Especially annoying if the tech would just leave the tray there knowing they’re a total care and I go in an hour later to do rounds and the full tray is still sitting there and I feel obligated to feed them while the tech sits at the nurses station and I have 10 other things to do…. I don’t miss bedside
That makes me soooooo angry! When I was a nurse extern, I had a nurse who REFUSED to feed her patients so it does go both ways. As a nurse its my fault if my patients arent fed
Ugh yes, it takes forever and it's so awkward. Are you done chewing yet? Do I need to ask if you want another bite? Or are you impatiently waiting for me to bring another? Do you want turkey or potatoes or green....uhhhhh *checks order sheet* peas? It's peas today.
I hate this too. I think part of it is that I know I would personally hate being fed by someone. The first time I had to feed someone, I really spent my lunch break paying attention to how I eat. It's not anything particular that I do, but I just know someone feeding me would be doing it completely differently.
I work in rehab. We have a patient who has a G-tube. He has severe dysphagia. His family still insists that we feed him. 1 or 2 bites in, and he's really struggling to swallow the food. I usually stop at that point. I tell the nurse and document it.
But every meal time, they make us try and feed him. It's very upsetting for everyone.
I hate this the most. If there's a code brown or someone needs fed and I have to choose which one, I'll choose the poop every time.
Feeding crushed meds so to someone? Yuck.
YES. And ours are ordered for 0600 so I have to wake up my patients (especially the ones who have been awake and calling all night) to make them stand for BP.
Or standing weights for patients who are like a x2 out of bed and wobbly, like get fucked
If the pts were a pain all night, on the call light 17 times an hr, rude, entitled...etc I get satisfaction waking their ass up at 0600 for a standing weight. 👹
Like you annoyed everyone allll shift and now you're finally falling asleep... 😂
Johnny fuckface wake up, and get out of bed for your standing weight. I will turn on ALL the lights too.
Pure evil, I’m the opposite where I’m tired af of seeing them and just want to avoid them for the last hour. I try to get them up when doing shit throughout the night but I’m like go. to. SLEEP
Several years ago, as a new nurse, I had a patient straight up die during orthostatics. She was a perfectly healthy, walky talky lady having a bit of lightheadedness. She sat up in bed and immediately fell backwards like a rock. We coded for 30 minutes to no avail - turns out she had a secret profuse GI bleed.
Anywho, I despise orthostatics and and go to great lengths to avoid them 😂
We have a hospitalist that orders med/tele and STAT orthos on every. Single. Patient!! No matter what the dx. NO MATTER WHAT! A few weeks ago they ordered orthos on a WC bound bilat AKA admitted for urinary reasons. They told me to figure it out and not to send them to the floor until I did the orthos and messaged them back. First time Ive ever been tempted to say “you know what pal? If you want them, YOU go do them.” I love my job 😬
They must have PISSED off the doc of my last patient then. Clocked in for my first shift with this pt and saw q8 orthos. SBP 110 down to 60. What would have possibly changed in the last 8 hours if the last 10 were positive for a 50 point drop???
Orthostatic are very useful. They’re a key part of all syncope work-up (it’s one of the most common causes, although it’s frustrating to do, it’s a simple and cost effective test with actual useful data).
Also, a lot of pts who are orthostatic and falling/passing out obviously need to not be orthostatic. So we start treating it, and have to test to see if we’re improving. We’re also pressured to get a pt out of the hospital as fast as possible so checking once a day means I can only adjust management once a day. There’s 24 hours in a day. Getting 1 set of orthostatic vs and changing treatment 1 time a day is stupid while in the hospital.
I’ve been on the physician side for close to a decade now. I’ve maybe met 1 person in my life who ordered unnecessary tests to spite nurses. That person was a shitbag in our eyes too. We may joke among ourselves about silly complaints (I’m sure nurses do this too) but I’ve never even heard of physicians joking privately about ordering things to punish nurses or pts. It’s so far past the line of appropriate that no one even thinks it’s funny. I’m not sure how common this is perceived to be on the nursing side, but it definitely isn’t on ours. If anything, it’s more work for us too.
Just wanted to share that from a different perspective. I know there’s a lot that doesn’t get communicated. I’ll say tho, orthostatic pts can be very difficult to treat/improve, but the gold stand of test is the orthostatic vs.
I feel like bedpans just make people more comfortable with the idea of shitting themselves in the bed. I will say I actually like fracture bed pans a little bit more
I had to have an angiogram some time ago and I think I was under sedated or something, it was horribly painful. But it took like 6 hours and by the end I had to pee so bad despite peeing before the procedure. It was so bad I started having intense lower abd pain and spasms. So the poor circulating nurse said she’d put a foley in once the surgeon was done, but she put a bed pan under me in the meantime when the surgeon was suturing my groin. Yeah that didn’t happen. I was so grateful for the foley that I didn’t need to piss myself for the 6 hours flat time. Even on versed and fentanyl I wasn’t using the bed pain lol.
I line them with a disposable chux, leaving enough to pull it up over the front as a splash guard (or if it’s a male patient who is able, I have them hold a urinal just in case). Put them in a seated position and hold the front of the pan when I go to lay them down so it doesn’t tip
Has decreased spills pretty well for me
I work in geriatrics and I very rarely ever spill bedpans, even when they’re wriggling. It’s all in the technique. Although I’m forced to do them often enough to have a 10/10 technique.
I work in LTC/STR. On several occasions when we are short on CNAs I will take a partial CNA set. One night we were short, a sweet lady needed a bedpan. I had an agency CNA on the way so I watched the open set until agency got there. Well to my advantage my boyfriend is a CNA through the agency and he was the one on the way. Now it had been a good amount of time since I had to put someone on the bedpan but I was going to do it and brag to my boyfriend that I was able to get the job done well. Well it was all bad, I successfully got her on the bedpan, she got everything in the bedpan, but I managed to spill it when taking her off. Luckily it was right when my boyfriend came in, he saw me looking frazzled and I told him what happened and that I was getting the needed supplies to clean up my mess. He took over for me and had her cleaned up in no time. He’s a great CNA. I’ve learned a lot from him which has helped me be able to help out more whenever I can.
If you do them enough you can pre-empt the issues that make them spill. It’s genuinely a guy feeling type of thing as every patients movements and anatomy are different. I do them all day long so I’ve got the skill, but for people who do them a couple of times a day might still spill them. They’re really difficult to master, and it’s absolutely not like riding a bike!
That’s definitely valid. I remember being a new nurse I always put them on backwards and I felt so dumb for it. But yeah, anatomy is soooo different with everyone that you can’t really predict where the waste will come out (urine more than bowel lol. Urine is a bitch on those bedpans).
Everyone in here saying blood sugar is absolutely right.... But they don't have to be so annoying! EMS just pokes and reads the number, why do we have to scan three different things and wait for the computer to sync properly? Literally more scanning than a med pass for something the diabetic patient does every day at home
The glucometer at my facility is actually nice. I don’t scan anything - I just put in the test strip and apply the blood. But it still irks me to do them hahaha.
It doesn't. I've worked in hospitals and long-term care facilities, and at hospitals, it's more high-tech equipment which uploads to their chart as well as to lab. But at a facility it's just a lower tech design, like what a patient would use at home. So what goes into the chart is what you put into the chart yourself manually.
Ahhhhh my time to shine!!!!! I got you girl! I can’t post a pic but what I’ve done is pulled the whole sticky part of the flush off of one, then cut off the QR code so it’s just the square and put it on my badge!!!! The easiest scanning ever!!
This. When I worked ICU, we had to scan the chlorhex wipes in at least once a shift. The problem was that once you used the wipes, you threw away the package and then it popped up needing a scan. I took a pic of the barcode and made it my lock screen. 🫣
And if you scan all your flushes with the thingy on your badge (instead of just leaving them like most of us do) it artificially inflates your scanning rate. A coworker just told me this the other day haha
I tell all my preceptees and coworkers this too! I do the scheduled ones and PRN ones at the same time and it looks like I’m working way harder when it says I’ve scanned 300 medications instead of 200 😂
Waiting for the monitor to register a patient’s temp, watching the hourglass show up and disappear as the patient grumbles. IF YOU’D KEEP THE THERMOMETER UNDER YOUR TONGUE WHERE IT HAS GONE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE THIS WOULD GO FASTER.
