My friend is a nurse - she is getting stressed by ungrateful/demanding patients..

[Raptor With a Saber]

Well as long as she doesnt decide to start killing them she is just going to have to either get her doc to give some low dose Valium that wont fuck with her ability to be a nurse or just deal with it.

[Kuax]

How about something like this:
"People are assholes, become an undertaker"
"Calm patient is a dead patient"
"Tranqulizer a day makes complaints go away"
"Everyone has a right for a (free) chloroform care"
"Don't get burnedout, burn 'em all out"
Add a celebrity of your choice as a source of quote.

[draykorinee]

Go work in a decent ITU like I do, half of them are sedated. There are plenty of options available in the UK to work with as few/many patients as you like.

[Deleted]

She's doing something amazing and worthwhile with her life, we need people like her. Yes not everyone will appreciate it as much as they should but a lot do even if they don't say it (sick people can't help but be a little self obsessed, its only human nature)

So just tell her how great you think she is, sometimes that's all it takes to get you through the day.

[Alixie]

She's doing something amazing and worthwhile with her life, we need people like her. Yes not everyone will appreciate it as much as they should but a lot do even if they don't say it (sick people can't help but be a little self obsessed, its only human nature)

So just tell her how great you think she is, sometimes that's all it takes to get you through the day.

Telling nurses to "Either grow thicker skin or GTFO." is counter productive. I appreciate every nurse that has a drive to help people and displays saintly patience. (Especially ones that deal with my nervousness around needles with a smile and understanding..) I wouldnt last a day as a nurse without either drugging unruly patients with Valium or smacking them with a bedpan.

[Cthulhu 2020]

If your friend needs acknowledgement for doing a good job, or a low stress job, nursing is not for her. But then again, she already spent those 3 years in nursing school... might just want to transfer to a nursing home or something.

[Omega10]

Nursing burns out a lot of people. It is hard hard work. When she can't take it anymore, she needs to find a new career (i know quite a few people that left nursing due to this burnout).

"Tranqulizer a day makes complaints go away"

This DOES happen in hospitals and nursing homes. Medicate the patients / residents so much so that they do not complain. It is also a very inexpensive way for nursing home to deal with its residents.

[Independent voter]

The demand for nursing is so high you'd think she could get a job taking care of a nice elderly person somewhere.

[announced]

yea a coffee mug isnt going to change her world. not that much. its a nice gesture but u should just straight up tell her every day/week how much u appreciate her being a nurse or something like that.

flowers might help

tell her to remember the patients arent mad at her, they are mad because they are injured. best to try and be as nice as possible to them. even if they are horrible patients atleast they might remember how they were treated properly despite trying their best to disrupt her day.

if the patients are suggesting impossible things just say no. dont entertain their request with a maybe. as for diagnosises on the spot she could always try making something up just to mess with their heads.
if they try to book appointments after closing ask them if they were at a brain surgeon recently cause they are a f***ing idiot.

sedatives are helpful too, as long as they dont cause the patients to become worse. a dopey patient is an easy patient.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry for your friend.

Unfortunately Nurses are the first in line to suffer from burnout at their workplace. It's something which should have been covered in the first year of her training. :/

She needs to find a coping mechanism, or it's best to move somewhere else before the burnout causes serious damage (depression).

Take care.

[zenkai]

Id be grumpy too if I knew how much my Hospital Bill was going to be

[Nobleshield]

Let me play Devil's Advocate here: My fiance (we are getting married next week) has been going to the hospital regularly due to extreme pain that her doctor can't do anything for until the 16th so he/his office tells her to go to the ER. Whenever I take her, which can be as often as every other day when the pain gets unbearable, we are extremely frustrated since it not only takes a long time but they tend to run the same tests and give different results and eventually just throw up their hands and say they can't do anything. It annoys me when not only does it take upwards of 20 minutes for a nurse to answer when I use the call button, but generally they seem to be absolutely useless as they can't do anything without the doctor's permission first, which often means my fiance is in agony for hours before the doctor orders something, and some have even indicated they can't/won't talk to the doctor to tell him that she's in unbelievable pain.

I sympathize with your friend. You didn't say what kind of nurse she is but understand that people in an ER are already stressed out and want answers, not "I can't do anything" or excuses and be made to wait for someone who has a clue to do something or worse told to just deal with it. That's not acceptable IMHO and being told that the person you're talking to is basically useless who can't do anything or make a single decision on their own judgment just makes it more frustrating.

For instance, about two weeks ago she was admitted to the hospital for a kidney infection. Her doctor left no instructions and she was left waiting in agony for 5 hours before they got a hold of him, and the nurses were all like oh we can't even give you Tylenol or let you drink anything because we don't know what the doctor wants to do. It got to the point I was going to run home and get Tylenol and give it to her anyways, because making somebody wait in pain for 5 hours with no instructions is bullshit and it was clear I was getting fed up with their excuses. While that's the doctor's fault for admitting her without telling the hospital anything, it was still annoying to constantly be told that nobody can do anything, and really made me question what the point of having them is if they literally cannot do anything except be drones and do exactly what they're told and nothing more.

