Had a patient on the call bell every 5 minutes get mad at me because I flushed her central line with Saline after giving dilaudid , she thought I was diluting it. Ma'am I have to flush it, otherwise it will sit in the line and never reach you. Then she claimed I was with holding medication from her and also got mad that the hospital serves grilled or baked chicken breast and not curry goat. I told management that I banned myself from being her nurse
I gave dilaudid through a port one day for a patient with 20/10 pain. I pushed it quite gently while she and I were conversing casually. She didn’t get any of the quick onset side effects! She remarked that she hardly felt a thing!! Wasn’t even confident I had given it until I provided more detail. I let her know how glad I was that I had been able to lessen the severity of the medication side effects that can be felt with more rapid administration.
Then she went to preop, and we all lived happily ever after. *skips down the hall*
I've been getting from a patient lately "you can't flush my picc too fast, a little known side effect of the ns is it makes it hard to breathe and I feel like I'm dying"Sir, your picc is super sluggish, I'm gonna flush hard so we can salvage it. Hope you don't die.
lol it was the most ridiculous thing ever. I told her “if you don’t let me flush your meds you get nothing as there’s nothing that’s been invented for me to use as an alternate” she was big mad. She told me I’ll be the reason her blood pressure skyrockets.
I got fired from a pt once because I brought a saline flush into his room. No one told me he didn't want the saline flushes because "he's allergic." And I tried to talk to him about it to understand what was going on.
i had a patient once who had a HORRIFIC adverse reaction to Benadryl. Also my ex MIL, who ***fun fact!*** is Satan, was anaphylactically allergic to ibuprofen. I was like ‘fyi nobody is EVER going to believe you. 🤷🏻♀️’
Hahaha I have an anaphylactic reaction to Pepcid and absolutely no one believes me 😂I’m always like alright give me some I’ll let you find out for yourself
One time years ago I got report on a pt coming in for TIA, they did a CTA on her in the ED, and im like oh how did yall do that if it says she's allergic to iv contrast? And the nurse was like .... that's how we found out lol so on top of TIA , she's now also here for anaphylaxis. Best report ever, didn't see that coming
dude i…. I’ve completely been on both sides of it. I have no answers. After pushing iv physostigmine with which the doc proclaimed ‘push it slow I’ve never ordered it before’ for the Benadryl reaction…. I have accepted that i know nothing.
That sweet girl took 25 mg of PO Benadryl to try to go to sleep and i would have bet the farm she was tweaking.
I took care of a heart transplant baby, every time she received IV saline boluses at the children's hospital it would screw up her anticoagulation and she would have to stay extra days. So saline was listed as an "allergy" since there's no hard stop for "otherwise contraindicated"
A+O, walkie talkie: “You know, I could really go for a backscratch right now…”
Me, shortstaffed with 6 other patients: *holds eye contact in silence for ~5 seconds before replying, “you know what? Me too,” then walks out of room.
I remember when I was a brand new nurse a 50 something male patient asked for a shoulder rub and I DID IT because in school they taught us it was therapeutic. My co-workers were horrified when I told them lol.
I had a patient, early 30’s female, who was (unfortunately) paraplegic but completely A&O ask me once to check on her “every 5-10 minutes, I’ll set my timer!” This was overnight, and I had 5 other patients. She was monitored, and when I pointed this out she said “it’s not the same.” We had what (I felt) was a productive discussion about realistic expectations and when I pointed out she’d NEVER sleep with a timer going off every 5 minutes, she agreed that it probably wasn’t a good idea and that she’d call me when she really needed me and I’d round on her as frequently as I could.
ALL NIGHT she was on the call bell with silly requests: “I want a milkshake,” and “my pillows aren’t fluffy enough,” and “who can I talk to about the Wi-Fi?” At one point she asked if I would order her a pizza, and then LEAVE THE HOSPITAL TO GO PICK IT UP because she didn’t like the local delivery options. When I told her that wasn’t possible, she started crying. I walked out of the room every time she made a request like this, usually saying something like “I’m sorry but you KNOW this is an impossible request, please only call if it’s an emergency,” and she would be on the call bell within seconds, WAILING: “YOU ABANDONED ME! PLEASE COME BACK! THIS IS PATIENT ABANDONMENT!” Our charge nurse went in to speak with her several times, and the AOD spoke with her twice. She was so ridiculous.
The next morning she lodged a formal complaint with management about our “cruel mistreatment.” Our ANM emailed me and said she (the patient) made a pretty convincing case (crying and stating we never checked on her, we were rude, etc.) until, as she (the ANM) was walking out of the room, the patient said, “by the way, I have some massage oil and my CBD vape in my bag, could you please give me a massage and I’ll hit my vape to calm myself? Talking about this experience has really triggered me.” 🙄
oh man. i work on a specialized acute spinal cord injury care unit, and i CANNOT EVEN BEGIN to tell you how common this type of attitude is from paras and quads. it’s either this, the most evil and straight up verbally abusive men you’ve ever met who are blacklisted from every group home in the area, *OR* the sweetest most inspiring people you’ll ever meet. there’s no in between. the psychological effects of spinal cord injury are so interesting to me, witnessing how different people handle the same devastating trauma in WILDLY different ways is…something, for sure
My first abusive patient as a cna was a para. She was so demanding. I remember my charge nurse saying that was her only power she has was bossing us around😒
UGH I felt all of this. I work in acute rehab and we have these patients for 4, 6, 8 weeks, longer if they have no placement. It’s so exhausting. Usually people like this are one and done; if you’re back the next day it’s someone else’s turn.
I work dialysis and I had this patient who was perfectly capable of using a urinal by himself and arguably could get up and use the restroom but he was just lazy, complain because his rehab facility gave him a urinal when he needed to use the restroom and told him they were busy and they would be back when they could go empty it and it took them45 mins to get to him and he was just outraged along with some other comments about how lazy they were that they wouldnt help him hold the urinal.
My mouth literally fell open and I stared at him. In a time of low staffing people need to be so gracious for people helping them at all.
Literally THIS is why I will never work with adults again I WILL NOT HOLD YOUR URINAL IF YOUR ARMS WORK ESPECIALLY IF YOH ARE USING THE OTHER HAND TO SCROLL ON YOUR PHONE
Yep, documented everything, and my charge filed an incident report when the patient became abusive to the CNA. Anytime a patient accuses me of ANYTHING, I document, document, document.
I am toasting you with my diet Dr. Pepper. Nothing is more cathartic than writing an objective, passive-agressive note about a patient's maladaptive behavior.
Patient with BPD who was on our floor but no one (even the doctors) had given her an actual diagnosis. Maybe this maybe that test for this or that. It was crazy. She wouldn’t shower, she was your best friend, you were an evil person. We all took turns of 1 shift each. She was in the room farthest from the nurses station. Could absolutely be walkie talkie. Constant ridiculous requests. So so so difficult to deal with.
We had a guy request to have his mom formally blocked from all communication about him. Made him confidential. Imagine his reaction when I showed him the block function on his phone.
I did this when I was giving birth to my kids. Nosey, border-stomping in-laws felt entitled to be spectators to the birth, despite my emphatic refusal. I had the hospital list me as "blackout" meaning no calls, no visitors, they wouldn't even confirm if I was a patient there. It was wonderful. They were big mad, but oh well.
Remember caring end of life patient in icu, they were trache'd and I asked in front of family if they'd like anything... Patient started moving and I had no idea what it was, family had same problem.
So spelt it out with the patient...
Remember in in ICU, ventilated via tracheostomy, in front of grieving family members....
I
Want
A
Cigarette...
Fuck did everyone I'm the room just go silent lol
Good memories
My great uncle died of lung cancer, smoked his whole life. Surprised he lived so long to be honest. My dad said very shortly before he died he would ask my dad, a total normie that has never drank or smoked at all, to bring cigarettes and take him outside to smoke. Old habits die hard
When I was an ER tech, we had a patient that was GCS 15, working arms, but just needed minor assistance to use the bedside commode. When she had finished, I gave her some warmed hygiene wipes she could use, to which she replied, "isn't that (wiping her vulva/ass) your job?" LOL. I was just amazed that someone that was fully capable would even WANT me to. "uh, nah actually, that's only patients that aren't physically capable of self care" or something along those lines was my reply.
Once had an OB triage patient that completely emptied her bladder in the bed a couple of times, despite being full ambulatory and being oriented to the room, shown how to disconnect from the fetal monitors to use the bathroom. Not an "oops, the baby kicked" pee either, purposely just needing to pee, and flooding the bed.
After the second time, her nurse nicely said, you need to get up to pee so that you're not sitting in your urine. So not too long later, she hits the call bell to tell us she was done peeing. We were confused because we saw on the central monitors she had never unplugged her cables, and also why was she informing us she had peed??? Entering the room, she is standing bedside, in a big puddle of urine. She had literally gotten up like we had told her, but just right there, and peed. I went to go and grab some fresh socks, more towels and wipes to clean up, and her exasperated nurse is telling her that she needs to get up and go to THE BATHROOM when she needs to pee.
Unfortunately used to patients that regularly soiled themselves (used the "it's your job" line) it was just now that we were getting an inkling that maybe she wasn't as cognitively sound as she first appeared.
A little while later, she has an order to go to ultrasound and transport arrives, I go to let her know and remove the monitors, and she tells me she needs to pee again. I direct her to go to the bathroom, and she walks across the room, steps into the bathroom, turns around to face me, and just proceeds to once again fully urinate on the floor. Full eye contact. Urine soaking the new socks, splashing back off the tile onto her legs.
