Nurse In Australia» Nurse Abuse

Sheepish, Demure Nurses Pandering to Inflated Ego’s

Ross — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:32:34 +0000

Let me put a question to the readers here:
What are your experiences & feelings on Nurse / Doctor relationships in general?

Given the time & effort it takes to complete a nursing degree plus specialty training, I would suspect at the very least there should be some professional respect on both sides of any Nurse / Doctor relationship. Particularly when it comes to senior or experienced staff.

Not so, says Nurse In Australia reader Nighean, responding to a post on nursing shortages. See if you can identify with anything in this reader’s contribution:

Doctors still believing they are the bastions of all knowledge?

This retention of nurses is an interesting thing. Yes the extra pay would be welcome and an improvement in conditions also.

But for me the reason I moved out of acute nursing as an experienced Grade 2 and later in my career as ANUM was due to being completely done with doctors still believing they are the bastions of all knowledge and therefore completely within their rights to be abusive or rude to you.

I got sick of having phones hung up in my ear when calling about a patient and reporting adverse pathology or a turn in their condition. I got sick of being sneered at when I suggested a course of treatment-often in consultation with the patient. Being the ‘advocate’ of the patient caused no end of sniggers, snide remarks, blatant commentary ‘all nurses are stupid’…etc. Professional status??? I think not. Not while the AMA rules with an iron fist.

Why are NP’s so slow to take their place? Because in the AMA’s eyes we are no more advanced than the sheepish, demure nurses that pandered to doctors over inflated ego’s in the ’50’s. Sure I’ve worked with some great doctors, but regrettably they are the exception not the rule. My education? Far exceeds the time it takes to become a GP but that counts for nothing apparently.

In my opinion there needs to be an investigation into the bullying of nurses from the medical profession. When we are treated with respect we might retain some great nurses, until then they will leave once they realise that another allied health professions or other career paths not only pay better, but allows true quality of life time, respect and professional recognition.

Thoughts, anyone?

Nursing student slapped in the face

Ross — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:39:12 +0000

credit: Dyanna

So today one of the nursing student’s was slapped in the face by a grumpy old man.
Yes he was confused, angry at the world and lacking insight… and also just down and out rude.

“Get out of the way or I’ll kick you in the head” he pleasantly replied to the nurse’s greeting in the morning.

The guy is a nursing home patient with poor social skills, anger management issues, and paranoid tendencies which lead him to distrust most people around him.

The student was fine in the end, albeit a little shook up and shocked, but it led to a fairly interesting discussion – I recalled back to my first few weeks as a Registered Nurse when I too had been slapped pretty hard in the face by an angry old lady. What did I do to deserve this? I brought her some food, and apparently she didn’t think that was a good idea!

A quick survey of 3 Registered Nurses in the immediate vicinity of this conversation revealed 3/3 had been kicked or hit or slapped at some point while working in a hospital. 100 percent!

So what does this say about the nursing profession – you have a pretty good chance of copping abuse at some stage? I’d say your chances are excellent. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who has been doing the job for several years who has escaped some form of verbal or physical abuse.

I guess you could put it down to part of the job, dealing with the angry and confused patients etc – after all don’t the police also cop all kinds of abuse on a regular basis? Quite likely – it’s ironic though that this happens so frequently to a profession who, at it’s core, is there to help people!

Hospital staff fed up with abuse

Ross — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:05:39 +0000

credit: darkpatator

You really just have to shake your head in amazement at the amount of people who yell and carry on in emergency departments. It goes without saying that a huge number of these people are affected by alcohol, but there are also a certain percentage that are just rude individuals.

A couple of examples from this afternoon’s shift: an elderly man was brought in with general deterioration and complaints of not coping at home. He was on the stretcher in the corridor for about half an hour until an acute bed could be sought. As he came around into the bay to be offloaded into a bed, the nurse says “hello there!”. “SHUTTUP!!” he yells back! Charming.

Another man I recall was hit in the side of his face with a glass. The longer he was in the department, it became more and more obvious why he was hit! He was angry, abusive, loud, obnoxious, and frequently told the ‘scum’ staff that we should ******* fix him up so he could get the **** out of there! He didn’t want anyone applying pressure to his gaping face wounds, oh no – he wanted to get in and out of bed 500 times, spraying blood all over the wall/floor/bed, yelling at anyone who tried to be nice to him.

Tonight I looked after a 16 year old drug affected boy who didn’t want to come to hospital at his parent’s request, so punched a paramedic in the face.

