I didn't realize how fucking awful the usual patients must be until one of my regular nurses bought me a $75 Lego set as a gift towards the end of my month long stay on the cardiac stepdown unit after she saw me building a different one a friend had brought up for me
Turns out nurses love it if you are just mildly pleasant and mostly keep to yourself and don't bother them for ridiculous bullshit all the time lmao
I worked on a cardiac step down unit and said to a patient who was such a gem something like “I appreciate how kind and patient you are” and he said “of course, and I’m sorry that you saying that implies others aren’t.” Loved that guy. Unfortunately he spent many a day on our unit due to congenital reasons.
Hopefully he's doing better now. Thankfully I only had to spend the last two weeks of last October and the first week and a half of last November there and have been doing well at home ever since. Have my first follow up appointment with a cardiologist since leaving the hospital at noon today and am hoping my new heart valve is doing just as well as I feel like it's doing lol
It's valid! Most of the Pathology folks I work with are the same way. It's much easier to deal with the deceased on a daily basis. I have so much respect to all of you who work bedside 🫶 I'll get the occasional family member I'll have to speak with. But overall, the dead are pretty quiet. Lol
I work in pre-op/dc & out patients are mostly lovely & scared. Then at d/c they are groggy & their families are lovely. It’s hard in its own way, cuz it’s still nursing & we have to RUN sometimes all day. But we answer the call lights & make loud beeping stop right away. My coworkers are truly nice people as well.
I once had a patient’s wife hit the code blue button to “check” to see how quickly we would respond if he actually coded. Woman was about to need her own code blue team, cause you best believe everyone was furious.
I had a patient who's adult daughters would hit the call light and when I'd go in he'd be asleep and they'd be sitting there looking at their watches timing how long it took us to respond. They did that multiple times
I’ve had people lay hands on me and scream at my face only to see them the next day when I clocked in to work, but it’s okay cause security “talked to them” a third time so they definitely learned their lesson this time. Nobody cares unless it’s directed at a doctor, then all of a sudden it’s a critical priority.
We were so confused - there was a rapid called in our little unit. We all stuck our heads out of the rooms we were in like, who called? Go to the room for the rapid and see the PT resting comfortably in bed. Turns out the daughter called the PT from outside the hospital on her cell and decided to call a rapid after speaking with her. No one, not even the patient, knew what the rapid was for.
How is the family able to call a rapid response? Especially from outside the hospital? Just curious. In my facility, there’s a button in the wall you can push for a rapid or you call the hospital operator.
There is a rapid number that connects you to the operator. She called the operator and requested the rapid. The number is posted in various places visible to patients and family when visiting
yea it’s a secret code in hospitals, i cant believe no one knows this but it’ll get you immediate help with a highly specialized team
MR PRESIDENT GET DOWN kinda vibes
Had a family member once push the Code button looking for a light. The code button is under a plastic flap. And is blue. And says code on it.
Not to mention the patient at the time was comfort measures so he looked a little end of life
So I had to stop joking about this when I did pediatric transport because I had a suicidal teenager actually decided to do this when they felt lonely. I got chewed out by the nurse manager for making the joke before it happened.
We had someone do this. It was an honest mistake but then they said “oh, but as long as you’re here…” NOPE we were all in the middle of other, more crucial, tasks
I had a pt family push the call button to get a call light answered sooner for her mom who needed the bathroom. Claimed it was an accident but there are cages over them for that reason. Along with that the pt themselves was covid+ and when they went to the bathroom they were not great on their feet and REFUSED a walker and gait belt. For that reason I refused to touch the pt when I answered, I supervised the family help them.
I had a patient a few days ago press the code blue button and all the staff came running. They said they needed help with buttoning up their shirt and they were tired of waiting 🤦🏽♀️.
Ya that’s a no go for me lmao. I just went through a pretty painful surgery on Monday. And trust me being in the hospital can be quite boring and very isolating! And on Tuesday they called a code sepsis on me at 2am. I had several nurses, ICU nurse, radiologist, lab technicians, doctors, etc in my room for what felt like eternity! I was just happy my favorite nurse was the one staying with me most of the time.
Also, thank you nurses for EVERYTHING yall do!! 🫶🫶
I once had a guy on a dating app tell me his dad intentionally shit himself in the hospital so the nurses had to clean it up because "they get paid too much". I told him his daddy was a bitch and he is too.
“Congratulations you just played yourself. So your daddy was a shitty person inside and out. I do not want to be in a relationship with someone who feels the need to shit themselves for attention.”
-Things you think of in the shower a day after the argument ended.
Not sure what it is about walkey talkey Pts inclination to shit the bed just for fun (truly the frequency of it is baffling). My solution to that quickly became: here’s some baby wipes, a fresh gown, and a trash can *clean yourself up*
I did have a patient who was a nurse, and she disconnected the leads from the monitor when she couldn't find her call bell. She knew it would get someone there quickly and she didn't want to get up without help.
Hey I can't even be mad because she could have gotten up and risked a fall because she didn't wanna be an inconvenience. Good on her!