[Les Paul]

I have a friend of mine who works as a nurse, and lately shes been getting very bummed out and stressed by a couple of her patients that she works with. They are being overly demanding, ect.

I want to help remind her that there are those patients who are incredibly grateful for everything she does for them, and that I understand her sacrifices for her job as well. I was thinking maybe a quote of some kind on her coffee mug would help remind her when she needs it that not everyone is ungrateful..

Does anyone have any ideas?

I know its a vague topic and all..I spent a bit of time trying to figure out a way to remind her when she needs it most, but I couldn't really think of anything else.

Maybe print out the bills these patients have to pay. The number of people who declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, and also the number of deaths each year to nurse incompetence and medical malpractice.

Will probably give her a better prospective and the idea she should work harder.

[Nobleshield]

You should look up the analgesic ladder.
Do you have any idea what will happen to a nurse that decides to use opioids on her own initiative?
The nurse probably knows what should and can be done, but - at least in my country - I'm not allowed to do it.

I personally blame movies.
"Ooh, I am a nurse. Please allow me to do this open heart surgery while doing brain surgery with my other arm!"

A perfect example would be the placing of sutures.
They always seem to do it in series and movies, as if they do it on a regular basis.
While in reality they aren't allowed to do such a thing, so I wonder where they got that expertise.

I get that, I'm just saying it's frustrating as a patient or S/O of a patient and constantly being told that they can't do anything, along with having to wait often to even get assistance half the time. It might not be their fault, but they are the "first line of defense" so to speak and therefore bear the brunt of the frustrations of already-frustrated and annoyed people.

[thatmikeguy]

Nearly every job people will be ungrateful. Needs to get over it. She should work retail and see what it's like. Just because you're a nurse doesn't mean you deserve any more respect than any other person I interact with (unless you're doing some volunteer stuff)

Yes, that word REspect. It's only deserved when it's actually earned. Hitler had power, I do NOT respect him!

[Deleted]

Yea cause the people in the hospitals definitely chose to be injured. Your brain isn't capable of understanding that certain life choices lead to obvious outcomes. If you wear a suit made of gold, and you walk into a dark alley in an area with an outstanding crime rate, you'd probably be shocked if you got robbed.

Is it wrong that they robbed you, like it's wrong to treat hospital workers bad just because you feel bad? Sure.
But to GET INTO THAT SITUATION and be surprised when it happens makes you a total idiot.

You can sit on the WoW forums and tell people "it's wrong to rob other people" all you want, but it's not gonna do shit.

So basically, just fuck her for choosing to be a nurse, thanks for confirming it. I gave a few advices to OP so that he might help his friend, that's indeed all we can do. If you're here to be dismissive I just don't see any other point than just to be for the sake of it.
Just like I wouldn't tell the guy who got robbed that he's a total moron and that the other were entirely justified in beating him. I would maybe make him understand what happened and why and what he could do about it. Trouble is, in one case we don't need people walking at night in gold suits in dark alley but we kinda need nurses, so telling every nurse "beat it or gtfo" is kinda the wrong approach.

[Alvito]

She might not be in the right career field or should transfer to a different wing of the hospital. If you can't manage stress and then the medical field is the wrong choice for you.

[Conspicuous Cultist]

At least she's getting paid more than being at retail.

[purebalance]

I have a friend of mine who works as a nurse, and lately shes been getting very bummed out and stressed by a couple of her patients that she works with. They are being overly demanding, ect.

I want to help remind her that there are those patients who are incredibly grateful for everything she does for them, and that I understand her sacrifices for her job as well. I was thinking maybe a quote of some kind on her coffee mug would help remind her when she needs it that not everyone is ungrateful..

Does anyone have any ideas?

I know its a vague topic and all..I spent a bit of time trying to figure out a way to remind her when she needs it most, but I couldn't really think of anything else.

I have worked in healthcare for 11 years and yes there are terrible patients, but honestly it's like 5% of the populations I've dealt with. Didn't matter where I worked. When I was in the army, patients were for the most part good, but then there were those few who just thought they were the ONLY person who mattered and we needed to ignore everyone else for them even if other people were in more dire need. I work for an urgent care company currently and honestly it's so rare that it's mostly only on random nurse call backs that they get much flack. Like I really only saw my first bad patient a week ago and she was just causing a commotion disturbing everyone else because she felt she didn't need to be seen again to get what she wanted(she had new symptoms develop). Just have to enjoy the great patients and ignore the bad ones.

[wheresmywoft]

It has to be said, that there are terrible people everywhere. And no matter what profession you choose. You will have to deal with these individuals.

Being a nurse, she may be exposed to people at their worst. But simply changing her profession won't necessarily solve the issue of stress and feeling under appreciated.