I’m continually amazed by people who are aggressive to health care workers. Don’t people realize that we’re not there to pamper to their every need? That they are not the only ones in hospital!??? I think I’m beginning to lose my faith in humanity.

Confused patient takes a swing

Ross — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:37:50 +0000

credit: pedrosimoes7

So this week I copped a few punches from a patient. (Not the first time!) This was a guy who had come to us from a nursing home, after chopping the end of his catheter off. That’s right, catheter as in urinary catheter! Joy…

“So what, pull it out!” I hear you say. You are correct: in theory, when chopped, an IDC balloon should self deflate as the fluid runs out of the newly chopped catheter. I recall another presentation of the same man a few months back where he had chopped the end of the IDC off, and the nurses at the nursing home weren’t sure what to do with it now that it was hanging out, so sent him in with it just hanging there!

It was an easy fix by pulling the stump out, replacing and sending him back home, but an interesting use of hospital/ambulance resources, I have to say…

But I digress… This time around there was no catheter in sight, and we were not entirely sure whether or not it had disappeared up into the unknown! It was some time before he was able to be seen, and at one point he became pretty angry when he couldn’t walk up through the main docs/nurses station, and thats when the punching began. (I swear I didn’t throw any!)

Fortunately the situation de-escalated pretty quickly after some sleight of hand and misdirection that Penn & Teller would be proud of (heeeey… what’s that over there? Tea and bikkies?!)

Elderly patients can be really difficult to manage when there is an element of confusion added to the equation. People with alzheimer’s or dementia have fluctuating levels of comprehension and anxiety at the best of times – thrown into a foreign environment like an emergency department however, there are often even more dramas for both patients and staff!

What are your experiences with confused patients? I’ve found that they can certainly add some interesting dynamics to the day! One time I recall I was sitting in front of a (supposedly) sweet old lady, when out of nowhere I copped an almighty slap to the face! Ahhh nursing… You gotta love it!

NB – For those who want a bit more info, you can learn crucial inputs on treatment for symptoms through the expert ideas of Dr Daniel Amen on causes and prevention of alzheimers. Head over to Dr. Amen’s profile for more background information.

Nurses getting screamed at

Ross — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:20:55 +0000

Working triage last week, I was involved in a bit of a confrontation.

credit: lanuiop

A lady had come in to emergency after being bitten by a snake. She had previously had a few drinks, and was proving to be a completely non-compliant patient (ie – I’m here for treatment but really don’t want to do anything you suggest!)

So basically, this lady didn’t want to immobilize her arm, wasn’t interested in staying in bed, and whinged and complained about how she just needed to go visit her husband in the morning (who was in jail!)

So here we have a rather common problem – patient’s refusing to do what is advised. Just as an aside, I remember a patient recently who got smashed up quite a bit from a car crash. he had lung contusions and a small pneumothorax – and what was the most important thing he absolutely needed to do? Go for a smoke….!

But I digress.. The snake lady. Putting up with this lady was an annoyance, but nothing compared to her drunk friends. Two friends she had with her were in and out of the department all the time, and finally wandered back in to triage asking to go through & see snake girl. One of the friends by now was staggering a bit, obviously they’d had some more to drink before coming back to visit.

credit: coneslayer

So I had a chat to the co-ordinator and it was agreed to let these girls back through on the condition they stayed with snake girl, were quiet, and didn’t cause any disruption to the dept. I gave security a heads up, then gave these girls a bit of a talk to & advised them they had one chance to behave.

Ten minutes later, they’re being shown the door due to ‘disruptive behaviour’ which is great – too bad, don’t come to emergency drunk when you’re visiting… Except for the fact that 10 or 15 minutes later, they rock on up to triage asking to be buzzed through again.

The Confrontation

So now I’m telling these two drunks they can’t come through, and I can see them starting to arc up. So I’m saying things like “this is a hospital, you can’t come in when you are staggering”, and “security have made the decision to not allow you through, don’t blame me” etc. So then the screaming – “You’re nothing! Who are you anyway? Some guy behind a desk who’s nothing!, you *&%*#!!” One of them starts to hit the perspex screen, and a psych patient jumps up from the waiting room and starts yelling back at the girls, and then the whole waiting room started yelling and it’s on for young and old!

Anyway – security threw them out in the end, but I was thinking about this event later – it’s quite a common occurance. I can think of many many times where similar things have happened – nurses are expected to cop this kind of behaviour all the time. How many professions are there where you cop abuse constantly but don’t really do anything about it because the people are drunk, drugged up or there’s some other factor like head injuries? Is anyone else not thrilled about this?!