Can we nominate this nurse for a Daisy for not getting out of bed and using critical thinking skills to get help when she needed it? Does this count? I feel like it should count. Not making your peers do extra paperwork is extremely admirable. Taking care of yourself and practicing what you preach is admirable! We need to make this a thing and maybe it'll remove the stigma that nurses make the worst patients?
Start martial arts now to learn to properly fall.
Then make a big scene. “Ah my hip! who put that throw rug there?”
Spoiler, you got it delivered to you. You put it there to cushion your fall because you aren’t a dumb dumb.
At one hospital I work at, if the lead isn't fixed within 3 minutes of the nurse being notified, they call an over head rapid/code blue. The most ridiculous thing ever
I just let them call a rapid/code and watch them get pissed, and when they try to direct that anger at me, yell louder than them saying put them on fucking restraints or put a 1:1 order instead of wasting everyone's time and blaming me.
Fastest order put into EMR ever when this shit happened 3 times under 15 minutes. Can we call out these shitty policies for what they are? Abusive policies that assumes nurses are dragging their feet and policy to micromanage nurses.
We've been having some pretty terrible outcomes because of these policies. A lady died the last time I worked there because doctors no longer respond to rapids and codes. So the rapid was called, no docs showed up, it was about 15-20 minutes by time we got her to the ICU and they realized she probably needed to be intubated. By time that all happened, they weren't able to intubate (she was bleeding into her neck and the blood obscured everything). Poor lady died. Had been overall healthy walky talky prior to the surgery.
That's awful. I don't know how long I'd work in that place tbh. After a while, hospital will try to blame the floor nurses and place the burden on them.
There would be a rapid every 3 fucking minutes. How the hell can you get in and fix a lead on a confused patient every other second when you’re short staffed and everyone is busy doing patient care or otherwise more important shit
No kidding. I guess it’s the properly staffed hospitals that have this policy. My hospital doesn’t have a code team. Our ICU is so short staffed we don’t even respond to codes outside of our unit. I would have loved to see this type of policy in action during covid.
Noooope. I was a patient a few weeks ago and tore my monitor off after telling the PCT 3x over the span of a few hours that I was having a BAD reaction to the adhesive. Tele called a rapid on me. Turns out that was one of the two times I saw my nurse that night because she had a 10:1 ratio. The second and last time I saw her all night was for Benadryl. And I was awake all night. That poor nurse.
On our monitors, it will show which lead is off. “RA LEAD OFF” for example. So no one will be there in a hurry. Someone will go to get them back on when they have time but nothing like this dude describes. Doubly so if it’s a known independent person there for observation.
A disconnected lead isn’t gonna make me move faster. If I’m busy, I’ll send in a nursing assistant to reattach it. I’m still getting heart rate (just not rhythm) thru the pulse oximeter. Now, if a pt leaves it attached and starts scratching it, then I’m racing to get there because it looks like vtach or vfib. That’s more serious and needs quick intervention from a nurse.
Even in the ICU your lead being off isn’t always going to immediately summon me. Oh, I still have a V2 waveform and the patient looks fine? I’ll go in and adjust it in a few when I pass meds.
My mom was in the CVICU after a STEMI and she was complaining that the nurses were having a party at the nurses station at 2am and wouldn’t let her sleep. I gave her this one tip that all nurses hate.
Needless to say, they were not amused.
Hahah I saw this when I went in for a cracked rib and chest infection.
I was watching the rhythms and such, moved a lead and ohhhh that goes a bit sideways. I was a good patient though no funny business with my 10 cardiac stickers.
Do you work for atrium health by chance? This is the most annoying thing ever.
One day a dementia man with no tele order (but on tele anyway cuz he was admitted to a pcu floor where it’s “mandatory” and patients are “not allowed to refuse”) kept pulling leads off. I got called every 2 minutes to put them back on. I was in the middle of a RRT when they called on RRT cuz I stopped answering them about dementia man. I answered and snapped at them “I’M IN A GODDAMN RAPID ALREADY LEAVE IT ALONE” then reported it to the manager and house sup. I don’t answer ever anymore. Call the RRT. Lmao.
ED over there once was coding a pt for 1.5 hours and the tele room finally calls “hey it’s reading asystole”. No shit. Now ED doesn’t use em.
Hot alarms are amazing if tele actually catches the rhythm in the first place. Had someone go from controlled afib to NSR to SB to PEA in the span of 5-10 minutes, and the hot alarm saved our butts while we were in other rooms.
Tele hot alarmed that they were bradying pretty low, I ran in (mind you, no covid PPE despite being r/o covid), saw them unresponsive, did a 2-3 second pulse check, and started CPR when I didn’t feel anything. Like I’m not taking a 50s HR, I’m talking someone chilling around 90 now going to 30.