Put the thermometer tip farther back and in the side pocket underneath the tongue. Press gently medially so the therm tip makes steady contact with the underneath structure of the tongue.
I ain't sitting here waiting for Gertrude to decide she's gonna hold that thing in the right place.
I’ve smelt and dealt with plenty of nasty as fuck hospital and regular food. I used to work in dietary… I helped prep the trays. It ran assembly line style. One person would grab certain items, put it on the tray, and pass to the next person where they would do the same. The tray got checked, ticket scanned in, and set in a cart to go upstairs to the units. It was very industrialized per se.
I’ve worked a couple of shifts as “pots and pans”. They cleaned all the storage containers (when you go to Chipotle and you see the ingredients in the metal containers where they scoop from. It’s those I’m talking about) where food was stored. They also cleaned the pots and pans, hence the name. At close, they would get all the containers with unused food and manually wash it out.
I also passed trays to patients on different units. One cart would have one floor and another cart with another floor. I’ve heard anything from the hospital food tasting terrible to it somehow tasting good. We would take the cart, pass the trays, return, and fill it again. We did this until close.
I took the carts of dirty trays off the unit and down to the kitchen after passing all the trays out. The entire crew would do the dishes during closing. We had to scrape the plates before putting it through the dishwasher. The trash can would fill with food and looked ATROCIOUS at the end. Same for the “pots and pans” trash can since they’re also emptying the metal containers before washing. All carts got cleaned and the kitchen was cleaned up too. Just the standard kitchen closing stuff. The shift ends after we finished everything and we go home.
If you thought dietary was bad, it gets worse. It was a toxic workplace. Coworkers were CONSTANTLY talking behind each other’s backs and there wasn’t a sense of unity. They didn’t really go out of their way to help each other. At times, it would escalate into arguments. There was a yelling match between 2 people on my last day there. The manager had to get involved and break it up. Fast forward to now and the entire staff I worked with has since turned over and left.
After writing this, I do not miss those days one single bit.
The way I deal with any bad smell: put a pinkie dab of Vicks Vaporub under each of your nostrils. The eucalyptus/menthol aroma helped me cope with a lot of messy odors on many a long shift.
I’m so glad I got the stamp of approval from a dietary worker! I had so many co-workers chastise me for grabbing crackers or a sandwich. It was so annoying cuz it literally doesn’t affect them?
I literally couldn’t care less. The only time I do care is if it’s low on stock and needs to be restocked mostly because a patient could ask for it. Anything else, fair game. I snack on the food from the nutrition room ALL THE TIME. I’ve never tried the sandwich though… Is it as good as patients make it out to be?! Am I missing out??
When I first started at the hospital, the turkey sandwiches were amazing! I left shortly after COVID but came back for a travel assignment - they don’t taste the same. ): I hope your food in the nutrition room is better than mine now!
Ugh. So I used to work at an ltach that was across the street from the hospital that owned it. They prepped the trays over there then brought them to the ltach. If that wasn’t gross enough, they were regularly late. Like, late late. Like I would have to pass them out around 8-9pm. All the food was cold, but there was only one microwave so I couldn’t heat it up just from a logistics standpoint. Anyway, most people barely touched their food. So the food cart would sit all night with barely poked at food on it. Makes me sick just thinking about it.
Feeding patients. I’d rather do an entire code brown bed change than watch someone chew one bite of food for 5 minutes while I hover over them awkwardly
I actually don’t mind it if they are a good eater. I don’t have to do it very often in the icu but I love the feeling of going from a full tray to empty and getting all this “nutrition” into the pt. Probably because it means they can probably get out of the icu
unless you have a radial art line that’s sitting riiiiight at that wrist and is like naaaah, today i’d like to be the bane of your existence and gift you with more alarms to listen to
I hate cancelling call lights.. I have to go all the way to the wall to press the button in a semi private room with no room to move. Hitting my body against beside tables iv poles their neighbors table
Yeah, why can't we have a cancel button at the doorway??I've been known to knock off a neighbors urinal off their tables because it was behind the stupid curtain!
Trach care is my kryptonite. I fear trachs and I can’t even explain why, in theory they’re much more safe than my intubated patients. I’ll bribe the RTs to change the inner cannula and every time I change the ties I’m convinced the patient will cough at that moment and dislodge it and code. Yes it’s irrational, especially if they’re weaning and not vent dependent. Can’t explain it but trachs scare me.
I am also afraid of trachs and haaaaaate changing ties/collars. The whole time I'm thinking "it's gonna come out, it's gonna come out, it's gonna come out...." even though I know it's easy to put back in anyway!
Midnight and 4am vitals. I wake these people up enough thru the night, and no matter how much I try to cluster care, there is always some random outliers that I can't make fit in. Our techs are supposed to do them, but they conveniently go missing right around those times, so it's left up to the nurses.
When I worked in Med-Surg, I hated the 0000 and 0400 vitals cuz we never had techs due to the shitty staffing. So we had to do it ALL with the rest of the workload in the morning. So I understand your pain.
If you did them at 3am with other cares and then didn't do it at 4am would you get in trouble? Like does it HAVE to be at 0000 and 0400, or would any times be okay as long as they got checked q4ish?
Don’t forget that if you chart it in one place, you’re probably charting it in three other places too. 😂 The amount of excessive charting in facilities is absolutely appalling. If we didn’t have to chart everything ten times then we could focus more on patient care.
I’m in psych too. What’s even more tedious is that staff will take the patient somewhere and not tell anyone. In a group room, exercise room… to space apparently. we have 3 units separated on one floor- Geri’s, BICU(behavioral icu for the ones who can’t be with others d/t behaviors) and then the regular unit. Sometimes activities or someone else will move the Geri’s to the regular side and so on. So here I am running around wondering where me maw is and she’s in a group room on another unit. By the time I find the patient it’s time to do checks again.
God bless the PCAs that do it all day on top of everything else. When they go on break or were short staff the RNs rotate. We also have to have RN do a round every hour. It gets your steps in but lord those 15 min fly right on by.
Eugh. I’ve never worked Psych (and I don’t want to), but that sounds annoying. I don’t think people realize how much can happen in 15 minutes. Sounds kinda useless and just takes up a bunch of time.
I got floated to work the floor on psych once. They had me round on 7 pts anywhere from every 7min to 30min. Took a couple minutes to do, sit down for 5 minutes, do it again. Longest 4 hrs of my life. Luckily that evening an NBA Finals game was one tv and half the pts came out to watch it thus making the rounding go much faster.
I don't like transfers lol, it's the only reason showers take so long in LTC is because you gotta use a hoyer or transfers take so long to get them to stand up
Q2hr turns. Almost every single patient in the ICU is a turn, and it seems like my patients always happen to fall asleep riiiight at the 1 hour and 45 minute mark since the previous turn. Not to mention so many of them have fluid imbalances and turns often lead to wonky shit happening to their HR/BP that I then have to address, lol.
That’s why I like the “bridge” technique. Turn one way, next turn shove a pillow under the other side too so they’re supine-ish but their sacrum is off the bed stilll, next turn remove a pillow so they face the opposite side, next turn remove the remaining pillow so they’re supine. Smaller turns that they can tolerate if you can’t do the big ones.
I swear after I have done my turns, it's time for the next one. It sucks having to prioritize a turn over my assessment and morning medications just so I can use the CNA when they are free.
Seems like everyone agrees accuchecks are the worst hahaha. Temps are also so annoying, especially after COVID. We don’t even use contact thermometers! How can we expect an accurate temp from those non-contact thermometers??
Our non-contact thermometers are random number generators in the hands of a couple of our PCAs. We have the cheap ones, and they're always getting put in air temp mode. Sometimes, I'll be in a resident's chart and see their last temp was 74.8. The PCAs have both been here around 30 years, and you can't tell them anything.