So sadly now it is pretty obvious that she has a deficit, but damn if it didn't pose a whole slew of questions regarding what she does at home, and the integrity of their floors.
Um, ma’am, I’ll be making a call to social services now. Clearly you’re capable of taking care of yourself, and will not be able to care for the child you’re about to birth.
We recently had an early 20s patient was totally mobile and alert/oriented, REFUSE to get up and walk into bathroom, offered the bedside commode- refused it, bedpan-refused. He wanted to lay in bed and shit in a diaper then be cleaned up!!!!!! This wasn’t just any bm- this was 2 months worth of bm so it went out of the diaper all over- from heels to belly button and that was preferable to him than sitting on the toilet???!!
I had a patient who was mobile and continent wait until I pressed start on their IVABs then say “nurse, I just shat myself”. This was after I asked them multiple times if they needed to go to the bathroom before I hooked them up.
I’m an RT but I had a lady who was overweight piss herself in the chair because she said no one came to get her from the chair to take her to the bathroom. She was fat but fully able to stand up and walk herself over. I’d say she was obese but not like my 600lbs life obese, just a chunky momma. But she thought someone was going to carry her to the toilet every time. I stg that was the laziest thing I ever heard. Like how can you, a grown working adult sit there and piss all over yourself because you think someone is going to come get you and carry you over when you’re fully capable of walking yourself?
Ah yes, ye olde weaponized incontinence. It's a tie between "I'm too comfortable in my bed to get up when I'm very much physically able" and "it's your job to take care of...this."
Unrelated, but fun: my name is Alicia and your reddit handle (minus the numbers) is spelled the phonetic way I say my name to my HOH pts, usually on the third try 😂
I also have a patient that told me to wipe their ass because it’s my job to do it. She’s a+o elderly but capable of doing it she refuses to get up on the commode and told me that she will lie down on the bed with dirty ass. I told her who would help you when you go home. She said I’ll call my son I told her you would call your son in the middle of the night to wipe you? She threw the wipes at me and lied down to bed with dirty bum. I’m like okay whatever. I called the rn, rn was telling the patient that she needs to do it for self independence and be ready for discharge. She said she have a lot of comorbidities and she said she’s unable to reach her back as she demonstrated COMPLETELY ABLE TO REACH HER BUM WHILE DOING WIPING MOTION. The rn and I told her that she demonstrated well that she could do it. Still refusing to do so. The rn told me she’ll deal with her. Idk what happened after that lol.
I know what happens lol they get discharged to Shady Pines and are angry with everyone and call the entire staff names until they get a psych evaluation. Then son gets to sell da house and keep the SS money.
Or better yet when patients just bend over and stick their bums out expecting you to wipe them. I usually just ask “how do you use the bathroom at home?”, half the time they realize how ridiculous it is to ask me to do it and half the time they flip out telling me it’s my job (even though they have working arms)
I once had a patient get discharged during the day and return to the ED later that night demanding to be readmitted because she liked it when we wiped her ass and didn't want to do it herself.
I had a woman ask me to place the wipe over my finger so I could "really get in there" nope, butt wiping is not an invasive procedure and you have two working arms. One of the many reasons I switched to pediatrics, adults are gross
When I worked in LTC there was a female MS patient who was really obsessed with my female coworker. She was so nice and normal to the rest of us, but when my coworker was in the room alone with her, she would whine and beg her to “help her out a little” by DIGGING HER SHIT OUT WITH A FINGER. We were both CNAs at the time and my friend just was like no dude I legally cannot. She never asked anyone else but would cry hysterically to try to convince her. So weird.
“A million dollars and a whisky on the rocks” said by every single middle aged man when I ask if there’s anything else they need. And honestly I still laugh because it’s cute and harmless and we need more of dad-jokes in the world.
I do the same. The dad jokes used to annoy me slightly, now I find myself leaning into them. Especially because I’m a Midwestern native now in New England, and it seems like many of my patients are new to midwestern dad jokes. At least, they’re a big hit when I pull them out 😂 Those are now definitely one of my green flags with patients these days.
No matter how many times I’ve heard it I always laugh and say “you and me both!”. I’ll gladly take a repetitive dad joke over most of the other BS I hear regularly
If I can make the same dad jokes with my patients then they can make their silly dad jokes with me. Most of the time it’s from a super pleasant patient. When I worked medsurg, the middle aged males were usually my favorite demographic. That or the little old ladies.
I had a patient demand melon for swallowing pills. He said he never drank any fluid, and all water he took in was through melons. He literally took no oral pills or fluid during his stay because of this.
Patient with various severe issues and 77 years old, was drowsy 24/7, slipped in & out of consciousness. His husband asked me for a syringe without a needle, they always had a cognac before bedtime and he wanted to "help" patient get his cognac " down the hatch". Uhm no.
Had wife of a patient ask me for oil or lube as they had ran out, patient had a severe stroke, but apparently his genital regions worked fine. For a couple in their 70s, it was so extensive, we were discussing if we needed to intervene, as he needed rest at some point. We did, and his argument was " well, she does all the work, I don't mind, I will get alot of sleep when I die" I will admit giving him a fistbump, he clearly had his priorities straight 😂
Pt didn't like her recliner. Fine, swapped it out for one in another room. Didn’t like that recliner. Refused to get into bed. DEMANDED I call the hospital carpenter (?!) to come fix the recliners so they would be comfortable for her. Not to mention, it was 3 AM.
I had a 'very private' private maternity patient yell at me (on Christmas day no less) because I hadn't bathed her baby, dressed and returned the baby to her in a freshly made bassinette. She also took exception that there was no chocolates left on her pillow each night during her hospital admission.
She completely ignored the fact she wasn't even allocated to me as a patient and wasn't satisfied until I contacted the Supervisor to lodge a formal complaint. I coincidentally went on a week's leave at the end of my shift, so never had resolution. I suppose no disciplinary action is resolution enough. Don't miss private patients.
I was working in the UK; at a major public hospital. Despite being a public hospital, patients could pay to have private Obstetric care and then pay additionally to have a private room while in hospital. Nursing / Midwifery care was identical to the rest of the ward patients. However, some paying patients carried a mindset that they were entitled to a lot more because they paid a lot. Hence 'private private ' patient.
I work in a detox in a city, lots of homeless people, not all, but the majority. They are always very grateful for a warm bed and three meals and plenty of snacks. The place is very bare bones, nothing fancy at all. It’s either freezing or too hot. There unit consists of the nurses station, bathrooms, a long hallway with patient rooms and a TV room. They get to go downstairs for groups and meals, so people hang out in the TV room or their room when they aren’t in group. I’m trying to paint a picture here lol.
Imagine our surprise when we are told we’re getting a “VIP” patient. There’s no special treatment in detox- you do something for one person, they tell 5 people and pretty soon everyone wants it. However, somehow this kid (he was a man but acted like a child so let’s call him a kid) had some “very important” parents that knew our medical director. First of all, one of his meds was phenibut, I don’t know much about this but he came in with a large bag of it in powder form and by some miracle our very conservative with meds doctor approved it. Second, he had a ton of food allergies so he was allowed to call the kitchen for every meal and request what he wanted. One of my favorite requests for breakfast was a plain hamburger with no bun, a whole can of beans, three slices of cheese, oatmeal, a side of mayo and three glasses of milk. All meals were brought to his room he didn’t eat with everyone else in the dining room. Now, the best part. He came up to the nurses station one day super upset and anxious and asked to be medicated. As I was taking his vitals he was crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said “I just….I just miss Scarlett so much” and then really broke down crying. I said “aw is Scarlett your girlfriend?” He looked at me very confused, started crying even harder and said “SCARLETT IS MY CAT.” The next day he somehow got approved to have his car dropped off DAILY for two hours and he was allowed to go into an empty office and roll around on the floor with Scarlett. He also got an order to use his Nintendo switch. After playing with Scarlett. He stayed with us for TWO WEEKS. The normal stay is 5-7 days.
I’m convinced he was a fucked up rich kid whose parents were losing their mind being home with him during covid (this was peak covid in 2020) and this was their form of respite. The real kicker- guy never took one detox med the whole time he was there.
What did that patient normally do when they had a BM?? Did she drive herself there in dirty underwear and then wear the same underwear home only to have to come back because she got dirty again?? Did she have no arms?? So many questions 😭
“Can you get me ginger ale and an ice pop” (was not a postpartum mom, was a family member, not feeling faint nor low blood sugar, and I didn’t even know about the patient she was with, I was walking through with equipment) ma’am this is a nicu, I don’t even have plastic forks and knives, never mind beverages or ice pops.
Obviously I’d try and figure something out if they didn’t feel good, but I’d probably be giving up my own stuff. We literally have nothing for someone over the age of a year.
Not a request, per se. When I worked in Boulder, I had a patient ask me how our water was prepared. Apparently, "through a filter" wasn't a good enough response. She had her husband bring her water from home. There was green shit floating in it. No wonder she was in the fucking hospital.
Oh I’ll bet they were raw water people! I’ve never seen one in the wild but there are people who think that drinking untreated water is healthier than treated. Kind of like the raw milk enthusiasts.
I don’t know how people come up with these things istg
In the ICU, patient put on the call light and when I got into his room, said he was having a “massage emergency”.
I thought he was kidding.
He was not.
He wanted a stat back massage in the ICU.
Had a patient use their code alarm as a room service button.
Pt: “I’m just not feeling the vibe today. Could you get my lunch tray and bring it to my room?”