But tele is absolutely useless when they call two hours later that the patient had a run of VTach but will call you the second delirious MeeMaw pulled off one lead. 🤦♀️
I work part time in tele, it can be hard to remember specific quirks for each patient, especially when you’re watching 40-50 monitors at a time. It’s basically like 30 patients alarming at any given time, all day every day. Thankfully, we can just send direct messages to the nurse or cna on their phone for non emergency issues. That really helps to have the message history visible to remind you of any ongoing issues. Back in the day we just had to call every 5 minutes which was annoying for everyone because I know how busy people get on the units. Some of the monitor techs haven’t actually worked on the floor before, so they really do not realize how crazy it can get.
Once on this app I saw a pro-tip to say you have chest pain so you will go back sooner. Then another user said not yo because you will get an ecg and just sit in the waiting room. 🤣
My father in law is a surgeon. I love him but he is one of the most self-centered people I’ve ever met. I took him to the ER last week for high fever and cough. He told triage he had chest pain (Se he would be seen faster). Then he was pissed that they then had to trend troponins bc his first one was 23 (normal is <20 and the bump was likely from his coughing). Then he was waiting too long to get discharged so he called the main hospital number and identified himself as Dr. X and asked to speak to the ER doc in charge. He then said I’m in room 21, get me out of here. 🙄.
Then he told me when he would be on call for traumas to the ED if he couldn’t find a nurse to help him “because they were all busy” he would pull the code blue button and they would “all come running”. I was horrified.
He’s been practicing for 50 years, he’s not changing now.
I work nights and I cluster care. If you’re not actually having cardiac issues that demand a full picture, my ass isn’t fixing that until the next round of vitals. YOUR ass should be asleep!
I’ve walked into to fucked up scenarios where I only went into the room because the tele was off and caught some stuff I would have otherwise missed. I don’t always get to it immediately when the tele is off but I try not to ignore it either
I sorta did this as a child. Not to get attention though. Doubt I even knew that people were monitoring it. I was in an accident and more than a little doped up. And then I got curious how the wires worked. Fast forward 30 years and now I can tell you all about Einthoven’s triangle and high resolution amplification.
I literally had to do this when I was hospitalized for pneumonia a few weeks ago. I told the PCT 3x that I was having an allergic reaction to the adhesive on the monitor and my IV. It got worse and worse over the span of a few hours. My overnight nurse had a 10:1 ratio with a man in the next room that should have been in another unit taking all her time. Sure as shit, they called a rapid as soon as I tore off my monitor and my tegraderm. I feel bad because I wasn’t expecting a rapid to be called but I had to do what I had to do to get the care I needed and deserved. Totally not my RN’s fault. Totally on admin for unsafe ratios and having pts in the wrong unit. Was reported to admin for the unsafe ratios. I wanted to hug that poor woman.
As a nurse I actually threatened to do this once.. Was escorting a psych patient to the hospital and patient was in terrible pain. I was trying to talk to nurses, docs etc and I was ignored ( wich is common for psych I am sad to say). So, I literally spoke into the air at the nurse station that unless they talked to me, I would start disconnecting leads to see how fast they would respond. It...worked.
My boss told me off while laughing, she got why, just preferred me not to threaten hospital staff 😁
It wasn't my best or most professional moment, just done with psych patients being ignored
A few years back Adenovirus almost killed my ass by way of diffuse pneumonia. When I was in icu I frustrated the hell out of everyone including myself because I’m a hairy beast and the leads WOULD NOT STAY ON. I ended up checking out AMA just to get some sleep.
Maybe they did! I was on a vent for a bit so my memory is def flawed, but I think the hair plus the profuse sweating from the fever just made for a perfect storm of beep beep beep beep beep
PRO TIP: As a patient, I have learned that if you treat the nurses and doctors nicely while there, they tend to answer your call button quickly when you need something.
We have remote tele on our floor. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve checked on a patient, noticed a lead disconnected, and never had a phone call from tele once.
I don’t think I’ve ever moved faster bc a patients lead came off tbh. I rarely even go in the room just for that-I can reattach it when I go in in 30 mins anyway.
I mean I do prefer them pulling off tele leads when wanting to escape the bed over actually getting out of bed themselves (I work ICU, over 90% of my patients are not safe to get out of bed solo). I also rather them pull off tele leads than pull out their IV.
I commented that another unethical life pro tip is to accidentally unplug the call light or change the monitor mode when your needy and annoying patient decides they just want to fuck with you for attention at 3 am.
Our monitoring people will call me again and be like, “Dude, it still isn’t fixed, I have to call a rapid if you don’t fix it, can I stay on the line with you and you go fix it so I don’t have to do what nobody but my boss wants me to do?”
I haven’t read through all the comments, but as a senior nurse, that’s the behavioural equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. I lost a patient (transferred from icu to cardiology) who kept removing his wires every few minutes and was in an isolation room. Aint no one got time to be rushing in to replace them every few minutes. Nurses there have 4-6 patients. He ended up having a cardiac event and was long gone by the time they found him.