I also hate doing temps because people are always stealing batteries out of ours.
When I was in neuro ICU, doing hourly neuro checks on someone who hasn't had any neuro change in like 4 weeks.
And then if they do have a neuro change, we rush to CT and then do nothing anyways.
I was scanning all the replies for this one. EKGs. I loathe ekgs. Especially on hairy chests. Hairy or bare, the electrodes never stick. You get ready to print and v1 pops off. Fix v1 and v6 comes loose. Repeat.
One time I did an ecg and on the FIRST TRY I got perfect connections and readings from every single lead. Pretty sure I shouted YESSSSSS with a first pump. I've been chasing that high ever since.
Not to mention your stemi patients who of course need a stat ecg most of anyone almost always are diaphoretic as hell, which makes ecg leads slide off like a fucking nonstick pan. Trying to towel off the chest and get the stickers on and attached and a clear EKG before they sweat enough for them to fall back off feels like trying to stop a tornado with a kazoo.
Not the whole job, just anything dealing with the patients and/or their family. “This job would be great if it weren’t for the effing ~~customers~~ patients.”
Holding a thermometer in an adults mouth because apparently everyone is incapable of holding it under their tongue. I am so appreciative of the patients who take the probe from me.
I have shaky hands, it would be so nice if patients would do it themselves. I hate playing extreme yoga trying to stretch over their belongings and their table just to grab a temp haha.
Emptying ostomy bags. Holy hell, the stench still manages to get through my mask & vigorous chewing of a new piece of gum. I've dealt with some stank BMs, but ostomies....whole diff level
Taking pictures of wounds around the butt or genitals. “We have to do a skin check” ::Pulls out unit cellphone that looks like a regular IPhone. Spreads patient’s cheeks for a picture with the flash.:: 😳I always explain why 2RNs have to do a skin check on admission and that we take pictures of any wounds for their chart. It’s still awkward. I swear I’m not posting these on the internet or taking them for my personal collection.🙈😭
I works casual briefly at a nursing home and discovered that the glucometers there use far less blood than the hospital accuchecks, which need such a large drop.
FUCK THEM BLOOD SUGARS! I work LTC so I only see DM Type II. Whats the different with Type I? Wouldn’t they get their sugars taken more often? Or are they the ones that have the implanted monitors?
Wiping down equipment. I know it's important and needs to be done. But first you have to find the damn sani wipes. Half the time, they're empty so you gotta get another. And then wipe it down and put the equipment back. Annoying.
Ugh… who at home seriously takes their Protonix at 6am?! I’m on it and never take it that early! It’s just something they like to add on night shift cuz they think we don’t do enough. >.>
PO meds. I work in ICU, I’m used to JPegs/OG/NG/DHT so actually having to remember to bring the dang water, a med cup for the giant horse tablets, meemaw’s dentures, and then sit there and feed her her 195 2100 tablets for 30 minutes.
Also blood sugars. I will beg, bargain, and wheedle with my poor CNAs to do as many blood sugars as they can. I’ll change all the trash bags, empty all the linen carts if I never had to take another gosh dang blood sugar. Especially for insulin gtts.
Yes, and Lord love meemaw but she’s also probably on HFNC or bipap and taking it off to ask each question *and* take her pills. One. At. A. Time. So there’s the obligatory recovery period for her oxygenation before the next one.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my meemaws and peepaws, but my time management isn’t set on for patients that talk to me. At all.
And they pour the pills into their tiny hand bc they can only take a few at a time (when I've offered to give them to them a few at a time) and they drop the pills and act all surprised when there are pills everywhere but there was an oxy in there so you have to fucking look for the little pink one while they "ohmigoshsosorrydididropone?" Yes, grandma, you dropped one. Let me take your bed apart and scour the fucking floor for your "most important" pill.
Honestly? Emptying the suction cannisters or Foley bags, and getting that dang daily weight. Grew up as a baby nurse where nursing assistants did all that and now that I'm in the ICU they don't really touch the pt or do anything with them unless I ask.
Emptying the trash. I'm not above it. It's just not my job. But I'm expected to do it.
But, sometimes I scratch my head and ask what kind of nurse I would be if I didn't do a thousand things every shift that could be done by some one else. Like, temps, blood sugars, baths, poop time, urine collection, answering call lights, looking for food at 3am for my etoh'r. Like, If I got to focus on nursing stuff. I would see definately have all my education done.
The job title would be too long if it had waiter, mechanic, customer service representative, social worker, etc. Instead we settle with RN. 😂 I also hate when no one else empties the trash or the sharps bins. They literally let it overflow expecting someone else to do it!
I’m not above janitorial tasks - I clean my own toilets and take out my own trash at home.
But those are the *only* toilets and trash cans I want to clean and empty, and part of the reason I did well in school, went to college (twice!), and got a degree (twice!) was so I wouldn’t have to do those tasks for money. I don’t think that makes me an asshole.
Feeding patients, only because I have 5 others that also need multiple things done for them and it’s all I can think about. I also despise getting orthostatics because it’s usually on 95 year old grandma/grandpa who is bed bound and it’s such a fiasco.
I work in ER for a lot of reasons. A big one is it’s less likely I’ll be wiping your asshole compared to inpatient nursing.
When I have to do it my entire day is ruined
Same in PACU. If someone says they have to pee it takes everything to not roll my eyes with an AAUUGGGHHH. Even worse if they say they have to poop! Come ON, there's NO POOPING IN PACU
I had a patient tell me she was so tired she couldn’t even wipe her own butt and I just told her, “I’m not wiping your butt for you.” Cytotec side effects can be rough but you don’t need to come out of the bathroom naked and screaming because you have cramps and diarrhea.
I always say nursing is like death by a thousand cuts with ALL the tasks !
One of my biggest pet peeves is logging in and out of the computer . I’ll log in then go do something ( a task) come back to chart it and I’m frickin logged out already !!
ED here, and I’m just so sick of EKG’s. Especially when the patient won’t be still or cooperate. You would think with the way technology is, they would’ve come up with an ultra sensitive, leadless EKG machine unaffected by movement. Like I just place sensors on the patient’s chest and it wirelessly transmits the EKG to the machine for printing.
So I don’t belong here but I work in LTC, not clinical, but here’s the thing I hate doing that surprises everyone, including myself: I hate flowers. I hate delivering flowers to rooms (because everyone needs the flowers set up and the card read to them and the trash from the flowers done away with, and they also need pulled up in bed and a drink and a blanket and they also need to use the bathroom and I can’t find a CNA and the call light doesn’t do anything and the nurse is passing meds and can’t help, etc). (To clarify, I want to help but I can’t - not clinical - so for much of this stuff I either have to bother staff or bother staff.) Funeral homes deliver giant bouquets and they’re beautiful but I am incredibly allergic and we rearrange the bouquets to look less funeral-like and so I end up with stems and water and petals all over the place and running around making homes for the flowers or delivering those too. No one else has time to water the flowers outside so I do that and then I’m away for the weekend and I come back to residents upset that the flowers haven’t been watered. But when I water during the week my coworkers are mad because I’m not available because I’m outside watering the flowers (which are in a weird spot so it is t like our more capable residents can safely water them instead.) I’m so sick of flowers. It’s dumb. But that’s what I hate.
Here's a different one... I absolutely hate, with every fiber of my being, scanning things. It's the worst thing ever if you ask me. And a huge distraction from concentrating on giving a bunch of medication accurately.