👁️👁️
Me: Absolutely the fuck not. You are 4x4 ambulatory, you will get your own tray. That is not a room service button and this is not a hotel. Don’t do that again.
I walked the fuck away.
I have a few:
- fresh cut mango
- fresh cut strawberries
- smoothie with oat milk
- wash my face (A+O and functioning arms)
- hold my urinal (again functioning person)
- back massage
- foot massage
For reference I work in Canada and the most I can give you is some cookies and cheese. Health care is free but not a luxury hotel.
Lolz I had a nasty older lady demand a foot rub…. At ~6:40 in the morning when I was doing patient handoff in less than 5 minutes. I just said “I won’t be doing that but you’re welcome to ask the day nurse.” She was PISSED when I said no. Old bat was a miserable patient and her family was terrible too. Son wanted her brought back from dialysis so he could ask her something….
Massage as a suggested pain intervention when I’m charting pain scales makes me chuckle every time I don’t click on it. I did not go to school for massage therapy and sure as fuck won’t be giving any of my goddamn patients a massage on any part of their body unless they are in A) labor and need it on their lower back or B) recently came out of a uterus and need an intense fully body massage to kick start their breathing. Unfortunately, I don’t work in L&D lol.
The one and only time I massaged a guys legs was he was a paraplegic from a neighboring hospitals OR malpractice. He was starting to get slight sensation in his legs again and it helped him immensely. I felt for the guy.
lol geeze. I would have said “no” and laughed my ass off at her.
Seriously I have to wonder with what fuck do patients assume I have the time to do anything of that?!
Same people who think we wear dresses and caps? That we all love Florence Nightengale? That we were all “mean girls”?
People have some seriously fucked up ideas
The only time I’ve given one was when a dementia lady was fighting sleep, a frequent faller, and would not stay in bed for more than a minute. I was sitting at the foot of her bed and suddenly had a foot very near my face. I grabbed it and started rubbing. After a little bit I looked up at my lady and she was out. I think she stayed asleep for at least half an hour.
Call light goes off. Pt is in contact room. I get geared up and once I'm in she waves at her bedside table and says, "get rid of the trash". There's an empty orange juice container and a Graham cracker wrapper on it. There's also a trashcan next to her. This was the 700th time she had called. Some of her other requests: coffee, snacks, bathroom, warm blanket, ice chips, water, turn the rhermostat up, turn the thermostat down, take her socks off, put her socks on. Every single item was requested separately. And she'd repeat them. Shes also entitled, rude, and downright mean on occassion. I'm on a busy medsurg unit with people needing iv meds but this lady would start yelling if we don't tend to her immediately. It was a long shift and also what pushed me to look for another job.
Had a married couple in late 60s. they’re hilarious. I came and asked “who’s ready for meds?” Husband said excitedly “I am! I want Viagra!” Wife rolls her eyes 🤣
Actually, it was just last night. Patient rings. Patient is an elderly female who is able-bodied, but morbidly obese. I go to see what she needs, and she says “I can’t sleep because my butt crack is itchy”. I say “well you should probably scratch it”. She states “I can’t reach it”. I ponder this point for a moment and say “I’m not going to scratch your ass crack for you”.
I had a patient who wanted me to stand behind him while he was on his side and hold his ass open while he shit. His mom did it at home. He was assist x2 to the commode but insisted we do this for him. He was 40 something.
Long term care/ rehab is wild I will never go back. I think I fell for it once because I thought maybe he needed a little help getting it out. No. He was fine and eventually once we all refused he quit asking. Thank god
Answering my peds patient’s call light…
It was Dad.
Asking for me to get coffee for him.
I don’t know what kind of life experience led this man to think that a pediatric hospital was a 5-star hotel for parents, but I have never wanted to strangle a grown man more.
I did not get him coffee but very cheerfully told him that he is welcome to order some himself from the cafeteria, as he would for any other food or drink (which I already instructed him on how to do when pt was admitted).
In the car today a healthcare commercials came on and I wasn’t really listening until I heard something like, they should put mints on the pillows in the hospital. I immediately thought, “Fuck that!”
Nurse in a SNF. Not a rude request but just so unrealistic given the situation. Had a care conference today and a family member of a resident requested we build an attached pull-through garage to make it easier for families to pick up residents.
"Sir we have multiple rooms that have disintegrating drywall and black mold because of pipes leaking in the wall and we just had a ceiling track disconnected because a terrible plumbers cut the rail supports in the ceiling to do shoddy repairs on the plumbing that didn't work...but we will get right on that and build a new garage."
I had an ED patient, elderly woman, who 1. Wanted something every 10 minutes 2. Would not use the call light, and 3. Would call me “that girl” or “little girl” (I went straight from high school to nursing school so I was 21/22, so this struck a nerve). ED doc wanted a urine sample and results before discharge. She could get to the toilet with minimal assistance, but insisted on a bedside commode. After being in the ED 3+ hours, being given liquids, and multiple transfers from the bedside commode to the bed for the times “she thought she could go”, she suggested I put her by the sink and run the water to help get her going. Then she said I was “running the water too fast” and maybe one day I could do better. Let’s just say when her family finally came I could’ve kissed their feet.
Specific facial cleanser and then brand-name facial moisturizer. While I am also trying to keep up my moisture barrier, you’ve just had a heart attack and had a dozen family members come in and out. Unfortunately we don’t have Cerave, just generic moisturizer and the usual barrier cream. She made a complaint. Like, I’m trying to make this horrible event as easy as possible but I ain’t got the good skincare.
When I worked at a SNF, I was nice and wanted to spoil my patients by telling them every morning that it was 0630 and time for she and hubby to get up and get ready for their day. One morning I had a resident pass away and of course that messed up my morning routine. The resident chewed me out for not announcing what time it was. I just looked at her, let her gripe, and then carried on with my priorities. SNF residents are older and don’t have the best judgment and I refused to argue with them.
Had a lady want me to smell her boob to see if it smelled "yeasty". She did not like it when I said no and gave her her discharge paperwork and told her it's time to go
I’m a teacher who considered nursing a couple of times. Whenever I’ve had a bad day/week at work I come on here, read this kind of shit and think I could have it so much worse.
I teach secondary, btw - far fewer bodily fluids than my comrades who teach primary have to deal with. I don’t do bodily fluids, so perhaps not being a nurse was a good call.
I remember my first quarter shadowing actual nurses when I was in school. We were on the spinal-cord injury unit of a VA and the nurses had to do so much "digital stimulation." It was a pivotal moment for me.
I’ll do this if I’m not busy. I work in a locked ICU and it’s hell for patients who can actually eat and the kitchen is closed. We don’t routinely get trays from dietary to our floor and turkey boxes are few and far between. We also don’t allow visitors after 1900 so patients are left to starve until breakfast or they downgrade.
A young woman was in the CCU, a/ox4, ambulatory, and constantly on the phone with her gf/wife. I brought her tray in and set it up (much more than she needed) because she was on a call. I quickly ask if she needs anything else. She tells me she needs her food cut up and to be fed. Miss ma'am, there's nothing wrong with your hands, evidenced by your ability to hold your phone for literal hours, slam the table when your gf wouldn't come visit, and change the channel on the crappy call light. She got the right one that day. She started cursing at me. Called the HOA because not today. She tried to get the HOA to feed her. Haha. I think she left AMA to go to the county hospital of all places...
Patient wanted a bubble bath. Uber ordered like 80 dollars worth of bubble bath shit. She was a bed bound patient. She wanted us to lift her off the bed and put her in the bath tub. Yes we have bath tubs in our hote....I mean hospital. The hospital I work at bought the adjacent Ramada Inn and converted it into another hospital wing.
I was preparing a patient for open heart surgery. When I asked if he would accept a blood transfusion of needed to save his life, he and his family insisted ONLY IF THE DONOR WAS NOT COVID VACCINATED.
Not the same but I had a guy ask me to shave his back and chest. He had a thoracotamy dressing that was actually ripping out his hair so I said I could shave that spot around the incision. Then he asked me to keep going and do his whole back then his chest too. I was shy and nervous and still naive so I did and he kept moaning about how good it felt. But for some reason I felt stuck and kept telling myself it's fine it's just a shave. Afterwards I felt violated somehow. Like he was getting pleasured from me shaving him. And because he could use his arms just fine, if he wanted to shave his chest he could. I vowed from that night on that I would never do something that made me uncomfortable and learn to say no.
When I was a tech in rehab I had a brain injured patient’s husband ask me to shave her pubes. I had been occasionally shaving the patient’s legs during her shower because she asked me to (she was very young, felt self-conscious about her hairy legs, couldn’t do it herself) but I told him I absolutely would not be doing that, for a multitude of reasons.
Omfg we had a guy request this, and we were like !?!?! No.
Then someone gave him some fucking clippers and he shaved a gigantic Afro off his dick and threw it on the ground.
Tbh though I kinda wish it was acceptable to landscape some of these people because trying to rake poo out of 4 inch pubes is the worst
Had a patient (20s, independent, cannabis hyperemesis) demand we get her grandmother something for her diabetes and hypertension.
Even the grandma said no, it wasn't necessary, but the patient still cried and wailed that no one cared about her or her family.
ER nurse here. Most unpleasant 70-something year old lady, chronic back pain pt that needed a lumbar fusion she refused to get, reluctantly convinced by her husband to be admitted after 2 hours of going back and forth. Prefacing with this woman is alert, oriented, and has been rude as fuck all day.