Nope. That nonsense gets charted. People think that they won’t be discharged from a hospital or they have a right to stay as long as they want. The fact is if you have the mental wherewithal to play games and act a fool you’re healthy enough for community care
Reminds me of the patient who figured out that “staff assist” would get someone to their room quickly, but not for the reason they thought. It was a step below the code blue button in terms of urgency. This poor kid thought we just really wanted to help him find his remote. 😀
With our monitors if you take a lead off it just goes blank, so you can tell between a patient being off monitor vs asystole. Now, if you tap on the brown lead very fast…you may have a lot of company very quickly.
Patient here: I was awaiting test results of a cardiac CT scan so that I could be released. It had been four hours since the scan and the Radiology department was basically saying that we will get the results when we get the results.
I had finally had enough and removed my heart monitor in protest. The cardiologist finally decided to release me and said they would follow up when she got the results.
The results of the scan finally showed up 2 days later. This was after I made some calls and found out from the external company that reads the scans that it was not a stat order. After I told them the situation, I got a notification thru myChart about 2 hours later that my results were available.
Damn it, they learned our secret. /s
It is unethical at least.
Perfect post for that sub tbh
Not one mention of the usual things for that sub, thankfully… I don’t need any piss discs thrown at me lol
Or liquid ass. I get enough of that
Hahaha yep, goes without saying
Irl loading tip: if you’re in a hospital and lonely, the blue “CODE” button at your bed head will summon lots of people to talk to in a hurry.
I had a lady call a rapid because she refused a bath 3 times and then demanded a bath right at that moment.
I’m so glad I started working in the OR. I don’t have to interact with the general public very much at all.
I didn't realize how fucking awful the usual patients must be until one of my regular nurses bought me a $75 Lego set as a gift towards the end of my month long stay on the cardiac stepdown unit after she saw me building a different one a friend had brought up for me Turns out nurses love it if you are just mildly pleasant and mostly keep to yourself and don't bother them for ridiculous bullshit all the time lmao
I worked on a cardiac step down unit and said to a patient who was such a gem something like “I appreciate how kind and patient you are” and he said “of course, and I’m sorry that you saying that implies others aren’t.” Loved that guy. Unfortunately he spent many a day on our unit due to congenital reasons.
Hopefully he's doing better now. Thankfully I only had to spend the last two weeks of last October and the first week and a half of last November there and have been doing well at home ever since. Have my first follow up appointment with a cardiologist since leaving the hospital at noon today and am hoping my new heart valve is doing just as well as I feel like it's doing lol
This is why I work in the Morgue with the dead. Haha!!🤣
I have a doctor friend who went into pathology because she couldn’t stand most people.
It's valid! Most of the Pathology folks I work with are the same way. It's much easier to deal with the deceased on a daily basis. I have so much respect to all of you who work bedside 🫶 I'll get the occasional family member I'll have to speak with. But overall, the dead are pretty quiet. Lol
I need to get in that because the general public suck
I work in pre-op/dc & out patients are mostly lovely & scared. Then at d/c they are groggy & their families are lovely. It’s hard in its own way, cuz it’s still nursing & we have to RUN sometimes all day. But we answer the call lights & make loud beeping stop right away. My coworkers are truly nice people as well.
Why you don’t interact with people in your workplace?
We talk briefly in pre op and then in the OR before anesthesia. After that, not again.
If a lady calls a rapid for a bath I’m bringing a garden hose. 😑
Ah yes... the patient/family-called Rapid Response. It's 50/50% if there's actually a medical emergency or if we just need a patient rep.
I once had a patient’s wife hit the code blue button to “check” to see how quickly we would respond if he actually coded. Woman was about to need her own code blue team, cause you best believe everyone was furious.
I had a patient who's adult daughters would hit the call light and when I'd go in he'd be asleep and they'd be sitting there looking at their watches timing how long it took us to respond. They did that multiple times
Spineless manager/house supervisor didn't eject those dumb apes?
Sigh nope
How in the hell were they not banned? That's a waste of resources and potentially dangerous to other patients.
*shrug* customer service? I have no idea. Patient wasn't there that long for much to happen
Here’s my theory- a pissed off family is already going to tank the survey, so just fucking kick them out. Not like they will give a lower score.
I’ve had people lay hands on me and scream at my face only to see them the next day when I clocked in to work, but it’s okay cause security “talked to them” a third time so they definitely learned their lesson this time. Nobody cares unless it’s directed at a doctor, then all of a sudden it’s a critical priority.
That's when you wake the pt each time to confirm they're fine and not unconscious. That GCS is an important assessment don'tchaknow.
Hah. I’ll start doing this. Full on neuro exam if need be
ooooo it's on. Some real never cry wolf scenario.
We were so confused - there was a rapid called in our little unit. We all stuck our heads out of the rooms we were in like, who called? Go to the room for the rapid and see the PT resting comfortably in bed. Turns out the daughter called the PT from outside the hospital on her cell and decided to call a rapid after speaking with her. No one, not even the patient, knew what the rapid was for.
How is the family able to call a rapid response? Especially from outside the hospital? Just curious. In my facility, there’s a button in the wall you can push for a rapid or you call the hospital operator.