I don't have time to play hide and seek, turn their wristband around 3 or 4 times scanning each barcode till you get the right one, scan, go check the screen, cancel, do again, cancel, scan AGAIN, didn't read it right, scan AGAIN. Then trying to approach IV bags from multiple different angles as the scanner cord rips out of the computer that doesn't fit in the room... put it back together, scan again. "Medication does not exist for this patient"... Well sumbitch I'm ACTIVELY READING 81 mg aspirin on the mar and the little pill pack. Try again... "Medication has been scanned, data will not be filed". Well okay then! Tying to piece together little tiny paper backings, finally get it together, and patient says "Oh I take two of those at home!". Save, stop, check home meds on another screen... Damn they are right! Call hospitalist, they fix it but then you have to give them the second pill to make it right. So another order for the same thing. Try to scan that in, "medication already administered for this date and time". Or I love when you try to be organized and just line everything up and scan it all and it makes you stop and handkey the dose that is the same as what's in the vial or package for every. Single. Thing. Then click confirm, back and forth, knocking all those little paper backings on the floor... I'm the override scan king, I swear 🤦.
Why is it so complicated? I worked in retail forever and scanned entire pallets of merchandise into the system in minutes, easy breezy.
Blood sugars and insulin like everyone else.
But I fucking hate gastric tubes, peg, J, NG, and feedings.
They aren’t that bad and in some cases could arguably be easier than Grandma taking one pill at a time and 3 minutes each with a whole ass meal worth of pills in the damn cup.
But for some reason I just hate managing them, I hate flushing, I hate clearing clogs, I hate disconnecting everything to ambulate, and I hate them bitching about having to be 30 degrees minimum.
DAILY AM WEIGHTS!!!!.... I work nights most of my career and worked as a CNA for about 11yrs b4 FINALLY making it through nursing school, and the one thing I despise is AM weights. As many of you know in the ICU we do our baths on night shift , at least most places where Ive worked, and almost every time after all these years after I get them all fluffed and puffed in their pillows all situated, I realized I still didn't get their F-ing AM weight!!! LOL literally the worst
“Road tests” in the ED.
I understand why it’s important to be able to document that someone can safely ambulate prior to discharge. But it’s always these old people who came in dizzy or weak, are probably somewhat unstable on their feet at baseline, and we have *zero* safety equipment in the ED. And if they normally use a cane or walker, they sure as shit didn’t bring it with them.
So I’m just supposed to take this rickety old person and…what? Toddle next to them and cringe whenever they touch my arm to steady themselves, knowing full well that if they start to fall, I’m not going to be able to stop them, and then not only am I responsible for a patient fall, but now they can’t get discharged and I’m stuck with them? Ffs.
Also: dressing people. *Fucking* hate it.
when I’m in the middle of something and a family member comes to find me to tell me the patient needs to use the bathroom, or needs their pain med, or needs a warm blanket, or TWO cups of ice chips. My fav is when it’s not even my patient. Like? It’s not those tasks that irk me, but family walking up to me to tell me what to do is such a pet peeve of mine. My family would never act that way in the hospital. It’s entitled behavior
Having to crush a pharmacy of pills to then mix it with applesauce or pudding & have to feed it to the patients. Bane if my existence. Always save these patients for last during med pass because it is SO tedious.
Every so often, I get a resident who is so fussy and has an ultra particular ritual to taking their meds. I know everyone is different, and it's really not a big deal, but why does it take you 5 minutes to do what everyone else can do in less than 20 seconds? Throws off my flow, man.
Accuchecks (and the related QC), removing trays, labeling IVs with the day to change, and throwing away the patients trash
All of them make me want to punch a puppy and I have no idea why.
Having to get vitals. I floated onto a pcu cardiac floor and nurses take all vitals. They (management) don't trust techs to do them even though they're very capable, because they're "cardiac pts."
Lovenox shots scheduled for 1500
- they will probably refuse
- I am tired of trying to educate patients who will inevitably refuse.
- it’s 1500.
- why is this schedule in the afternoon and not qAM or qPM.
- my meds are wearing off around then
Inhalers and nebs. Specifically, inhalers because they're always scheduled at the worst times, and patients *think* they know how to properly do them.
RT used to do both of them for us when they are scheduled, but RT had a "temporary" shortage last year, so we were expected to do them "temporarily."
Guess who's still doing them.
I fucking hate admissions but more than anything I hate admissions at shift change…which is all it has been lately. I would rather start my night with five patients than deal with an admit.
As break/float nurse our hospital is now requiring us to check with the patients that they watched their new medication info videos, then document their education and give them their assigned videos to watch. Complete waste of my time when we are short-staffed and bed alarms are going off.
feeding patients. yes i feel bad for them but it is just so tedious and the smell of puréed food makes me ill
And it’s sooo awkward because we can’t really chat because I need them to eat in a reasonable timeframe so it’s either me just yapping or silence.
Especially annoying if the tech would just leave the tray there knowing they’re a total care and I go in an hour later to do rounds and the full tray is still sitting there and I feel obligated to feed them while the tech sits at the nurses station and I have 10 other things to do…. I don’t miss bedside
Or the “they said they didn’t want to eat”…did you try?
That makes me soooooo angry! When I was a nurse extern, I had a nurse who REFUSED to feed her patients so it does go both ways. As a nurse its my fault if my patients arent fed
Ugh yes, it takes forever and it's so awkward. Are you done chewing yet? Do I need to ask if you want another bite? Or are you impatiently waiting for me to bring another? Do you want turkey or potatoes or green....uhhhhh *checks order sheet* peas? It's peas today.
yes and there is absolutely no way they think it takes good because who in their right mind would eat puréed bacon
I HATE feeding patients so much. It takes forever and is just so infuriating
I hate this too. I think part of it is that I know I would personally hate being fed by someone. The first time I had to feed someone, I really spent my lunch break paying attention to how I eat. It's not anything particular that I do, but I just know someone feeding me would be doing it completely differently.
I work in rehab. We have a patient who has a G-tube. He has severe dysphagia. His family still insists that we feed him. 1 or 2 bites in, and he's really struggling to swallow the food. I usually stop at that point. I tell the nurse and document it. But every meal time, they make us try and feed him. It's very upsetting for everyone.
I hate this the most. If there's a code brown or someone needs fed and I have to choose which one, I'll choose the poop every time. Feeding crushed meds so to someone? Yuck.
Orthostatic vital signs. Just kill me.
YES. And ours are ordered for 0600 so I have to wake up my patients (especially the ones who have been awake and calling all night) to make them stand for BP. Or standing weights for patients who are like a x2 out of bed and wobbly, like get fucked
If the pts were a pain all night, on the call light 17 times an hr, rude, entitled...etc I get satisfaction waking their ass up at 0600 for a standing weight. 👹 Like you annoyed everyone allll shift and now you're finally falling asleep... 😂 Johnny fuckface wake up, and get out of bed for your standing weight. I will turn on ALL the lights too.
Pure evil, I’m the opposite where I’m tired af of seeing them and just want to avoid them for the last hour. I try to get them up when doing shit throughout the night but I’m like go. to. SLEEP
Some patients have it ordered every shift 🤢 You know the MD ain't even reviewing that shit
That’s a good one! I hate those too.
Several years ago, as a new nurse, I had a patient straight up die during orthostatics. She was a perfectly healthy, walky talky lady having a bit of lightheadedness. She sat up in bed and immediately fell backwards like a rock. We coded for 30 minutes to no avail - turns out she had a secret profuse GI bleed. Anywho, I despise orthostatics and and go to great lengths to avoid them 😂
We have a hospitalist that orders med/tele and STAT orthos on every. Single. Patient!! No matter what the dx. NO MATTER WHAT! A few weeks ago they ordered orthos on a WC bound bilat AKA admitted for urinary reasons. They told me to figure it out and not to send them to the floor until I did the orthos and messaged them back. First time Ive ever been tempted to say “you know what pal? If you want them, YOU go do them.” I love my job 😬
I'm cracking up. Alright, my guy, can you please slide down to the floor and kneel for your last reading?
Then mgmt will write that up as a fall, just you watch 😂
Why do MDs never order orthos…. They’re secretly pointless, right?
If your patient needs orthos they won't even be able to finish them. It's stupid. Waste of time.
YES!!! The longest I made it was a minute and a half..then bye bye me and my BP once I was on the bed was 66/30 lol.