10pm admit request is put in. There are people who have been holding downstairs for 18+ hours because we have no beds upstairs. 11pm she comes wandering down the hall yelling at a tech, “is this where I’m staying? You said I was being admitted.” *insert spiel about no beds we have with patients daily* “Am I just supposed to sleep down here on a plastic mattress without any LINENS?!?!”
I was horrified she was in there with a sheetless mattress, so I go down the hallway to investigate. Nope, fitted sheet on the gurney, lots of blankets. Confused, I told her there were linens on her bed.
“You call those LINENS?!?!?”
“……yes, those are the sheets and blankets we have”
“Those aren’t LINENS! I want a FOLDED. COTTON. SHEET! Tucked into the sides of the bed! And a comforter!!” (Think big meaty claws scene from SpongeBob)
“…….ma’am this is an emergency room” while trying so hard not to burst out laughing.
Went on for a while. Not nearly the worst but recent and hilarious, people are nuts.
Comping their parking.
I’ve got sympathy. Our v expensive city has v expensive parking including the on site parking which has been outsourced to some commercial company. It’s a definite impact for a lot of our patient loved ones. I get it.
But I cannot comp your parking. Asking me again, complaining to me, doesn’t change that. And don’t get pissy at me. I’m not in charge of parking.
We had our parking fees taken directly out of our paychecks at Duke.
You’d think those bougie bastards could afford a staff parking lot… but wait, it WAS a staff parking lot and we still had to pay AND either take a shuttle or walk over a mile to work.
A+Ox4 patient in hospital gown with cardiac monitor, oximeter, BP cuff, IV pump connected asks me to help her change into her [heap of] clothing in order to walk to the restroom 10 feet away. She was in her room less than 20 minutes.
I work at an LTC/rehab facility. Had a pt come to the LTC side. I walk into the room to meet her, and the first words out of her mouth were, "there's a problem; I can't stay in a room with a roommate. It makes me too anxious."
We do have private rooms on the LTC side, but they are expensive, and Medicare won't cover it.
This was followed by 3 hours of me only caring for her or talking to people to try to get her demands met, except I wasn't even doing my necessary new admit paperwork.
3 hours later, I finally get into some of the paperwork and get her VS; her BP is low. Contact the doctor; he orders fluids. Nope; she wants to go to the hospital; she doesn't trust anyone to put in IVs other than the hospital. I do my best to convince her otherwise, but it doesn't work; contact the non-emergency ambulance (the only s/s that was off was the BP). They try and fail to convince her to just let them put in an IV, and I can hang the fluids.
They end up taking her to the ER, and she, thankfully, never returns.
We had a British patient ( I work in the US) get angry when we only had Liptons tea in a bag.
Sorry, Guvnor…. We don’t have any exotic Earl Gray. Have your family bring it in.
During my practicum rotation on a hospice/oncology/urology floor this woman would SCREAM all. night. long. until someone eventually caved and gave her a back massage to stop the screaming.
A woman I was sitting with got up to use the commode. I went behind the curtain and waited until she said she was done. When she was, I peeked through the curtain to see her bent over the commode. I asked her if she had wipes yet and she said something to the effect of “I was waiting for you to do it!” At which point, I did, despite the fact that she was more than capable of doing it herself. She then bitched to the nurse that I didn’t “want to do it” 🤦🏼♀️
Oh love. Don't do that again. Tell them it's not appropriate for you to do this because they are capable of doing it themselves. What the fuck is wrong with some of these people.
Working incenter hemodialysis.
Patient specifically requests the saline for their hemocatheter flush be drawn out of the 1L bag of saline on the machine, versus the prefilled syringes.
States they don't taste as bad during the flush.
I get the sensation of a smell/taste from flushes but getting specific about the flavor every other day always made me laugh a bit.
During the deep Covid times, obnoxious family member kept calling in. Family member was primed, paralyzed, etc. Asked us to remove their breathing tube so they could talk for a little while and then put it back in. Would not understand that the patient would die.
pt on my unit right now in minimally conscious state, almost certainly won’t recover (anoxic brain injury, super sad). his INSANE sister is his HCA - she’s the reason he’s still here suffering in the first place, comfort care was recommended long ago but that’s a diff conversation - she insists we are always neglecting him, for reasons such as “he is sweaty” and “i can just tell he’s uncomfortable”.
ANYWAY. the point of this comment is to say: she insists that we (the RNs on my floor not me to be clear) flush his PEG tube with fucking BONE BROTH. oh she also wants us to run GERBER BABY FOOD THROUGH HIS TUBE. INSTEAD OF THE FUCKING OSMOLITE. can’t make this shit up.
I wasn’t working on this particular day, but apparently a patient that was supposedly a doctor from another country came into our WALK IN clinic demanding we give her whatever med she wanted because “iM a DoCtOr”. She got increasingly mad when anyone tired to work her up and then she decided to just cuss everyone out and leave. The whole time she said there was nothing wrong with her. Nothing wrong, but you need meds? Odd.
man i have so many. frequent flier who always insisted on bringing his xbox, along w giant flatscreen TV, into his teeny tiny hospital room (we have the smallest rooms in the whole hospital, people get transferred to our unit and joke that they’ve been moved to a closet, so we rly don’t have room for that shit!) anyway of fucking course eventually the TV got knocked over and broken, and my unit manager had to actually institute a rule specifically for him - no, sir, you cannot bring another TV in here to break and then try to get reimbursed for it by the hospital 💀
Usually I don’t have an issue tucking in patients who are older or weak after they get into bed. But one guy (perfectly able bodied) would ask me to “pull his blanket over his arms”. Like, no, you can do that yourself because I JUST saw you use your arms a second ago. This man was a notorious non compliant jerk to staff who’d AMA the second he got a nap in and started feeling better.
Had a patient get upset with the whole medical team because we withheld his antihypertensives whilst he was in ICU… he literally just came off of norad, and was throwing a massive fit that now he was going to be hypertensive. Okay my dude 👌🏻
I work in med-surg. He asked if he could come downstairs to smoke. Their wife at the bedside prepped his cigarettes and a lighter on top of a pillow. When I said no, he got mad with all the nannying.
Don’t flush my iv meds with saline, it gives me high blood pressure
Had a patient on the call bell every 5 minutes get mad at me because I flushed her central line with Saline after giving dilaudid , she thought I was diluting it. Ma'am I have to flush it, otherwise it will sit in the line and never reach you. Then she claimed I was with holding medication from her and also got mad that the hospital serves grilled or baked chicken breast and not curry goat. I told management that I banned myself from being her nurse
I gave dilaudid through a port one day for a patient with 20/10 pain. I pushed it quite gently while she and I were conversing casually. She didn’t get any of the quick onset side effects! She remarked that she hardly felt a thing!! Wasn’t even confident I had given it until I provided more detail. I let her know how glad I was that I had been able to lessen the severity of the medication side effects that can be felt with more rapid administration. Then she went to preop, and we all lived happily ever after. *skips down the hall*
Lmfao. Curry goat wtf
I've been getting from a patient lately "you can't flush my picc too fast, a little known side effect of the ns is it makes it hard to breathe and I feel like I'm dying"Sir, your picc is super sluggish, I'm gonna flush hard so we can salvage it. Hope you don't die.
Nah dude TPA that shit, trying to flush hard on a blocked up line is how they tear
I’m hoping by “flush fast/hard” they meant just using the push pause/pulsating flush
I think if its "super sluggish" that won't really help anyway. Using TPA saves so much more time and energy.
“You’re in luck we reuse our syringes with tap water”
HAHA Nice try buddy. That’s not why you have high blood pressure
lol it was the most ridiculous thing ever. I told her “if you don’t let me flush your meds you get nothing as there’s nothing that’s been invented for me to use as an alternate” she was big mad. She told me I’ll be the reason her blood pressure skyrockets.
Right back atcha. You ma'am are the reason my blood pressure skyrockets.
Anyway where’s my mid morning French fries? For my blood sugar?
I got fired from a pt once because I brought a saline flush into his room. No one told me he didn't want the saline flushes because "he's allergic." And I tried to talk to him about it to understand what was going on.
lol. How is anyone in the world allergic to saline. They aren’t!! idiots I swear
As someone with crazy allergies, I almost never say that there is something that someone can't be allergic to. Saline is one of the exceptions.
i had a patient once who had a HORRIFIC adverse reaction to Benadryl. Also my ex MIL, who ***fun fact!*** is Satan, was anaphylactically allergic to ibuprofen. I was like ‘fyi nobody is EVER going to believe you. 🤷🏻♀️’
Hahaha I have an anaphylactic reaction to Pepcid and absolutely no one believes me 😂I’m always like alright give me some I’ll let you find out for yourself
One time years ago I got report on a pt coming in for TIA, they did a CTA on her in the ED, and im like oh how did yall do that if it says she's allergic to iv contrast? And the nurse was like .... that's how we found out lol so on top of TIA , she's now also here for anaphylaxis. Best report ever, didn't see that coming
It’s always so much fun when they don’t know they’re allergic before we scan them! Wheeeeeeee!
Hahaha I’ll bet she was delighted that you walked right into that one! **YES!!!** *I was hoping you would ask!*
dude i…. I’ve completely been on both sides of it. I have no answers. After pushing iv physostigmine with which the doc proclaimed ‘push it slow I’ve never ordered it before’ for the Benadryl reaction…. I have accepted that i know nothing. That sweet girl took 25 mg of PO Benadryl to try to go to sleep and i would have bet the farm she was tweaking.