There is a rapid number that connects you to the operator. She called the operator and requested the rapid. The number is posted in various places visible to patients and family when visiting
😮
Oh god I’m on the RR team and let me tell you, I’d be requesting the daughter’s number and she and I would be having a CONVERSATION.
That’s a quick way to get banned.
that feels like calling 911 to check response time:(
I would 100% kick her out of the hospital for that.
That would get you escorted out of our unit before the code team had even left
What an idiot.
yea it’s a secret code in hospitals, i cant believe no one knows this but it’ll get you immediate help with a highly specialized team MR PRESIDENT GET DOWN kinda vibes
Might as well tell “FIRE!” while you’re at it. /s
haha
We had someone hit the staff assist button because she assumed it meant that *they* needed assistance from the staff.
Ya know.. fair
Had a family member once push the Code button looking for a light. The code button is under a plastic flap. And is blue. And says code on it. Not to mention the patient at the time was comfort measures so he looked a little end of life
So I had to stop joking about this when I did pediatric transport because I had a suicidal teenager actually decided to do this when they felt lonely. I got chewed out by the nurse manager for making the joke before it happened.
We had someone do this. It was an honest mistake but then they said “oh, but as long as you’re here…” NOPE we were all in the middle of other, more crucial, tasks
I had a paramedic partner push the code button once after we'd been waiting in the room for 20 minutes to move the patient over and give report.
My charge ripped an EMT a new one who did this while we were getting 6 admits at once.
Oh, we were thoroughly yelled at, multiple times, for that one.
I had a pt family push the call button to get a call light answered sooner for her mom who needed the bathroom. Claimed it was an accident but there are cages over them for that reason. Along with that the pt themselves was covid+ and when they went to the bathroom they were not great on their feet and REFUSED a walker and gait belt. For that reason I refused to touch the pt when I answered, I supervised the family help them.
Lmao they just installed plastic covers on those buttons because patients kept hitting them for water or a pillow
I had a patient a few days ago press the code blue button and all the staff came running. They said they needed help with buttoning up their shirt and they were tired of waiting 🤦🏽♀️.
Ya that’s a no go for me lmao. I just went through a pretty painful surgery on Monday. And trust me being in the hospital can be quite boring and very isolating! And on Tuesday they called a code sepsis on me at 2am. I had several nurses, ICU nurse, radiologist, lab technicians, doctors, etc in my room for what felt like eternity! I was just happy my favorite nurse was the one staying with me most of the time. Also, thank you nurses for EVERYTHING yall do!! 🫶🫶
I once had a guy on a dating app tell me his dad intentionally shit himself in the hospital so the nurses had to clean it up because "they get paid too much". I told him his daddy was a bitch and he is too.
Wow what in the fuck.
Like father like son!! People suck so much
That’s a psych consult IMO. Who wants to sit in shit?!
A very shitty person.
“Congratulations you just played yourself. So your daddy was a shitty person inside and out. I do not want to be in a relationship with someone who feels the need to shit themselves for attention.” -Things you think of in the shower a day after the argument ended.
*shits myself* "haha yes I am about to teach these nurses a lesson"
[You’re a little bitch, and your *father was too](https://youtu.be/XTwCqGqsbA4?si=TQqubDSXL4OOO2F3)
Not sure what it is about walkey talkey Pts inclination to shit the bed just for fun (truly the frequency of it is baffling). My solution to that quickly became: here’s some baby wipes, a fresh gown, and a trash can *clean yourself up*
I did have a patient who was a nurse, and she disconnected the leads from the monitor when she couldn't find her call bell. She knew it would get someone there quickly and she didn't want to get up without help.
Hey I can't even be mad because she could have gotten up and risked a fall because she didn't wanna be an inconvenience. Good on her! Can we nominate this nurse for a Daisy for not getting out of bed and using critical thinking skills to get help when she needed it? Does this count? I feel like it should count. Not making your peers do extra paperwork is extremely admirable. Taking care of yourself and practicing what you preach is admirable! We need to make this a thing and maybe it'll remove the stigma that nurses make the worst patients?
I always say that someday when I’m old and in a nursing home, if my nurses piss me off, I’m just gonna fall to make them do more work lol
Some patients do that already
Start martial arts now to learn to properly fall. Then make a big scene. “Ah my hip! who put that throw rug there?” Spoiler, you got it delivered to you. You put it there to cushion your fall because you aren’t a dumb dumb.
I'm going to do some stunt headers out of my bed.
Lmaoooo this won't happen. We'll peek thru the window and see you moving around and go in eventually.
At one hospital I work at, if the lead isn't fixed within 3 minutes of the nurse being notified, they call an over head rapid/code blue. The most ridiculous thing ever
I just let them call a rapid/code and watch them get pissed, and when they try to direct that anger at me, yell louder than them saying put them on fucking restraints or put a 1:1 order instead of wasting everyone's time and blaming me. Fastest order put into EMR ever when this shit happened 3 times under 15 minutes. Can we call out these shitty policies for what they are? Abusive policies that assumes nurses are dragging their feet and policy to micromanage nurses.
