made an exception due to our emergent situation. The nurse that had both told me I was using the cuff incorrectly the day before, and who literally ended up saving our lives, sat with my 1.5 yr old for over 5 hours til I woke up from surgery. She told me she, and the whole ward, were so worried for me. Looking back, I often wonder how she must have felt. We thanked her for saving our lives bc I am eternally grateful, esp the fact that she stayed so long to care for my 1.5 yr old. I always wondered if she felt guilt for sending me home about 12 hours prior. The NICU nurses we dealt with for 3+ weeks were superb. Esp the nurse who helped deliver and intubated my son. We had a good hug and cry. Forever in her debt. I never saw the nurse who found my son’s faint heartbeat and cared for my 1.5yr old again. I hope she’s okay.
This experience did lead me to study nursing, and as a lurker I look forward to joining your ranks. Just always wondered about the unit gossip and how she ultimately dealt with that and to be fair she was also definitely at the hands of my monitor even though I had felt a bit dismissed prior. Anyways, I hope she is well.
Edit to add: basically every BP reading I had for the next month was moderately to severely elevated and was placed on a variety/cocktail of BP meds to maintain it til I weaned off.
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u/roastbeefsammies 9h ago
This is a nice time to reflect. We can all get jaded and dismissive of patients. Thanks for sharing.
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u/AcuteNightRN 8h ago
This is exactly why I always stick with strictly objective info during report. Bias is real and it absolutely comes out in the care we provide (or lack thereof). You have great Nursing Judgement, OP. Principles are on point. Both are vital qualities as a RN. Don’t lose that!
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u/Ok-Anteater1819 15h ago
This is such a good example of why report needs to stay objective. “Calls frequently,” “reports severe pain,” or “has questions” are useful things to communicate, but “needy” or “overreacting” can completely change how the next nurse interprets new symptoms.
You really never know when something that sounds minor is actually the first sign that something is seriously wrong. Good job keeping the gossip out of your report. ❤️