They’ll only order it to annoy you if you’ve been annoying them
They must have PISSED off the doc of my last patient then. Clocked in for my first shift with this pt and saw q8 orthos. SBP 110 down to 60. What would have possibly changed in the last 8 hours if the last 10 were positive for a 50 point drop???
Orthostatic are very useful. They’re a key part of all syncope work-up (it’s one of the most common causes, although it’s frustrating to do, it’s a simple and cost effective test with actual useful data). Also, a lot of pts who are orthostatic and falling/passing out obviously need to not be orthostatic. So we start treating it, and have to test to see if we’re improving. We’re also pressured to get a pt out of the hospital as fast as possible so checking once a day means I can only adjust management once a day. There’s 24 hours in a day. Getting 1 set of orthostatic vs and changing treatment 1 time a day is stupid while in the hospital. I’ve been on the physician side for close to a decade now. I’ve maybe met 1 person in my life who ordered unnecessary tests to spite nurses. That person was a shitbag in our eyes too. We may joke among ourselves about silly complaints (I’m sure nurses do this too) but I’ve never even heard of physicians joking privately about ordering things to punish nurses or pts. It’s so far past the line of appropriate that no one even thinks it’s funny. I’m not sure how common this is perceived to be on the nursing side, but it definitely isn’t on ours. If anything, it’s more work for us too. Just wanted to share that from a different perspective. I know there’s a lot that doesn’t get communicated. I’ll say tho, orthostatic pts can be very difficult to treat/improve, but the gold stand of test is the orthostatic vs.
Orthos and visual acquity exams are the worst
Yup
Ugh fucking THIS. We used to have a provider that ordered them every shift x7 days. Why??? 🤬
I despise putting people on bedpans. It feels stupid and pointless and literally nobody’s anatomy is right for it.
I feel like bedpans just make people more comfortable with the idea of shitting themselves in the bed. I will say I actually like fracture bed pans a little bit more
I’m on the toilet at work right now and just laughed so hard they probably heard me in the hallway 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I had to have an angiogram some time ago and I think I was under sedated or something, it was horribly painful. But it took like 6 hours and by the end I had to pee so bad despite peeing before the procedure. It was so bad I started having intense lower abd pain and spasms. So the poor circulating nurse said she’d put a foley in once the surgeon was done, but she put a bed pan under me in the meantime when the surgeon was suturing my groin. Yeah that didn’t happen. I was so grateful for the foley that I didn’t need to piss myself for the 6 hours flat time. Even on versed and fentanyl I wasn’t using the bed pain lol.
I line them with a disposable chux, leaving enough to pull it up over the front as a splash guard (or if it’s a male patient who is able, I have them hold a urinal just in case). Put them in a seated position and hold the front of the pan when I go to lay them down so it doesn’t tip Has decreased spills pretty well for me
I was going to add something similar. Do all these things daily.
I feel like bedpans are pointless cause it still gets everywhere. You’re still stuck doing clean ups afterwards.
I work in geriatrics and I very rarely ever spill bedpans, even when they’re wriggling. It’s all in the technique. Although I’m forced to do them often enough to have a 10/10 technique.
I work in LTC/STR. On several occasions when we are short on CNAs I will take a partial CNA set. One night we were short, a sweet lady needed a bedpan. I had an agency CNA on the way so I watched the open set until agency got there. Well to my advantage my boyfriend is a CNA through the agency and he was the one on the way. Now it had been a good amount of time since I had to put someone on the bedpan but I was going to do it and brag to my boyfriend that I was able to get the job done well. Well it was all bad, I successfully got her on the bedpan, she got everything in the bedpan, but I managed to spill it when taking her off. Luckily it was right when my boyfriend came in, he saw me looking frazzled and I told him what happened and that I was getting the needed supplies to clean up my mess. He took over for me and had her cleaned up in no time. He’s a great CNA. I’ve learned a lot from him which has helped me be able to help out more whenever I can.
If you do them enough you can pre-empt the issues that make them spill. It’s genuinely a guy feeling type of thing as every patients movements and anatomy are different. I do them all day long so I’ve got the skill, but for people who do them a couple of times a day might still spill them. They’re really difficult to master, and it’s absolutely not like riding a bike!
That’s definitely valid. I remember being a new nurse I always put them on backwards and I felt so dumb for it. But yeah, anatomy is soooo different with everyone that you can’t really predict where the waste will come out (urine more than bowel lol. Urine is a bitch on those bedpans).
Lining it with a disposable chux basically prevents 99% of spills/leaks in my experience. It’s still not my favorite task at work though.
But then they might as well pee in a disposable chuck ya know?? Like the bedpan itself is pretty useless
Yep I'd rather turn and wipe ass than deal with bed pans any day. "Is it on right?" "Idk hopefully friend we'll find out in a sec "
Same!! I would so much rather let someone shit all over a chux and change the whole ass bed if I have to lol
Because when it spills you pretty much are doing that anyways
Everyone in here saying blood sugar is absolutely right.... But they don't have to be so annoying! EMS just pokes and reads the number, why do we have to scan three different things and wait for the computer to sync properly? Literally more scanning than a med pass for something the diabetic patient does every day at home
The glucometer at my facility is actually nice. I don’t scan anything - I just put in the test strip and apply the blood. But it still irks me to do them hahaha.
You don’t have to scan the pt? How does the result upload to their chart?
It doesn't. I've worked in hospitals and long-term care facilities, and at hospitals, it's more high-tech equipment which uploads to their chart as well as to lab. But at a facility it's just a lower tech design, like what a patient would use at home. So what goes into the chart is what you put into the chart yourself manually.
I’d rather draw a green top than do a glub any day.
I hate scanning a patients saline flush in the MAR. Idk what else to say. It’s horrible.
Ahhhhh my time to shine!!!!! I got you girl! I can’t post a pic but what I’ve done is pulled the whole sticky part of the flush off of one, then cut off the QR code so it’s just the square and put it on my badge!!!! The easiest scanning ever!!
This. When I worked ICU, we had to scan the chlorhex wipes in at least once a shift. The problem was that once you used the wipes, you threw away the package and then it popped up needing a scan. I took a pic of the barcode and made it my lock screen. 🫣
I actually have one on both sides of my badge in case it flips!
this is GENIUS
And if you scan all your flushes with the thingy on your badge (instead of just leaving them like most of us do) it artificially inflates your scanning rate. A coworker just told me this the other day haha
I tell all my preceptees and coworkers this too! I do the scheduled ones and PRN ones at the same time and it looks like I’m working way harder when it says I’ve scanned 300 medications instead of 200 😂
That’s a thing?! That sucks!
We get to non-admin these at my job. It’s nice. They should just stop ordering them though.
BuT iTs A mEdicAtioN 🙄
How is this even a thing??
Waiting for the monitor to register a patient’s temp, watching the hourglass show up and disappear as the patient grumbles. IF YOU’D KEEP THE THERMOMETER UNDER YOUR TONGUE WHERE IT HAS GONE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE THIS WOULD GO FASTER.
Put the thermometer tip farther back and in the side pocket underneath the tongue. Press gently medially so the therm tip makes steady contact with the underneath structure of the tongue. I ain't sitting here waiting for Gertrude to decide she's gonna hold that thing in the right place.
I say “all the way to the back near your molars!” It usually helps them figure out how to position it properly.
I hate taking meal trays out of the room 😂 the way the tray cart smells does something to me that I can’t explain. No clue why it gets to me so much
Omg! Me too!! Hospital food smells atrocious. No matter what kind of food it is, it all smells bad!
