Perfect Patients are Perfect
We skipped a month with our nursing link up last month and admittedly, this post is up a bit late this month. Life has kind of taken a crazy turn for me but graduation is less than two weeks away so I'll be blogging full force soon!
This month's theme is actually inspired by one of my favorite readers' comments in May's nurse link up. She said, "I think sometime you and your nurse friends should do a post about what makes a good patient. Whenever I am in the hospital (having babies and what not) I wonder if I'm being annoying to the nurses or if they think I am delightful."
Now, even though I'm not an RN yet, I can already tell you that I've understandably had my favorite patients and some not-so-favorite patients. In truth, being a great patient isn't so much different than being a great customer at the grocery store.
But, I'll give you five tips on some things my favorite patients have done to make them my favorites.
1. Appreciation.
Have you ever gone to the grocery store and thanked your cashier and told them to have a great day? In the past, I've turned a grumpy cashier to a happy one with a simple "Thank so much! Have a great day!" The same is true for nurses. When you see your nurse is running around super busy but she/he's still taking care of you, thank them. A simple "Thanks so much for being so great to me" will go a long way.
2. The call light.
I've heard some people say that nurses hate patients that use the call light. That's not true at all. In fact, we like you to use it when you need something like some pain medication or help to the bathroom or something in your room is alarming and we haven't already been in there. However, I do rounds every hour to check on my patients and many things that the call light is used for could be done during my hourly rounds.
Bonus: Please don't yell out the door of your room (yes it's happened) to get our attention or send someone to track us down.
3. Understanding.
In most units and on most days, we have more than one patient. Please understand that. Sometimes, we won't be able to answer your call light right away or be in your room in exactly half an hour. I promise you that whatever tasks that need to be done will get done but our other patient may have an emergency going on.
4. Sometimes things just happen.
As a student nurse, I've definitely experienced this more times than I can count. Please don't assume that because a procedure has a mishap the person doing it is incompetent. Yes, that can be the case but it's not always. An example I can think of is drawing blood out of an IV line. For some patients, the blood is easy to draw out but on others it can take a few minutes. This doesn't mean the person doing it doesn't know what they are doing.
Another situation I can think of is inserting an IV. While it's true that some people are better at it than others, just because one nurse can't get your IV does not mean they don't know anything.
5. Ask questions.
We actually like for you to ask questions. If you want to know what a pill is, by all means, ask what it is! If you don't understand a procedure the doctor is asking you to have performed, please ask questions! And to be honest, it kind of reinforces to me that I know my stuff by being able to teach to you and if I don't know the answer, I will definitely go find the info for you!
Nurses! What are your top tips for being a great patient?
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2 comments:
I have always been nervous about the call light...i would usually just wait for them to reappear because i didnt want to be a nuisance. But now i feel more comfortable using it so thanks for that! As far as IVs i have had nurses apologize profusely because something isnt going right and i feel like it is important to be patient and nice because its probably worse for them than it is you...i liked this post!xoxo
I remember one of my first real hospital clinicals in nursing school. I was having a horrible day & my patient was so sweet & said something along the lines of "Thank you so much for taking care of me today." & I left clinical with a smile on my face.
I loved when my patients asked me questions because I could go look it up if I didn't know it & impress my instructor at how I went out of the way to figure out something.
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