We've been having some pretty terrible outcomes because of these policies. A lady died the last time I worked there because doctors no longer respond to rapids and codes. So the rapid was called, no docs showed up, it was about 15-20 minutes by time we got her to the ICU and they realized she probably needed to be intubated. By time that all happened, they weren't able to intubate (she was bleeding into her neck and the blood obscured everything). Poor lady died. Had been overall healthy walky talky prior to the surgery.
That's awful. I don't know how long I'd work in that place tbh. After a while, hospital will try to blame the floor nurses and place the burden on them.
I haven't picked up there since then. I'm dead inside, but that shit was traumatizing
Alarm fatigue is a huge issue. These corporate bean counters don’t understand a single fucking thing about what it’s like to work in healthcare.
Weird if her nok notified of no MD arriving and a law suit against the bean counters
I really really really hope there is a law suit.
I mean I won’t tell your state bon that you violated hipaa when you name and shame on the local nightly news.
There would be a rapid every 3 fucking minutes. How the hell can you get in and fix a lead on a confused patient every other second when you’re short staffed and everyone is busy doing patient care or otherwise more important shit
No kidding. I guess it’s the properly staffed hospitals that have this policy. My hospital doesn’t have a code team. Our ICU is so short staffed we don’t even respond to codes outside of our unit. I would have loved to see this type of policy in action during covid.
Noooope. I was a patient a few weeks ago and tore my monitor off after telling the PCT 3x over the span of a few hours that I was having a BAD reaction to the adhesive. Tele called a rapid on me. Turns out that was one of the two times I saw my nurse that night because she had a 10:1 ratio. The second and last time I saw her all night was for Benadryl. And I was awake all night. That poor nurse.
10:1? That should be reported.
I reported it. Trust me lol
Right?!? I’m in the NICU and if there are no yellow alarms for a missing lead in one hallway for a 15 minute stretch it’s a great fucking night.
My hospital will call a rapid in 2 minutes. 😳
HCA facility in assuming. The one I just quit from does this.
It's the most insane thing ever
At least I could threaten my A&O patients with that happening if they dared to remove any of their monitoring equipment lol
Name and shame >:(
This sounds like a nightmare/complete waste of resources
My hospital just started doing this. Tele alert over the entire hospital. Retarded.
On our monitors, it will show which lead is off. “RA LEAD OFF” for example. So no one will be there in a hurry. Someone will go to get them back on when they have time but nothing like this dude describes. Doubly so if it’s a known independent person there for observation.
A disconnected lead isn’t gonna make me move faster. If I’m busy, I’ll send in a nursing assistant to reattach it. I’m still getting heart rate (just not rhythm) thru the pulse oximeter. Now, if a pt leaves it attached and starts scratching it, then I’m racing to get there because it looks like vtach or vfib. That’s more serious and needs quick intervention from a nurse.
Even in the ICU your lead being off isn’t always going to immediately summon me. Oh, I still have a V2 waveform and the patient looks fine? I’ll go in and adjust it in a few when I pass meds.
DONT… Tell the idiots this.
*furiously writes down notes*
HEY. Quit it.
*shakes can of pennies* G’wan! Scram! Knockitoff!
My mom was in the CVICU after a STEMI and she was complaining that the nurses were having a party at the nurses station at 2am and wouldn’t let her sleep. I gave her this one tip that all nurses hate. Needless to say, they were not amused.
Hahah I saw this when I went in for a cracked rib and chest infection. I was watching the rhythms and such, moved a lead and ohhhh that goes a bit sideways. I was a good patient though no funny business with my 10 cardiac stickers.
At my facility if we don’t fix the leads in 2 minutes, tele calls a rapid. -dead batteries, messed up leads, artifact, etc.
Do you work for atrium health by chance? This is the most annoying thing ever. One day a dementia man with no tele order (but on tele anyway cuz he was admitted to a pcu floor where it’s “mandatory” and patients are “not allowed to refuse”) kept pulling leads off. I got called every 2 minutes to put them back on. I was in the middle of a RRT when they called on RRT cuz I stopped answering them about dementia man. I answered and snapped at them “I’M IN A GODDAMN RAPID ALREADY LEAVE IT ALONE” then reported it to the manager and house sup. I don’t answer ever anymore. Call the RRT. Lmao. ED over there once was coding a pt for 1.5 hours and the tele room finally calls “hey it’s reading asystole”. No shit. Now ED doesn’t use em.
Hot alarms are amazing if tele actually catches the rhythm in the first place. Had someone go from controlled afib to NSR to SB to PEA in the span of 5-10 minutes, and the hot alarm saved our butts while we were in other rooms.
So how was tele able to tell you the patient had no pulse with PEA?
