There are days I love being a nurse. And there are days I don't. I have worked that last three days and every day I have had patients who have pushed my buttons and tried my patience to. the. max. Not laboring patient's either. No, these patients have been either no where near delivering a baby or past that point and on the Labor and Delivery unit still due to complications. I've tried sweet sympathy (it seemed to encourage the whining and general lack of doing anything they were told to without dumbed down step by step instructions repeatedly), I tried ignoring them (did NOT work - they got even needier), and then with each of them I've finally just given up and had to start treating them like naughty children and bossing them around like I was their mother. I'm a nurse. I don't want to treat you like a child. You're an adult (barely, I know, but still past 18). Just try to act like one please. Fluffing your 9 pillows 700 times today is not in my job description. Once I started treating these difficult patient's this way though they finally started behaving. They actually listened to me and did as the doctor had instructed. They still acted like tender flowers and whined, but not to the extent they had been. Why must so many of today's mothers be so immature they still need to be treated like they are five? I've left work every day feeling irritated and like I accomplished nothing. I kept them alive. Wahoo. And improved their outcome maybe. I took care of their physical and emotional pain the best I could. I prayed for them. And myself. Oh Lord, I prayed. But I still feel exhausted and frustrated looking back on it all. I'm just hoping next week is a little less frustrating.
A giggle I did get in the last week though:
RN during admission questioning: Any drug use throughout the pregnancy or in the last few years?
Patient: ....nooo, I don't think so. ......Although I did use, um, that ...(thinking real hard about the name) Merry-johanna once.
Well hopefully it made you merry, aaaand we'll be doing a Toxicology screen on you.
3 comments:
Tender flowers whine a lot?
Megan, I think you're being unreasonable. These tender flowers haven't had the education or opportunities you have, and that can make it very difficult to fluff their own pillows. That is, after all, why we go to nursing school.
Haha! You're right Esther. I need to try and remember that from this point on....
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