Shot of Reality: Drugs, Dogs and Docs

I just love it when your a new nurse and a doctor gets to fuss at you cause you can’t do stuff fast enough.  Some of the nurses I work with baby the doctors by putting in their orders and setting up their sterile field.  That’s great if your fast at your job and have all the time in the world. I got fussed at by doctor cause I didn’t get blood fast enough from a pt.  She already came in with a line.  I was trying to get her nitro in her because she was having major chest pains.  I tried to stick her twice and I don’t stick more than twice.  I couldn’t get someone to help me stick her at that moment, so I worked on her meds and some other items. I can’t help it that I couldn’t get a line in her.  Plus saying well just try to stick a line in her.   Hello what the hell does” I have stuck her twice” don’t you understand? Duh
Hot dag! Finally a doctor stood up to a drug user.  The doctor ordered a dose of Toradol, not a narcotic for those nonmed people.  The patient threw a fit and said I can’t take that it gives me a headache all I can take is dilaudid (narcotic).  So I told the doctor.  Instead of getting her toradol she ended up with a 800mg Motrin…you should have seen her face it was priceless.  Then she started saying that the doctor never looked at her leg and her back hurt and she felt like she was going to throw up.  She said the doctor was a quack and she wanted another one.  So I told the doctor and she went in and said what is wrong with her leg.  And she points to this knot in her leg and a big purple and yellow and green bruise.  You never looked at my leg and I am in so much pain.  Ma’am your records show you were here 3 days ago for you leg.  That is an old bruise and you can plainly see that by the color that it is. Well your a quack she told the doctor.  The doc just told her that they will no longer be treating her long term pain problem.  That she must go see her general practitioner.  Well the doctor left and I was discharging her and she said she wanted to see some other dr.  So since I didn’t know what to do I talked to another nurse.  She told me to tell her she would have to check in again and there was a good chance she would end up with the same dr.  She told me she refuse to leave…I had to get security to escort her out…sheesh
Next I had a inmate that was being treated for a dog bite…apparently he wouldn’t listen to the guard was sprayed with pepper spray still wouldn’t stop and they had to sick the dog on him…what is with people…
One of the first things you learn as a nurse is never assume your patients know what they are doing or understand instructions.  Like make sure you tell a patient to take the pills by mouth or by ass…depending on what it is.  What I didn’t know was I had to tell them how to put on a hospital gown.  Ask the patient to slip into a gown.  I come in and she is fully clothed with the gown over the clothes…umm duh.