Yesterday I received a post-op patient, a very simple case. She was comfortable and sleeping, and each time I went to check on her, her family member said she didn't need anything. In about four hours, the family member said that she needed some pain medicine and some washclothes. I went into the room with the morphine, checked all the patient's arm bands and began to give it. The family member flipped out.
"Techs give pain medicine in this hospital?" she thundered. "I told you to get washclothes, too!"
"No, that's illegal. I'm the nurse," I politely proclaimed, pointing to my name tag. "So and so, your tech is at the linen cart right now getting you washclothes."
My name tag has "RN" on it in capital letters about an inch high.
"I guess I misread your tag," she said, leaning perilously close to my chest, taking in all the other letters behind my name--because I've got plenty of them, having received extra training.
She interpreted all those extra letters and announced that she was a nurse, too, as if that justified her special brand of rudeness.
The part that really angers me is that I introduced myself as the nurse and I introduced the tech to her as soon they arrived on our unit. I also completed a head-to-toe assessment on her family member while the technician took vitals and made up the bed right before her very eyes. She wasn't listening because she was on her cell phone arguing with someone.
Part of what gives nurses a bad name is the way that we behave in hospitals when we aren't working.
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