I’ve smelt and dealt with plenty of nasty as fuck hospital and regular food. I used to work in dietary… I helped prep the trays. It ran assembly line style. One person would grab certain items, put it on the tray, and pass to the next person where they would do the same. The tray got checked, ticket scanned in, and set in a cart to go upstairs to the units. It was very industrialized per se. I’ve worked a couple of shifts as “pots and pans”. They cleaned all the storage containers (when you go to Chipotle and you see the ingredients in the metal containers where they scoop from. It’s those I’m talking about) where food was stored. They also cleaned the pots and pans, hence the name. At close, they would get all the containers with unused food and manually wash it out. I also passed trays to patients on different units. One cart would have one floor and another cart with another floor. I’ve heard anything from the hospital food tasting terrible to it somehow tasting good. We would take the cart, pass the trays, return, and fill it again. We did this until close. I took the carts of dirty trays off the unit and down to the kitchen after passing all the trays out. The entire crew would do the dishes during closing. We had to scrape the plates before putting it through the dishwasher. The trash can would fill with food and looked ATROCIOUS at the end. Same for the “pots and pans” trash can since they’re also emptying the metal containers before washing. All carts got cleaned and the kitchen was cleaned up too. Just the standard kitchen closing stuff. The shift ends after we finished everything and we go home. If you thought dietary was bad, it gets worse. It was a toxic workplace. Coworkers were CONSTANTLY talking behind each other’s backs and there wasn’t a sense of unity. They didn’t really go out of their way to help each other. At times, it would escalate into arguments. There was a yelling match between 2 people on my last day there. The manager had to get involved and break it up. Fast forward to now and the entire staff I worked with has since turned over and left. After writing this, I do not miss those days one single bit.
The way I deal with any bad smell: put a pinkie dab of Vicks Vaporub under each of your nostrils. The eucalyptus/menthol aroma helped me cope with a lot of messy odors on many a long shift.
Funny cuz I still would sneak in the kitchen to eat a turkey sandwich every now and then LOL.
100% approve. I couldn’t care less if anyone grabbed food from the kitchen and eat it. - Ex dietary worker
I’m so glad I got the stamp of approval from a dietary worker! I had so many co-workers chastise me for grabbing crackers or a sandwich. It was so annoying cuz it literally doesn’t affect them?
I literally couldn’t care less. The only time I do care is if it’s low on stock and needs to be restocked mostly because a patient could ask for it. Anything else, fair game. I snack on the food from the nutrition room ALL THE TIME. I’ve never tried the sandwich though… Is it as good as patients make it out to be?! Am I missing out??
When I first started at the hospital, the turkey sandwiches were amazing! I left shortly after COVID but came back for a travel assignment - they don’t taste the same. ): I hope your food in the nutrition room is better than mine now!
I just don't like... "used"? Food! Yuck!
And they’re so freaking heavy and the cart is always so far away.
Ugh. So I used to work at an ltach that was across the street from the hospital that owned it. They prepped the trays over there then brought them to the ltach. If that wasn’t gross enough, they were regularly late. Like, late late. Like I would have to pass them out around 8-9pm. All the food was cold, but there was only one microwave so I couldn’t heat it up just from a logistics standpoint. Anyway, most people barely touched their food. So the food cart would sit all night with barely poked at food on it. Makes me sick just thinking about it.
Omg same, there’s always something spilled all over. It’s got that rotten food smell and the smeared food all over the plates 🤢
I hate doing that too! Ugh. It smells awful.
Feeding patients. I’d rather do an entire code brown bed change than watch someone chew one bite of food for 5 minutes while I hover over them awkwardly
It’s annoying when you have 2 other call bells going and everyone else is on break but that’s nursing.
I actually don’t mind it if they are a good eater. I don’t have to do it very often in the icu but I love the feeling of going from a full tray to empty and getting all this “nutrition” into the pt. Probably because it means they can probably get out of the icu
Vital Signs Do I want to know what my patients vitals are? Of course. Do I want to make the effort to obtain them? Absolutely the fuck not.
Come to the ICU where they’re always on tele, and the arterial line pressures are always up. Even better if there’s a temp sensing foley in too.
unless you have a radial art line that’s sitting riiiiight at that wrist and is like naaaah, today i’d like to be the bane of your existence and gift you with more alarms to listen to
You and me both.
This is the worst, especially when you’re doing it for 10 patients. The thermometer will be the bane of my existence.
I hate cancelling call lights.. I have to go all the way to the wall to press the button in a semi private room with no room to move. Hitting my body against beside tables iv poles their neighbors table
Yeah, why can't we have a cancel button at the doorway??I've been known to knock off a neighbors urinal off their tables because it was behind the stupid curtain!
Trach care, changing suction canisters
Trach care is my kryptonite. I fear trachs and I can’t even explain why, in theory they’re much more safe than my intubated patients. I’ll bribe the RTs to change the inner cannula and every time I change the ties I’m convinced the patient will cough at that moment and dislodge it and code. Yes it’s irrational, especially if they’re weaning and not vent dependent. Can’t explain it but trachs scare me.
I am also afraid of trachs and haaaaaate changing ties/collars. The whole time I'm thinking "it's gonna come out, it's gonna come out, it's gonna come out...." even though I know it's easy to put back in anyway!
Eugh! Trachs and suctioning are definitely on my list of “no thanks.”
I hate trach care. I rather change a stage 4 wound that suction someone or change the trach dressing
Midnight and 4am vitals. I wake these people up enough thru the night, and no matter how much I try to cluster care, there is always some random outliers that I can't make fit in. Our techs are supposed to do them, but they conveniently go missing right around those times, so it's left up to the nurses.
When I worked in Med-Surg, I hated the 0000 and 0400 vitals cuz we never had techs due to the shitty staffing. So we had to do it ALL with the rest of the workload in the morning. So I understand your pain.
If you did them at 3am with other cares and then didn't do it at 4am would you get in trouble? Like does it HAVE to be at 0000 and 0400, or would any times be okay as long as they got checked q4ish?
I came here to say 0600 meds
Getting patients up to the toilet 😡😡😡😡
Charting…
Don’t forget that if you chart it in one place, you’re probably charting it in three other places too. 😂 The amount of excessive charting in facilities is absolutely appalling. If we didn’t have to chart everything ten times then we could focus more on patient care.
Omg yes. Helping deliver babies would be so nice without having to get a damn computer involved.
Seriously. Charting in the room is like having a second patient there
Anything I am asked to do immediately after leaving the room after asking them if they need anything else and they say no.
Q15 minute safety checks on the psych unit.
I’m in psych too. What’s even more tedious is that staff will take the patient somewhere and not tell anyone. In a group room, exercise room… to space apparently. we have 3 units separated on one floor- Geri’s, BICU(behavioral icu for the ones who can’t be with others d/t behaviors) and then the regular unit. Sometimes activities or someone else will move the Geri’s to the regular side and so on. So here I am running around wondering where me maw is and she’s in a group room on another unit. By the time I find the patient it’s time to do checks again. God bless the PCAs that do it all day on top of everything else. When they go on break or were short staff the RNs rotate. We also have to have RN do a round every hour. It gets your steps in but lord those 15 min fly right on by.
Eugh. I’ve never worked Psych (and I don’t want to), but that sounds annoying. I don’t think people realize how much can happen in 15 minutes. Sounds kinda useless and just takes up a bunch of time.
I got floated to work the floor on psych once. They had me round on 7 pts anywhere from every 7min to 30min. Took a couple minutes to do, sit down for 5 minutes, do it again. Longest 4 hrs of my life. Luckily that evening an NBA Finals game was one tv and half the pts came out to watch it thus making the rounding go much faster.
I don't like transfers lol, it's the only reason showers take so long in LTC is because you gotta use a hoyer or transfers take so long to get them to stand up
Hoyers and sit-to-stands suck!
Even transfers in general when you have to basicially pick them up. I'm a small gal and can barely do it
I went from SNF to hospital and hate that they DONT use machines. I am not trying to break my back to get grammy into a chair for an hour!!!
Q2hr turns. Almost every single patient in the ICU is a turn, and it seems like my patients always happen to fall asleep riiiight at the 1 hour and 45 minute mark since the previous turn. Not to mention so many of them have fluid imbalances and turns often lead to wonky shit happening to their HR/BP that I then have to address, lol.
That’s why I like the “bridge” technique. Turn one way, next turn shove a pillow under the other side too so they’re supine-ish but their sacrum is off the bed stilll, next turn remove a pillow so they face the opposite side, next turn remove the remaining pillow so they’re supine. Smaller turns that they can tolerate if you can’t do the big ones.