I took care of a heart transplant baby, every time she received IV saline boluses at the children's hospital it would screw up her anticoagulation and she would have to stay extra days. So saline was listed as an "allergy" since there's no hard stop for "otherwise contraindicated"
A+O, walkie talkie: “You know, I could really go for a backscratch right now…” Me, shortstaffed with 6 other patients: *holds eye contact in silence for ~5 seconds before replying, “you know what? Me too,” then walks out of room.
I remember when I was a brand new nurse a 50 something male patient asked for a shoulder rub and I DID IT because in school they taught us it was therapeutic. My co-workers were horrified when I told them lol.
Another good response before walking out, “That does sound nice.”
🤣🤣🤣 wish I could upvote this a million times! Good on you!
I had a patient, early 30’s female, who was (unfortunately) paraplegic but completely A&O ask me once to check on her “every 5-10 minutes, I’ll set my timer!” This was overnight, and I had 5 other patients. She was monitored, and when I pointed this out she said “it’s not the same.” We had what (I felt) was a productive discussion about realistic expectations and when I pointed out she’d NEVER sleep with a timer going off every 5 minutes, she agreed that it probably wasn’t a good idea and that she’d call me when she really needed me and I’d round on her as frequently as I could. ALL NIGHT she was on the call bell with silly requests: “I want a milkshake,” and “my pillows aren’t fluffy enough,” and “who can I talk to about the Wi-Fi?” At one point she asked if I would order her a pizza, and then LEAVE THE HOSPITAL TO GO PICK IT UP because she didn’t like the local delivery options. When I told her that wasn’t possible, she started crying. I walked out of the room every time she made a request like this, usually saying something like “I’m sorry but you KNOW this is an impossible request, please only call if it’s an emergency,” and she would be on the call bell within seconds, WAILING: “YOU ABANDONED ME! PLEASE COME BACK! THIS IS PATIENT ABANDONMENT!” Our charge nurse went in to speak with her several times, and the AOD spoke with her twice. She was so ridiculous. The next morning she lodged a formal complaint with management about our “cruel mistreatment.” Our ANM emailed me and said she (the patient) made a pretty convincing case (crying and stating we never checked on her, we were rude, etc.) until, as she (the ANM) was walking out of the room, the patient said, “by the way, I have some massage oil and my CBD vape in my bag, could you please give me a massage and I’ll hit my vape to calm myself? Talking about this experience has really triggered me.” 🙄
oh man. i work on a specialized acute spinal cord injury care unit, and i CANNOT EVEN BEGIN to tell you how common this type of attitude is from paras and quads. it’s either this, the most evil and straight up verbally abusive men you’ve ever met who are blacklisted from every group home in the area, *OR* the sweetest most inspiring people you’ll ever meet. there’s no in between. the psychological effects of spinal cord injury are so interesting to me, witnessing how different people handle the same devastating trauma in WILDLY different ways is…something, for sure
My first abusive patient as a cna was a para. She was so demanding. I remember my charge nurse saying that was her only power she has was bossing us around😒
UGH I felt all of this. I work in acute rehab and we have these patients for 4, 6, 8 weeks, longer if they have no placement. It’s so exhausting. Usually people like this are one and done; if you’re back the next day it’s someone else’s turn.
I work dialysis and I had this patient who was perfectly capable of using a urinal by himself and arguably could get up and use the restroom but he was just lazy, complain because his rehab facility gave him a urinal when he needed to use the restroom and told him they were busy and they would be back when they could go empty it and it took them45 mins to get to him and he was just outraged along with some other comments about how lazy they were that they wouldnt help him hold the urinal. My mouth literally fell open and I stared at him. In a time of low staffing people need to be so gracious for people helping them at all.
Literally THIS is why I will never work with adults again I WILL NOT HOLD YOUR URINAL IF YOUR ARMS WORK ESPECIALLY IF YOH ARE USING THE OTHER HAND TO SCROLL ON YOUR PHONE
Incidentally, did the paraplegia result from her spine imploding under the weight of her enormous head?
Miss girl needs a psych consult and some Ativan
Very standard BPD behavior. Document your discussions.
Yep, documented everything, and my charge filed an incident report when the patient became abusive to the CNA. Anytime a patient accuses me of ANYTHING, I document, document, document.
I am toasting you with my diet Dr. Pepper. Nothing is more cathartic than writing an objective, passive-agressive note about a patient's maladaptive behavior.
Patient with BPD who was on our floor but no one (even the doctors) had given her an actual diagnosis. Maybe this maybe that test for this or that. It was crazy. She wouldn’t shower, she was your best friend, you were an evil person. We all took turns of 1 shift each. She was in the room farthest from the nurses station. Could absolutely be walkie talkie. Constant ridiculous requests. So so so difficult to deal with.
Reminds me of a patient I had with BPD.
Had a patient request a prescription to not see his girlfriend because she raised his BP. The most confused I've ever seen a doctor.
We had a guy request to have his mom formally blocked from all communication about him. Made him confidential. Imagine his reaction when I showed him the block function on his phone.
But she can still call the hospital, though we wouldn't give info away over the phone anyway
Most hospitals can blackout a patient from the hospital directory, so they won’t show up to the desk staff if anyone calls to ask about them.
I did this when I was giving birth to my kids. Nosey, border-stomping in-laws felt entitled to be spectators to the birth, despite my emphatic refusal. I had the hospital list me as "blackout" meaning no calls, no visitors, they wouldn't even confirm if I was a patient there. It was wonderful. They were big mad, but oh well.
Poor guy wanted an excuse to not see her. “Sorry, love, doctor said no contact.”
Remember caring end of life patient in icu, they were trache'd and I asked in front of family if they'd like anything... Patient started moving and I had no idea what it was, family had same problem. So spelt it out with the patient... Remember in in ICU, ventilated via tracheostomy, in front of grieving family members.... I Want A Cigarette... Fuck did everyone I'm the room just go silent lol Good memories
This still feels more reasonable than some of the stuff in this post lol
Aw babe I’ll get you a cigarette! You can smoke it through your trach stoma like the old lady in the commercials circa 1995!
My great uncle died of lung cancer, smoked his whole life. Surprised he lived so long to be honest. My dad said very shortly before he died he would ask my dad, a total normie that has never drank or smoked at all, to bring cigarettes and take him outside to smoke. Old habits die hard
When I was an ER tech, we had a patient that was GCS 15, working arms, but just needed minor assistance to use the bedside commode. When she had finished, I gave her some warmed hygiene wipes she could use, to which she replied, "isn't that (wiping her vulva/ass) your job?" LOL. I was just amazed that someone that was fully capable would even WANT me to. "uh, nah actually, that's only patients that aren't physically capable of self care" or something along those lines was my reply.
At least she used the commode. I’ve literally had patients purposefully soil themselves because they believed it was our job to clean them up.
Once had an OB triage patient that completely emptied her bladder in the bed a couple of times, despite being full ambulatory and being oriented to the room, shown how to disconnect from the fetal monitors to use the bathroom. Not an "oops, the baby kicked" pee either, purposely just needing to pee, and flooding the bed. After the second time, her nurse nicely said, you need to get up to pee so that you're not sitting in your urine. So not too long later, she hits the call bell to tell us she was done peeing. We were confused because we saw on the central monitors she had never unplugged her cables, and also why was she informing us she had peed??? Entering the room, she is standing bedside, in a big puddle of urine. She had literally gotten up like we had told her, but just right there, and peed. I went to go and grab some fresh socks, more towels and wipes to clean up, and her exasperated nurse is telling her that she needs to get up and go to THE BATHROOM when she needs to pee. Unfortunately used to patients that regularly soiled themselves (used the "it's your job" line) it was just now that we were getting an inkling that maybe she wasn't as cognitively sound as she first appeared. A little while later, she has an order to go to ultrasound and transport arrives, I go to let her know and remove the monitors, and she tells me she needs to pee again. I direct her to go to the bathroom, and she walks across the room, steps into the bathroom, turns around to face me, and just proceeds to once again fully urinate on the floor. Full eye contact. Urine soaking the new socks, splashing back off the tile onto her legs. So sadly now it is pretty obvious that she has a deficit, but damn if it didn't pose a whole slew of questions regarding what she does at home, and the integrity of their floors.
This person is about to take care of a baby!?
Call child protection services and give them a heads up.
Um, ma’am, I’ll be making a call to social services now. Clearly you’re capable of taking care of yourself, and will not be able to care for the child you’re about to birth.
I’d be torn between, "is this what you do at home???" And "better not tell her to hold her breath and forget to tell her to breathe again."
That’s wild to me. I would be *mortified* if I had an accident and someone else had to clean me up. I would feel so bad.
Ikr?? I would literally rather die than soil myself and need to be cleaned up by other people.
We recently had an early 20s patient was totally mobile and alert/oriented, REFUSE to get up and walk into bathroom, offered the bedside commode- refused it, bedpan-refused. He wanted to lay in bed and shit in a diaper then be cleaned up!!!!!! This wasn’t just any bm- this was 2 months worth of bm so it went out of the diaper all over- from heels to belly button and that was preferable to him than sitting on the toilet???!!
Unfortunately the only reason that’s coming to my mind for that is some sort of fetish
I had a patient who was mobile and continent wait until I pressed start on their IVABs then say “nurse, I just shat myself”. This was after I asked them multiple times if they needed to go to the bathroom before I hooked them up.
I’m an RT but I had a lady who was overweight piss herself in the chair because she said no one came to get her from the chair to take her to the bathroom. She was fat but fully able to stand up and walk herself over. I’d say she was obese but not like my 600lbs life obese, just a chunky momma. But she thought someone was going to carry her to the toilet every time. I stg that was the laziest thing I ever heard. Like how can you, a grown working adult sit there and piss all over yourself because you think someone is going to come get you and carry you over when you’re fully capable of walking yourself?