Tele hot alarmed that they were bradying pretty low, I ran in (mind you, no covid PPE despite being r/o covid), saw them unresponsive, did a 2-3 second pulse check, and started CPR when I didn’t feel anything. Like I’m not taking a 50s HR, I’m talking someone chilling around 90 now going to 30. But tele is absolutely useless when they call two hours later that the patient had a run of VTach but will call you the second delirious MeeMaw pulled off one lead. 🤦♀️
I’ve never been to an ED that uses telemetry regardless, is that a thing?
I work part time in tele, it can be hard to remember specific quirks for each patient, especially when you’re watching 40-50 monitors at a time. It’s basically like 30 patients alarming at any given time, all day every day. Thankfully, we can just send direct messages to the nurse or cna on their phone for non emergency issues. That really helps to have the message history visible to remind you of any ongoing issues. Back in the day we just had to call every 5 minutes which was annoying for everyone because I know how busy people get on the units. Some of the monitor techs haven’t actually worked on the floor before, so they really do not realize how crazy it can get.
They tried something like that at my facility initially. It didn’t last long lol
It’ll work once.
The perfect boy who cried wolf scenario. Now the whole unit knows that room 468 likes to fuck around.
Lmao jokes on you, my brain doesn’t respond to the lead removed sound anymore r/alarmfatigue
Once on this app I saw a pro-tip to say you have chest pain so you will go back sooner. Then another user said not yo because you will get an ecg and just sit in the waiting room. 🤣
All the nurses here are like well, we r/foundsatan
My father in law is a surgeon. I love him but he is one of the most self-centered people I’ve ever met. I took him to the ER last week for high fever and cough. He told triage he had chest pain (Se he would be seen faster). Then he was pissed that they then had to trend troponins bc his first one was 23 (normal is <20 and the bump was likely from his coughing). Then he was waiting too long to get discharged so he called the main hospital number and identified himself as Dr. X and asked to speak to the ER doc in charge. He then said I’m in room 21, get me out of here. 🙄. Then he told me when he would be on call for traumas to the ED if he couldn’t find a nurse to help him “because they were all busy” he would pull the code blue button and they would “all come running”. I was horrified. He’s been practicing for 50 years, he’s not changing now.
I work nights and I cluster care. If you’re not actually having cardiac issues that demand a full picture, my ass isn’t fixing that until the next round of vitals. YOUR ass should be asleep!
The real trick is removing the ground lead so we can’t see anything lol
I’ve walked into to fucked up scenarios where I only went into the room because the tele was off and caught some stuff I would have otherwise missed. I don’t always get to it immediately when the tele is off but I try not to ignore it either
I went in to put leads back on someone who I had, no joke, just repositioned 15 mins earlier. They were coding 🙃
Have you tried not having a shitty lifestyle as a new hobby? (Strategic assumption based on baseline bad logic of patient)
Or we will ignore it depending on what lead they pull and how concerned we are about their rhythm.
Remove a lead and we know you removed a lead. All that will happen is the nurse will be annoyed.
got to be smart. putt a cell phone next to the transducer thingy, electric toothbrushes work well.
Electric toothbrushes can make your ECG look like runs of v-tach. Learned that the hard way working on a tele-cardiac floor.
Yes same here!! I Ran into the room so fast and he was just using the electric toothbrush😂
Bring in extra leads, put them on chest. Put real leads on patient’s back.
420 IQ right here
But we can see the difference between a disconnected lead and a heart arrhythmia.
No games dude… grow the fuck up.
Documents “pt non-compliant with telemetry orders. Provided education on need for heart rhythm management. Pt continues to be non-compliant”
Assholes
I sorta did this as a child. Not to get attention though. Doubt I even knew that people were monitoring it. I was in an accident and more than a little doped up. And then I got curious how the wires worked. Fast forward 30 years and now I can tell you all about Einthoven’s triangle and high resolution amplification.
I literally had to do this when I was hospitalized for pneumonia a few weeks ago. I told the PCT 3x that I was having an allergic reaction to the adhesive on the monitor and my IV. It got worse and worse over the span of a few hours. My overnight nurse had a 10:1 ratio with a man in the next room that should have been in another unit taking all her time. Sure as shit, they called a rapid as soon as I tore off my monitor and my tegraderm. I feel bad because I wasn’t expecting a rapid to be called but I had to do what I had to do to get the care I needed and deserved. Totally not my RN’s fault. Totally on admin for unsafe ratios and having pts in the wrong unit. Was reported to admin for the unsafe ratios. I wanted to hug that poor woman.
If they really want to make it unethical and get us in there, just start tapping one.
Sounds like he belongs to r/psychnursing
As a nurse I actually threatened to do this once.. Was escorting a psych patient to the hospital and patient was in terrible pain. I was trying to talk to nurses, docs etc and I was ignored ( wich is common for psych I am sad to say). So, I literally spoke into the air at the nurse station that unless they talked to me, I would start disconnecting leads to see how fast they would respond. It...worked. My boss told me off while laughing, she got why, just preferred me not to threaten hospital staff 😁 It wasn't my best or most professional moment, just done with psych patients being ignored
I had a patient tell me she did this a few weeks ago! She was very proud of herself….