I swear after I have done my turns, it's time for the next one. It sucks having to prioritize a turn over my assessment and morning medications just so I can use the CNA when they are free.
Accuchecks. Temperatures.
Seems like everyone agrees accuchecks are the worst hahaha. Temps are also so annoying, especially after COVID. We don’t even use contact thermometers! How can we expect an accurate temp from those non-contact thermometers??
Our non-contact thermometers are random number generators in the hands of a couple of our PCAs. We have the cheap ones, and they're always getting put in air temp mode. Sometimes, I'll be in a resident's chart and see their last temp was 74.8. The PCAs have both been here around 30 years, and you can't tell them anything. I also hate doing temps because people are always stealing batteries out of ours.
I hate temps, they're my least favorite vital
I hate feeding patients. I'd rather drop a rock on my foot.
When I was in neuro ICU, doing hourly neuro checks on someone who hasn't had any neuro change in like 4 weeks. And then if they do have a neuro change, we rush to CT and then do nothing anyways.
Ugh - I HATE neuro! Especially NIH Stroke Scale patients.
Ecgs. I can do one in three minutes tops but I did EKGs and cardiac analysis for years before I became a nurse, I'm so sick of them now
I was scanning all the replies for this one. EKGs. I loathe ekgs. Especially on hairy chests. Hairy or bare, the electrodes never stick. You get ready to print and v1 pops off. Fix v1 and v6 comes loose. Repeat.
One time I did an ecg and on the FIRST TRY I got perfect connections and readings from every single lead. Pretty sure I shouted YESSSSSS with a first pump. I've been chasing that high ever since.
Not to mention your stemi patients who of course need a stat ecg most of anyone almost always are diaphoretic as hell, which makes ecg leads slide off like a fucking nonstick pan. Trying to towel off the chest and get the stickers on and attached and a clear EKG before they sweat enough for them to fall back off feels like trying to stop a tornado with a kazoo.
For some reason I hate taking oral temps. I can’t believe how some of these people really don’t understand the concept of under your tongue.
The whole job
Not the whole job, just anything dealing with the patients and/or their family. “This job would be great if it weren’t for the effing ~~customers~~ patients.”
Holding a thermometer in an adults mouth because apparently everyone is incapable of holding it under their tongue. I am so appreciative of the patients who take the probe from me.
I have shaky hands, it would be so nice if patients would do it themselves. I hate playing extreme yoga trying to stretch over their belongings and their table just to grab a temp haha.
Cleaning commodes. Put some water in them or line them with a chuck please if you get someone else’s patient up.
We use the pink buckets for baths as the bottom. I line them with chucks but if someone doesnt... thats goin in da trash lol
Palpating abdomens. Lemme squish your belly and see if you scream!
Heparin SQ.
Emptying ostomy bags. Holy hell, the stench still manages to get through my mask & vigorous chewing of a new piece of gum. I've dealt with some stank BMs, but ostomies....whole diff level
Taking pictures of wounds around the butt or genitals. “We have to do a skin check” ::Pulls out unit cellphone that looks like a regular IPhone. Spreads patient’s cheeks for a picture with the flash.:: 😳I always explain why 2RNs have to do a skin check on admission and that we take pictures of any wounds for their chart. It’s still awkward. I swear I’m not posting these on the internet or taking them for my personal collection.🙈😭
Boosting, whenever someone asks for a boost it’s never just a boost, it turns to a cleanup, to a I gotta go can you finish, etc.
FUCK BLOOD SUGARS! To be honest, I hate anything diabetes related. Type 1 is more tolerable than type 2 in my opinion.
I works casual briefly at a nursing home and discovered that the glucometers there use far less blood than the hospital accuchecks, which need such a large drop.
FUCK THEM BLOOD SUGARS! I work LTC so I only see DM Type II. Whats the different with Type I? Wouldn’t they get their sugars taken more often? Or are they the ones that have the implanted monitors?
Especially when you have 3-4 pts on your list. So all meals if you’re on days. You’re just running in and out of those rooms🙄
I used to like doing blood sugars with art lines and now I hate it. Would much rather poke a person than all that flushing
admission paperwork. they are the bane of my life!!
Admissions in general! Gah! Hate them!
Wiping down equipment. I know it's important and needs to be done. But first you have to find the damn sani wipes. Half the time, they're empty so you gotta get another. And then wipe it down and put the equipment back. Annoying.
0600 meds, but especially when they could have been 2100 meds. I’m lookin at you protonix.
Ugh… who at home seriously takes their Protonix at 6am?! I’m on it and never take it that early! It’s just something they like to add on night shift cuz they think we don’t do enough. >.>
PO meds. I work in ICU, I’m used to JPegs/OG/NG/DHT so actually having to remember to bring the dang water, a med cup for the giant horse tablets, meemaw’s dentures, and then sit there and feed her her 195 2100 tablets for 30 minutes. Also blood sugars. I will beg, bargain, and wheedle with my poor CNAs to do as many blood sugars as they can. I’ll change all the trash bags, empty all the linen carts if I never had to take another gosh dang blood sugar. Especially for insulin gtts.
And if meemaw is awake enough in ICU to take PO meds, you know she's pulling out every single pill one by one and asking what it is
Yes, and Lord love meemaw but she’s also probably on HFNC or bipap and taking it off to ask each question *and* take her pills. One. At. A. Time. So there’s the obligatory recovery period for her oxygenation before the next one. Don’t get me wrong, I love my meemaws and peepaws, but my time management isn’t set on for patients that talk to me. At all.
And they pour the pills into their tiny hand bc they can only take a few at a time (when I've offered to give them to them a few at a time) and they drop the pills and act all surprised when there are pills everywhere but there was an oxy in there so you have to fucking look for the little pink one while they "ohmigoshsosorrydididropone?" Yes, grandma, you dropped one. Let me take your bed apart and scour the fucking floor for your "most important" pill.
Honestly? Emptying the suction cannisters or Foley bags, and getting that dang daily weight. Grew up as a baby nurse where nursing assistants did all that and now that I'm in the ICU they don't really touch the pt or do anything with them unless I ask.
Daily weight will be the death of me on night shift. I have to write it in my report sheet every night and circle it like three times or I forget.
Emptying the trash. I'm not above it. It's just not my job. But I'm expected to do it. But, sometimes I scratch my head and ask what kind of nurse I would be if I didn't do a thousand things every shift that could be done by some one else. Like, temps, blood sugars, baths, poop time, urine collection, answering call lights, looking for food at 3am for my etoh'r. Like, If I got to focus on nursing stuff. I would see definately have all my education done.
The job title would be too long if it had waiter, mechanic, customer service representative, social worker, etc. Instead we settle with RN. 😂 I also hate when no one else empties the trash or the sharps bins. They literally let it overflow expecting someone else to do it!
I’m not above janitorial tasks - I clean my own toilets and take out my own trash at home. But those are the *only* toilets and trash cans I want to clean and empty, and part of the reason I did well in school, went to college (twice!), and got a degree (twice!) was so I wouldn’t have to do those tasks for money. I don’t think that makes me an asshole.
Feeding patients, only because I have 5 others that also need multiple things done for them and it’s all I can think about. I also despise getting orthostatics because it’s usually on 95 year old grandma/grandpa who is bed bound and it’s such a fiasco.
I work in ER for a lot of reasons. A big one is it’s less likely I’ll be wiping your asshole compared to inpatient nursing. When I have to do it my entire day is ruined
Same in PACU. If someone says they have to pee it takes everything to not roll my eyes with an AAUUGGGHHH. Even worse if they say they have to poop! Come ON, there's NO POOPING IN PACU
I had a patient tell me she was so tired she couldn’t even wipe her own butt and I just told her, “I’m not wiping your butt for you.” Cytotec side effects can be rough but you don’t need to come out of the bathroom naked and screaming because you have cramps and diarrhea.