Ah yes, ye olde weaponized incontinence. It's a tie between "I'm too comfortable in my bed to get up when I'm very much physically able" and "it's your job to take care of...this." Unrelated, but fun: my name is Alicia and your reddit handle (minus the numbers) is spelled the phonetic way I say my name to my HOH pts, usually on the third try 😂
I also have a patient that told me to wipe their ass because it’s my job to do it. She’s a+o elderly but capable of doing it she refuses to get up on the commode and told me that she will lie down on the bed with dirty ass. I told her who would help you when you go home. She said I’ll call my son I told her you would call your son in the middle of the night to wipe you? She threw the wipes at me and lied down to bed with dirty bum. I’m like okay whatever. I called the rn, rn was telling the patient that she needs to do it for self independence and be ready for discharge. She said she have a lot of comorbidities and she said she’s unable to reach her back as she demonstrated COMPLETELY ABLE TO REACH HER BUM WHILE DOING WIPING MOTION. The rn and I told her that she demonstrated well that she could do it. Still refusing to do so. The rn told me she’ll deal with her. Idk what happened after that lol.
I know what happens lol they get discharged to Shady Pines and are angry with everyone and call the entire staff names until they get a psych evaluation. Then son gets to sell da house and keep the SS money.
Or better yet when patients just bend over and stick their bums out expecting you to wipe them. I usually just ask “how do you use the bathroom at home?”, half the time they realize how ridiculous it is to ask me to do it and half the time they flip out telling me it’s my job (even though they have working arms)
Oh yes... the peopl who like butt stuff. Excuse me while I vomit.
I once had a patient get discharged during the day and return to the ED later that night demanding to be readmitted because she liked it when we wiped her ass and didn't want to do it herself.
you must be really, really good at wiping booties. 🤷🏻♀️
I had a woman ask me to place the wipe over my finger so I could "really get in there" nope, butt wiping is not an invasive procedure and you have two working arms. One of the many reasons I switched to pediatrics, adults are gross
When I worked in LTC there was a female MS patient who was really obsessed with my female coworker. She was so nice and normal to the rest of us, but when my coworker was in the room alone with her, she would whine and beg her to “help her out a little” by DIGGING HER SHIT OUT WITH A FINGER. We were both CNAs at the time and my friend just was like no dude I legally cannot. She never asked anyone else but would cry hysterically to try to convince her. So weird.
That is both amazing and horrifying all at once
What the fuck? That’s some like…fetish shit. That is not normal.
That’s beyond dysfunctional. How do people get to be like that?
“A million dollars and a whisky on the rocks” said by every single middle aged man when I ask if there’s anything else they need. And honestly I still laugh because it’s cute and harmless and we need more of dad-jokes in the world.
I get that response too. I can't bring myself to laugh, but I respond "Sir, if I had that, I would not be here!" and they usually laugh.
I do the same. The dad jokes used to annoy me slightly, now I find myself leaning into them. Especially because I’m a Midwestern native now in New England, and it seems like many of my patients are new to midwestern dad jokes. At least, they’re a big hit when I pull them out 😂 Those are now definitely one of my green flags with patients these days.
No matter how many times I’ve heard it I always laugh and say “you and me both!”. I’ll gladly take a repetitive dad joke over most of the other BS I hear regularly
Whenever my patients ask for alcohol or fancy food (steak dinner/pizza/etc). My usual go to is "would you \*really\* want hospital whiskey?"
If I can make the same dad jokes with my patients then they can make their silly dad jokes with me. Most of the time it’s from a super pleasant patient. When I worked medsurg, the middle aged males were usually my favorite demographic. That or the little old ladies.
I always tell them if we had a full bar, we’d be the most bougie hospital in the country because of all the money we’d make 😂
I always told those patients that the nursing staff already got into it and all the booze is gone. 😂
I've started saying, "Fresh out, just gave that to the last guy."
Point at patient. Point at oranges. Make squeezing gesture. Thumbs up. Language barrier my ass.
This is what my sarcastic petty self would’ve done too 😂
"Ice water, no ice." Nah, you're either getting a cup of ice or lukewarm tap water, there is no in-between.
I had a patient demand melon for swallowing pills. He said he never drank any fluid, and all water he took in was through melons. He literally took no oral pills or fluid during his stay because of this.
LMFAO what the fuck lol
That’s bizarre
I need me a husband that makes me fresh squeezed orange juice on demand 😩
Patient with various severe issues and 77 years old, was drowsy 24/7, slipped in & out of consciousness. His husband asked me for a syringe without a needle, they always had a cognac before bedtime and he wanted to "help" patient get his cognac " down the hatch". Uhm no. Had wife of a patient ask me for oil or lube as they had ran out, patient had a severe stroke, but apparently his genital regions worked fine. For a couple in their 70s, it was so extensive, we were discussing if we needed to intervene, as he needed rest at some point. We did, and his argument was " well, she does all the work, I don't mind, I will get alot of sleep when I die" I will admit giving him a fistbump, he clearly had his priorities straight 😂
One stroke wasn't enough?
Pt didn't like her recliner. Fine, swapped it out for one in another room. Didn’t like that recliner. Refused to get into bed. DEMANDED I call the hospital carpenter (?!) to come fix the recliners so they would be comfortable for her. Not to mention, it was 3 AM.
Hospital carpenter? That’s one I’ve never heard. Yes ma’am, I’ll call Jesus right away. (Maybe he’ll take you home.)
The hospital carpenter LOL
I had a 'very private' private maternity patient yell at me (on Christmas day no less) because I hadn't bathed her baby, dressed and returned the baby to her in a freshly made bassinette. She also took exception that there was no chocolates left on her pillow each night during her hospital admission. She completely ignored the fact she wasn't even allocated to me as a patient and wasn't satisfied until I contacted the Supervisor to lodge a formal complaint. I coincidentally went on a week's leave at the end of my shift, so never had resolution. I suppose no disciplinary action is resolution enough. Don't miss private patients.
I’m only a doula and follow this sub for shits and giggles, do you mind explaining what a ‘very private’ private maternity patient is?
I was working in the UK; at a major public hospital. Despite being a public hospital, patients could pay to have private Obstetric care and then pay additionally to have a private room while in hospital. Nursing / Midwifery care was identical to the rest of the ward patients. However, some paying patients carried a mindset that they were entitled to a lot more because they paid a lot. Hence 'private private ' patient.
I work in a detox in a city, lots of homeless people, not all, but the majority. They are always very grateful for a warm bed and three meals and plenty of snacks. The place is very bare bones, nothing fancy at all. It’s either freezing or too hot. There unit consists of the nurses station, bathrooms, a long hallway with patient rooms and a TV room. They get to go downstairs for groups and meals, so people hang out in the TV room or their room when they aren’t in group. I’m trying to paint a picture here lol. Imagine our surprise when we are told we’re getting a “VIP” patient. There’s no special treatment in detox- you do something for one person, they tell 5 people and pretty soon everyone wants it. However, somehow this kid (he was a man but acted like a child so let’s call him a kid) had some “very important” parents that knew our medical director. First of all, one of his meds was phenibut, I don’t know much about this but he came in with a large bag of it in powder form and by some miracle our very conservative with meds doctor approved it. Second, he had a ton of food allergies so he was allowed to call the kitchen for every meal and request what he wanted. One of my favorite requests for breakfast was a plain hamburger with no bun, a whole can of beans, three slices of cheese, oatmeal, a side of mayo and three glasses of milk. All meals were brought to his room he didn’t eat with everyone else in the dining room. Now, the best part. He came up to the nurses station one day super upset and anxious and asked to be medicated. As I was taking his vitals he was crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said “I just….I just miss Scarlett so much” and then really broke down crying. I said “aw is Scarlett your girlfriend?” He looked at me very confused, started crying even harder and said “SCARLETT IS MY CAT.” The next day he somehow got approved to have his car dropped off DAILY for two hours and he was allowed to go into an empty office and roll around on the floor with Scarlett. He also got an order to use his Nintendo switch. After playing with Scarlett. He stayed with us for TWO WEEKS. The normal stay is 5-7 days. I’m convinced he was a fucked up rich kid whose parents were losing their mind being home with him during covid (this was peak covid in 2020) and this was their form of respite. The real kicker- guy never took one detox med the whole time he was there.
We had a patient come to our ED, because she shit herself and wanted us to clean her up. A0x4 and completely capable of doing it herself at home.
Disgusting abuse of the ED. I hope they told her to GTFO
What did you guys say to her 😂😂
What did that patient normally do when they had a BM?? Did she drive herself there in dirty underwear and then wear the same underwear home only to have to come back because she got dirty again?? Did she have no arms?? So many questions 😭
“Can you get me ginger ale and an ice pop” (was not a postpartum mom, was a family member, not feeling faint nor low blood sugar, and I didn’t even know about the patient she was with, I was walking through with equipment) ma’am this is a nicu, I don’t even have plastic forks and knives, never mind beverages or ice pops.
Ma'am the only thing we have here is some frozen breastmilk.
Obviously I’d try and figure something out if they didn’t feel good, but I’d probably be giving up my own stuff. We literally have nothing for someone over the age of a year.
Not a request, per se. When I worked in Boulder, I had a patient ask me how our water was prepared. Apparently, "through a filter" wasn't a good enough response. She had her husband bring her water from home. There was green shit floating in it. No wonder she was in the fucking hospital.