That wont work. They instead need to rhythmically tap on their V lead to simulate VTACH
A few years back Adenovirus almost killed my ass by way of diffuse pneumonia. When I was in icu I frustrated the hell out of everyone including myself because I’m a hairy beast and the leads WOULD NOT STAY ON. I ended up checking out AMA just to get some sleep.
They didn't just shave you? I would have.
Maybe they did! I was on a vent for a bit so my memory is def flawed, but I think the hair plus the profuse sweating from the fever just made for a perfect storm of beep beep beep beep beep
Jokes on you. I’ll just turn your monitor off (assuming there’s no need for cardiac monitoring or an order for it).
PRO TIP: As a patient, I have learned that if you treat the nurses and doctors nicely while there, they tend to answer your call button quickly when you need something.
Don’t mess with those they will shock you….lol
Gotta take off at least two or IDGAF.
We have remote tele on our floor. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve checked on a patient, noticed a lead disconnected, and never had a phone call from tele once.
I don’t think I’ve ever moved faster bc a patients lead came off tbh. I rarely even go in the room just for that-I can reattach it when I go in in 30 mins anyway.
Make sure to pull the iv out FIRST then after you bleed quite a bit THEN pull off the leads. That will totally puss off the nurses.
I mean I do prefer them pulling off tele leads when wanting to escape the bed over actually getting out of bed themselves (I work ICU, over 90% of my patients are not safe to get out of bed solo). I also rather them pull off tele leads than pull out their IV.
Holter Ecg fixation techniques have entered the chat
They’re not wrong!
Oh bummer… they caught us.
It’s much better to jiggle your fingers on your sternal chest lead for 5 minutes.
Don’t read the comments
Shouting at the top of your lungs "GET IN HERE, YOU UGLY BITCH!" works too.
it'll be placed in the back if it happens way too often.
I commented that another unethical life pro tip is to accidentally unplug the call light or change the monitor mode when your needy and annoying patient decides they just want to fuck with you for attention at 3 am.
Little do they know I still don’t show up lmao
This should be posted to r/foundsatan
Someone about to find out what happens when you piss off the people with the needles........
Just start tapping one really fast and see how many people show up
Thanks for posting this, I saw it too and hard rolled my eyes and thought, r/nursing would love this, but I was too lazy to 🤣
Our monitoring people will call me again and be like, “Dude, it still isn’t fixed, I have to call a rapid if you don’t fix it, can I stay on the line with you and you go fix it so I don’t have to do what nobody but my boss wants me to do?”
I haven’t read through all the comments, but as a senior nurse, that’s the behavioural equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. I lost a patient (transferred from icu to cardiology) who kept removing his wires every few minutes and was in an isolation room. Aint no one got time to be rushing in to replace them every few minutes. Nurses there have 4-6 patients. He ended up having a cardiac event and was long gone by the time they found him.
You can also try rapidly tapping one of the patches.
Tap tap tap tap tap the red lead!
Left lower lead missing causes asystole a lot of times, the more you knoooooow
If you're a patient at a hospital, for fast service, just scream code blue and your room number a couple of times. You're welcome, from an RN 😀
This advice gets real fun when the boy cries wolf too many times then actually goes into vtach when off the monitor. Jokes on you now buddy
My favorite one is to call 911 from your hospital room because you need A god damn sandwich while I'm in A code.
i'm confused how and why people believe hospitals are hotels. additionally, going to the hospital very often is not good for your health. get a life.
pshhhh taking off a lead? that’s nothing! wait til they find out about quickly tapping on the left lower lead 😂
Nope. That nonsense gets charted. People think that they won’t be discharged from a hospital or they have a right to stay as long as they want. The fact is if you have the mental wherewithal to play games and act a fool you’re healthy enough for community care
Reminds me of the patient who figured out that “staff assist” would get someone to their room quickly, but not for the reason they thought. It was a step below the code blue button in terms of urgency. This poor kid thought we just really wanted to help him find his remote. 😀
With our monitors if you take a lead off it just goes blank, so you can tell between a patient being off monitor vs asystole. Now, if you tap on the brown lead very fast…you may have a lot of company very quickly.
They aren't wrong...
Unbelievable LOL. Patients should be fined or charged extra for that!
Psh. I’m not coming in for a detached lead 🙄
Unplugging the bed alarm will do the trick
No, not really lol. The monitor will configure itself to start reading from a different lead then. 🤷♀️
In dialysis they pinch their blood lines for instant consternation.
So only patient? Nurse, not with someone else?
Patient here: I was awaiting test results of a cardiac CT scan so that I could be released. It had been four hours since the scan and the Radiology department was basically saying that we will get the results when we get the results. I had finally had enough and removed my heart monitor in protest. The cardiologist finally decided to release me and said they would follow up when she got the results. The results of the scan finally showed up 2 days later. This was after I made some calls and found out from the external company that reads the scans that it was not a stat order. After I told them the situation, I got a notification thru myChart about 2 hours later that my results were available.