I definitely hate wiping asses too, and I work in LTC so I feel like I’m doing it every five minutes haha. I can understand where you’re coming from!
I always say nursing is like death by a thousand cuts with ALL the tasks ! One of my biggest pet peeves is logging in and out of the computer . I’ll log in then go do something ( a task) come back to chart it and I’m frickin logged out already !!
PICC dressing changes.. i seem to get lucky somehow and get the ones that are way overdue to be changed
ED here, and I’m just so sick of EKG’s. Especially when the patient won’t be still or cooperate. You would think with the way technology is, they would’ve come up with an ultra sensitive, leadless EKG machine unaffected by movement. Like I just place sensors on the patient’s chest and it wirelessly transmits the EKG to the machine for printing.
Getting post-ops (or really anyone) up to the bathroom. It takes forever
Mixing Miralax. For some reason it absolutely kills me.
So I don’t belong here but I work in LTC, not clinical, but here’s the thing I hate doing that surprises everyone, including myself: I hate flowers. I hate delivering flowers to rooms (because everyone needs the flowers set up and the card read to them and the trash from the flowers done away with, and they also need pulled up in bed and a drink and a blanket and they also need to use the bathroom and I can’t find a CNA and the call light doesn’t do anything and the nurse is passing meds and can’t help, etc). (To clarify, I want to help but I can’t - not clinical - so for much of this stuff I either have to bother staff or bother staff.) Funeral homes deliver giant bouquets and they’re beautiful but I am incredibly allergic and we rearrange the bouquets to look less funeral-like and so I end up with stems and water and petals all over the place and running around making homes for the flowers or delivering those too. No one else has time to water the flowers outside so I do that and then I’m away for the weekend and I come back to residents upset that the flowers haven’t been watered. But when I water during the week my coworkers are mad because I’m not available because I’m outside watering the flowers (which are in a weird spot so it is t like our more capable residents can safely water them instead.) I’m so sick of flowers. It’s dumb. But that’s what I hate.
You still belong here even if you’re in LTC! But I can’t imagine having to deal with flowers all the time while being allergic! I’m so sorry.
When I was in medsurg, I hated peritoneal dialysis and CBI. In ED, I hate enemas and turning over rooms that I didn’t fuck up myself.
Fuckin’ orthostatic vital signs.
taking patients to the bathroom. I'd rather do anything else. it's so tedious
4 o’clock vitals. Whether it be day or night shift, I just loathe them. Just let me go home already!
Here's a different one... I absolutely hate, with every fiber of my being, scanning things. It's the worst thing ever if you ask me. And a huge distraction from concentrating on giving a bunch of medication accurately. I don't have time to play hide and seek, turn their wristband around 3 or 4 times scanning each barcode till you get the right one, scan, go check the screen, cancel, do again, cancel, scan AGAIN, didn't read it right, scan AGAIN. Then trying to approach IV bags from multiple different angles as the scanner cord rips out of the computer that doesn't fit in the room... put it back together, scan again. "Medication does not exist for this patient"... Well sumbitch I'm ACTIVELY READING 81 mg aspirin on the mar and the little pill pack. Try again... "Medication has been scanned, data will not be filed". Well okay then! Tying to piece together little tiny paper backings, finally get it together, and patient says "Oh I take two of those at home!". Save, stop, check home meds on another screen... Damn they are right! Call hospitalist, they fix it but then you have to give them the second pill to make it right. So another order for the same thing. Try to scan that in, "medication already administered for this date and time". Or I love when you try to be organized and just line everything up and scan it all and it makes you stop and handkey the dose that is the same as what's in the vial or package for every. Single. Thing. Then click confirm, back and forth, knocking all those little paper backings on the floor... I'm the override scan king, I swear 🤦. Why is it so complicated? I worked in retail forever and scanned entire pallets of merchandise into the system in minutes, easy breezy.
Blood sugars and insulin like everyone else. But I fucking hate gastric tubes, peg, J, NG, and feedings. They aren’t that bad and in some cases could arguably be easier than Grandma taking one pill at a time and 3 minutes each with a whole ass meal worth of pills in the damn cup. But for some reason I just hate managing them, I hate flushing, I hate clearing clogs, I hate disconnecting everything to ambulate, and I hate them bitching about having to be 30 degrees minimum.
DAILY AM WEIGHTS!!!!.... I work nights most of my career and worked as a CNA for about 11yrs b4 FINALLY making it through nursing school, and the one thing I despise is AM weights. As many of you know in the ICU we do our baths on night shift , at least most places where Ive worked, and almost every time after all these years after I get them all fluffed and puffed in their pillows all situated, I realized I still didn't get their F-ing AM weight!!! LOL literally the worst
“Road tests” in the ED. I understand why it’s important to be able to document that someone can safely ambulate prior to discharge. But it’s always these old people who came in dizzy or weak, are probably somewhat unstable on their feet at baseline, and we have *zero* safety equipment in the ED. And if they normally use a cane or walker, they sure as shit didn’t bring it with them. So I’m just supposed to take this rickety old person and…what? Toddle next to them and cringe whenever they touch my arm to steady themselves, knowing full well that if they start to fall, I’m not going to be able to stop them, and then not only am I responsible for a patient fall, but now they can’t get discharged and I’m stuck with them? Ffs. Also: dressing people. *Fucking* hate it.
I hate checking the crash cart.
giving 1 unit insulin. I know it can bring down blood sugar by up to 70 points. but 1 unit when the bg is 151.... so lifesaving 🙄
Positioning pure wicks is for some reason especially gross to me.. 0630 Synthroid is runner up
when I’m in the middle of something and a family member comes to find me to tell me the patient needs to use the bathroom, or needs their pain med, or needs a warm blanket, or TWO cups of ice chips. My fav is when it’s not even my patient. Like? It’s not those tasks that irk me, but family walking up to me to tell me what to do is such a pet peeve of mine. My family would never act that way in the hospital. It’s entitled behavior
Having to crush a pharmacy of pills to then mix it with applesauce or pudding & have to feed it to the patients. Bane if my existence. Always save these patients for last during med pass because it is SO tedious.
Charting. Ok, so it's not small, but...
Orthostatic blood pressures
Every so often, I get a resident who is so fussy and has an ultra particular ritual to taking their meds. I know everyone is different, and it's really not a big deal, but why does it take you 5 minutes to do what everyone else can do in less than 20 seconds? Throws off my flow, man.
I haaate discharge instructions, I work in L&D so especially discharge instructions for new parents. It’s just so much talking 😩
QC-ing the damn accucheck 😡
Accuchecks (and the related QC), removing trays, labeling IVs with the day to change, and throwing away the patients trash All of them make me want to punch a puppy and I have no idea why.
Ostomy care on neglected sites.
Bladder scanner idk why I just hate it lol
I loathe getting temperatures. Our thermometers are dog shit and don't work half the time.
Having to get vitals. I floated onto a pcu cardiac floor and nurses take all vitals. They (management) don't trust techs to do them even though they're very capable, because they're "cardiac pts."
BID vitals on my medically stable psych patients
Lovenox shots scheduled for 1500 - they will probably refuse - I am tired of trying to educate patients who will inevitably refuse. - it’s 1500. - why is this schedule in the afternoon and not qAM or qPM. - my meds are wearing off around then
Inhalers and nebs. Specifically, inhalers because they're always scheduled at the worst times, and patients *think* they know how to properly do them. RT used to do both of them for us when they are scheduled, but RT had a "temporary" shortage last year, so we were expected to do them "temporarily." Guess who's still doing them.
Accu checks and 1 unit insulin doses
I fucking hate admissions but more than anything I hate admissions at shift change…which is all it has been lately. I would rather start my night with five patients than deal with an admit.
Changing the tele box battery, or putting leads/stickers back on. Especially when you have to wake them up in order to do so.
Manuals. I can’t hear anything for the life of me
As break/float nurse our hospital is now requiring us to check with the patients that they watched their new medication info videos, then document their education and give them their assigned videos to watch. Complete waste of my time when we are short-staffed and bed alarms are going off.