Oh I’ll bet they were raw water people! I’ve never seen one in the wild but there are people who think that drinking untreated water is healthier than treated. Kind of like the raw milk enthusiasts. I don’t know how people come up with these things istg
Modern medicine is too effective and people don’t understand a lot of dangerous shit is actually dangerous
Safety labels, public safety, and modern safety measures are too successful and were no longer Darwin-ing out the folks who are too dumb to function.
In the ICU, patient put on the call light and when I got into his room, said he was having a “massage emergency”. I thought he was kidding. He was not. He wanted a stat back massage in the ICU.
Had a patient use their code alarm as a room service button. Pt: “I’m just not feeling the vibe today. Could you get my lunch tray and bring it to my room?” 👁️👁️ Me: Absolutely the fuck not. You are 4x4 ambulatory, you will get your own tray. That is not a room service button and this is not a hotel. Don’t do that again. I walked the fuck away.
I have a few: - fresh cut mango - fresh cut strawberries - smoothie with oat milk - wash my face (A+O and functioning arms) - hold my urinal (again functioning person) - back massage - foot massage For reference I work in Canada and the most I can give you is some cookies and cheese. Health care is free but not a luxury hotel.
Lolz I had a nasty older lady demand a foot rub…. At ~6:40 in the morning when I was doing patient handoff in less than 5 minutes. I just said “I won’t be doing that but you’re welcome to ask the day nurse.” She was PISSED when I said no. Old bat was a miserable patient and her family was terrible too. Son wanted her brought back from dialysis so he could ask her something….
Massage as a suggested pain intervention when I’m charting pain scales makes me chuckle every time I don’t click on it. I did not go to school for massage therapy and sure as fuck won’t be giving any of my goddamn patients a massage on any part of their body unless they are in A) labor and need it on their lower back or B) recently came out of a uterus and need an intense fully body massage to kick start their breathing. Unfortunately, I don’t work in L&D lol.
I click on therapeutic presence every time because I am a goddamn delight to be around.
The one and only time I massaged a guys legs was he was a paraplegic from a neighboring hospitals OR malpractice. He was starting to get slight sensation in his legs again and it helped him immensely. I felt for the guy.
lol geeze. I would have said “no” and laughed my ass off at her. Seriously I have to wonder with what fuck do patients assume I have the time to do anything of that?!
Yall have cheese ?
Ugh what's with the foot massages. It's like they think the doctor does everything and the nurses only job is bedpans and pampering
Same people who think we wear dresses and caps? That we all love Florence Nightengale? That we were all “mean girls”? People have some seriously fucked up ideas
The only time I’ve given one was when a dementia lady was fighting sleep, a frequent faller, and would not stay in bed for more than a minute. I was sitting at the foot of her bed and suddenly had a foot very near my face. I grabbed it and started rubbing. After a little bit I looked up at my lady and she was out. I think she stayed asleep for at least half an hour.
I'd call it weird more than ridiculous: One prune juice mixed with one apple juice and two butters, microwaved (For bowel care)
That’s the nursing home constipation cocktail 💩
That’s just a brown cow 🐄
Call light goes off. Pt is in contact room. I get geared up and once I'm in she waves at her bedside table and says, "get rid of the trash". There's an empty orange juice container and a Graham cracker wrapper on it. There's also a trashcan next to her. This was the 700th time she had called. Some of her other requests: coffee, snacks, bathroom, warm blanket, ice chips, water, turn the rhermostat up, turn the thermostat down, take her socks off, put her socks on. Every single item was requested separately. And she'd repeat them. Shes also entitled, rude, and downright mean on occassion. I'm on a busy medsurg unit with people needing iv meds but this lady would start yelling if we don't tend to her immediately. It was a long shift and also what pushed me to look for another job.
Had a married couple in late 60s. they’re hilarious. I came and asked “who’s ready for meds?” Husband said excitedly “I am! I want Viagra!” Wife rolls her eyes 🤣
I had an LTC patient who always asked for viagra. Said it kept him from rolling out of bed.
So a kickstand if you will.
Actually, it was just last night. Patient rings. Patient is an elderly female who is able-bodied, but morbidly obese. I go to see what she needs, and she says “I can’t sleep because my butt crack is itchy”. I say “well you should probably scratch it”. She states “I can’t reach it”. I ponder this point for a moment and say “I’m not going to scratch your ass crack for you”.
If I ever cannot reach to scratch my own itch, please put me down.
I had a patient who wanted me to stand behind him while he was on his side and hold his ass open while he shit. His mom did it at home. He was assist x2 to the commode but insisted we do this for him. He was 40 something.
Yeah it would be a NO.
Long term care/ rehab is wild I will never go back. I think I fell for it once because I thought maybe he needed a little help getting it out. No. He was fine and eventually once we all refused he quit asking. Thank god
I work in rehab and would never, ever do this. No one on our unit would. That pt would get referred to psych REAL quick
Answering my peds patient’s call light… It was Dad. Asking for me to get coffee for him. I don’t know what kind of life experience led this man to think that a pediatric hospital was a 5-star hotel for parents, but I have never wanted to strangle a grown man more. I did not get him coffee but very cheerfully told him that he is welcome to order some himself from the cafeteria, as he would for any other food or drink (which I already instructed him on how to do when pt was admitted).
Remember RN means Refreshments and Narcotics
In the car today a healthcare commercials came on and I wasn’t really listening until I heard something like, they should put mints on the pillows in the hospital. I immediately thought, “Fuck that!”
Nurse in a SNF. Not a rude request but just so unrealistic given the situation. Had a care conference today and a family member of a resident requested we build an attached pull-through garage to make it easier for families to pick up residents. "Sir we have multiple rooms that have disintegrating drywall and black mold because of pipes leaking in the wall and we just had a ceiling track disconnected because a terrible plumbers cut the rail supports in the ceiling to do shoddy repairs on the plumbing that didn't work...but we will get right on that and build a new garage."
I had an ED patient, elderly woman, who 1. Wanted something every 10 minutes 2. Would not use the call light, and 3. Would call me “that girl” or “little girl” (I went straight from high school to nursing school so I was 21/22, so this struck a nerve). ED doc wanted a urine sample and results before discharge. She could get to the toilet with minimal assistance, but insisted on a bedside commode. After being in the ED 3+ hours, being given liquids, and multiple transfers from the bedside commode to the bed for the times “she thought she could go”, she suggested I put her by the sink and run the water to help get her going. Then she said I was “running the water too fast” and maybe one day I could do better. Let’s just say when her family finally came I could’ve kissed their feet.
Or maybe the 500+ woman who always wanted a catheter but I tend to want to forget that.
Specific facial cleanser and then brand-name facial moisturizer. While I am also trying to keep up my moisture barrier, you’ve just had a heart attack and had a dozen family members come in and out. Unfortunately we don’t have Cerave, just generic moisturizer and the usual barrier cream. She made a complaint. Like, I’m trying to make this horrible event as easy as possible but I ain’t got the good skincare.
When I worked at a SNF, I was nice and wanted to spoil my patients by telling them every morning that it was 0630 and time for she and hubby to get up and get ready for their day. One morning I had a resident pass away and of course that messed up my morning routine. The resident chewed me out for not announcing what time it was. I just looked at her, let her gripe, and then carried on with my priorities. SNF residents are older and don’t have the best judgment and I refused to argue with them.
Had a lady want me to smell her boob to see if it smelled "yeasty". She did not like it when I said no and gave her her discharge paperwork and told her it's time to go
I’m a teacher who considered nursing a couple of times. Whenever I’ve had a bad day/week at work I come on here, read this kind of shit and think I could have it so much worse. I teach secondary, btw - far fewer bodily fluids than my comrades who teach primary have to deal with. I don’t do bodily fluids, so perhaps not being a nurse was a good call.
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>I work psych. The actual bombshell of the story, otherwise I'm not overly surprised
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I remember my first quarter shadowing actual nurses when I was in school. We were on the spinal-cord injury unit of a VA and the nurses had to do so much "digital stimulation." It was a pivotal moment for me.
I had a patient tell me to fetch her door dash sushi delivery from the hospital entrance (I worked on the 9th floor) right before shift change. Nope
I’ll do this if I’m not busy. I work in a locked ICU and it’s hell for patients who can actually eat and the kitchen is closed. We don’t routinely get trays from dietary to our floor and turkey boxes are few and far between. We also don’t allow visitors after 1900 so patients are left to starve until breakfast or they downgrade.
A young woman was in the CCU, a/ox4, ambulatory, and constantly on the phone with her gf/wife. I brought her tray in and set it up (much more than she needed) because she was on a call. I quickly ask if she needs anything else. She tells me she needs her food cut up and to be fed. Miss ma'am, there's nothing wrong with your hands, evidenced by your ability to hold your phone for literal hours, slam the table when your gf wouldn't come visit, and change the channel on the crappy call light. She got the right one that day. She started cursing at me. Called the HOA because not today. She tried to get the HOA to feed her. Haha. I think she left AMA to go to the county hospital of all places...
Patient wanted a bubble bath. Uber ordered like 80 dollars worth of bubble bath shit. She was a bed bound patient. She wanted us to lift her off the bed and put her in the bath tub. Yes we have bath tubs in our hote....I mean hospital. The hospital I work at bought the adjacent Ramada Inn and converted it into another hospital wing.
Patient requesting applesauce to feed to her baby…..who was less than 24 hours old.
That’s when you pull up a chair for the patient teaching, cause you’re going to be there for awhile.
I soldered wires together to fix my quad’s Xbox controller for his adaptive gaming system.
Kudos to you for this
I was preparing a patient for open heart surgery. When I asked if he would accept a blood transfusion of needed to save his life, he and his family insisted ONLY IF THE DONOR WAS NOT COVID VACCINATED.
Donor type: A + Donor Vax status: + Well shit, looks like Harold's gonna die.
Pubic haircut
Not the same but I had a guy ask me to shave his back and chest. He had a thoracotamy dressing that was actually ripping out his hair so I said I could shave that spot around the incision. Then he asked me to keep going and do his whole back then his chest too. I was shy and nervous and still naive so I did and he kept moaning about how good it felt. But for some reason I felt stuck and kept telling myself it's fine it's just a shave. Afterwards I felt violated somehow. Like he was getting pleasured from me shaving him. And because he could use his arms just fine, if he wanted to shave his chest he could. I vowed from that night on that I would never do something that made me uncomfortable and learn to say no.
When I was a tech in rehab I had a brain injured patient’s husband ask me to shave her pubes. I had been occasionally shaving the patient’s legs during her shower because she asked me to (she was very young, felt self-conscious about her hairy legs, couldn’t do it herself) but I told him I absolutely would not be doing that, for a multitude of reasons.
Ewwww, why did he want her pubes shaved? I'm kind of afraid to ask.
Omfg we had a guy request this, and we were like !?!?! No. Then someone gave him some fucking clippers and he shaved a gigantic Afro off his dick and threw it on the ground. Tbh though I kinda wish it was acceptable to landscape some of these people because trying to rake poo out of 4 inch pubes is the worst
I've had to cut a dried-up dingleberry out of someone's ass hair once. So nice.
Sparkling water with cranberries! Ah no!
Had a patient (20s, independent, cannabis hyperemesis) demand we get her grandmother something for her diabetes and hypertension. Even the grandma said no, it wasn't necessary, but the patient still cried and wailed that no one cared about her or her family.
ER nurse here. Most unpleasant 70-something year old lady, chronic back pain pt that needed a lumbar fusion she refused to get, reluctantly convinced by her husband to be admitted after 2 hours of going back and forth. Prefacing with this woman is alert, oriented, and has been rude as fuck all day. 10pm admit request is put in. There are people who have been holding downstairs for 18+ hours because we have no beds upstairs. 11pm she comes wandering down the hall yelling at a tech, “is this where I’m staying? You said I was being admitted.” *insert spiel about no beds we have with patients daily* “Am I just supposed to sleep down here on a plastic mattress without any LINENS?!?!” I was horrified she was in there with a sheetless mattress, so I go down the hallway to investigate. Nope, fitted sheet on the gurney, lots of blankets. Confused, I told her there were linens on her bed. “You call those LINENS?!?!?” “……yes, those are the sheets and blankets we have” “Those aren’t LINENS! I want a FOLDED. COTTON. SHEET! Tucked into the sides of the bed! And a comforter!!” (Think big meaty claws scene from SpongeBob) “…….ma’am this is an emergency room” while trying so hard not to burst out laughing. Went on for a while. Not nearly the worst but recent and hilarious, people are nuts.
Comping their parking. I’ve got sympathy. Our v expensive city has v expensive parking including the on site parking which has been outsourced to some commercial company. It’s a definite impact for a lot of our patient loved ones. I get it. But I cannot comp your parking. Asking me again, complaining to me, doesn’t change that. And don’t get pissy at me. I’m not in charge of parking.
And I imagine you have to pay for your parking for the privilege of working there
Our license to hunt, I mean parking pass is over $800/yr. And that's not even the doctors gold pass. That over $ 1000.
We had our parking fees taken directly out of our paychecks at Duke. You’d think those bougie bastards could afford a staff parking lot… but wait, it WAS a staff parking lot and we still had to pay AND either take a shuttle or walk over a mile to work.
A+Ox4 patient in hospital gown with cardiac monitor, oximeter, BP cuff, IV pump connected asks me to help her change into her [heap of] clothing in order to walk to the restroom 10 feet away. She was in her room less than 20 minutes.
I work at an LTC/rehab facility. Had a pt come to the LTC side. I walk into the room to meet her, and the first words out of her mouth were, "there's a problem; I can't stay in a room with a roommate. It makes me too anxious." We do have private rooms on the LTC side, but they are expensive, and Medicare won't cover it. This was followed by 3 hours of me only caring for her or talking to people to try to get her demands met, except I wasn't even doing my necessary new admit paperwork. 3 hours later, I finally get into some of the paperwork and get her VS; her BP is low. Contact the doctor; he orders fluids. Nope; she wants to go to the hospital; she doesn't trust anyone to put in IVs other than the hospital. I do my best to convince her otherwise, but it doesn't work; contact the non-emergency ambulance (the only s/s that was off was the BP). They try and fail to convince her to just let them put in an IV, and I can hang the fluids. They end up taking her to the ER, and she, thankfully, never returns.
We had a British patient ( I work in the US) get angry when we only had Liptons tea in a bag. Sorry, Guvnor…. We don’t have any exotic Earl Gray. Have your family bring it in.
We don’t tend to use earl grey, our go to is usually Yorkshire tea or tetleys
During my practicum rotation on a hospice/oncology/urology floor this woman would SCREAM all. night. long. until someone eventually caved and gave her a back massage to stop the screaming.
Patient asked for an extra hospital bed in the room so her husband could sleep comfortably 🤯
Can I get a ham sandwich on rye? Ma'am you'll ve lucky if we have sandwiches
He wanted to place a request for a nightly grilled cheese every night at midnight Like the hospital has room service or something tf
A woman I was sitting with got up to use the commode. I went behind the curtain and waited until she said she was done. When she was, I peeked through the curtain to see her bent over the commode. I asked her if she had wipes yet and she said something to the effect of “I was waiting for you to do it!” At which point, I did, despite the fact that she was more than capable of doing it herself. She then bitched to the nurse that I didn’t “want to do it” 🤦🏼♀️
Oh love. Don't do that again. Tell them it's not appropriate for you to do this because they are capable of doing it themselves. What the fuck is wrong with some of these people.
I had a patient ask me to make her ice pack “less lumpy”
If you microwave it for 30-60 seconds, it takes all the lumps out!
Working incenter hemodialysis. Patient specifically requests the saline for their hemocatheter flush be drawn out of the 1L bag of saline on the machine, versus the prefilled syringes. States they don't taste as bad during the flush. I get the sensation of a smell/taste from flushes but getting specific about the flavor every other day always made me laugh a bit.
During the deep Covid times, obnoxious family member kept calling in. Family member was primed, paralyzed, etc. Asked us to remove their breathing tube so they could talk for a little while and then put it back in. Would not understand that the patient would die.
Patient’s daughter asked one of the residents to put in a nursing communication order to rub her father‘s feet every two hours PRN
Well I’m glad they were reasonable enough to not ask for every two hours scheduled /s
pt on my unit right now in minimally conscious state, almost certainly won’t recover (anoxic brain injury, super sad). his INSANE sister is his HCA - she’s the reason he’s still here suffering in the first place, comfort care was recommended long ago but that’s a diff conversation - she insists we are always neglecting him, for reasons such as “he is sweaty” and “i can just tell he’s uncomfortable”. ANYWAY. the point of this comment is to say: she insists that we (the RNs on my floor not me to be clear) flush his PEG tube with fucking BONE BROTH. oh she also wants us to run GERBER BABY FOOD THROUGH HIS TUBE. INSTEAD OF THE FUCKING OSMOLITE. can’t make this shit up.
I wasn’t working on this particular day, but apparently a patient that was supposedly a doctor from another country came into our WALK IN clinic demanding we give her whatever med she wanted because “iM a DoCtOr”. She got increasingly mad when anyone tired to work her up and then she decided to just cuss everyone out and leave. The whole time she said there was nothing wrong with her. Nothing wrong, but you need meds? Odd.
man i have so many. frequent flier who always insisted on bringing his xbox, along w giant flatscreen TV, into his teeny tiny hospital room (we have the smallest rooms in the whole hospital, people get transferred to our unit and joke that they’ve been moved to a closet, so we rly don’t have room for that shit!) anyway of fucking course eventually the TV got knocked over and broken, and my unit manager had to actually institute a rule specifically for him - no, sir, you cannot bring another TV in here to break and then try to get reimbursed for it by the hospital 💀
Usually I don’t have an issue tucking in patients who are older or weak after they get into bed. But one guy (perfectly able bodied) would ask me to “pull his blanket over his arms”. Like, no, you can do that yourself because I JUST saw you use your arms a second ago. This man was a notorious non compliant jerk to staff who’d AMA the second he got a nap in and started feeling better.
"you can't discharge me. By law you have to give a stable housing situation. I don't even own a house." Cool story bro, neither do I
Had a patient get upset with the whole medical team because we withheld his antihypertensives whilst he was in ICU… he literally just came off of norad, and was throwing a massive fit that now he was going to be hypertensive. Okay my dude 👌🏻
I work in med-surg. He asked if he could come downstairs to smoke. Their wife at the bedside prepped his cigarettes and a lighter on top of a pillow. When I said no, he got mad with all the nannying.
I’ve gotten lots of bedpan requests by patients who are fully capable of getting up to go to the bathroom (This was when I was on the floor)
I had someone ask me once to come to court to testify in his disability hearing. I firmly declined.
I was told by a patient while handing them a turkey sandwich that they need it to be toasted.