I was team leading (same as a relief charge nurse) & helping another nurse admit a patient to the ICU from the cath lab. He was in his 50s, had a heart attack, and the lesion was successfully opened and stented by the cardiologist. This patient was spanish-speaking (surprisingly, something we don’t see in my area of Phoenix as often as you’d think) and he was waking up from sedation very wildly – thrashing all over the bed and trying to sit up. I was holding one of his arms down, and the other nurse was on his other side, because he still had a sheath (big IV access) in his groin and if he sat up, he would run the risk of severe bleeding. We were attempting to get him to calm down, when he pulled his arm (the one I was holding) up to his face and bit my arm. I pulled away quickly and used my other hand on his forehead to keep it on the pillow.

Two more male staff members came into the room to help us physically restrain the patient (now for our safety as well as his own). We then called for security and the house supervisors to come to the room and the patient was placed in restraints and his sedation from the procedure kicked back in.

I know that there were many variables that act as excuses for this patient to act how he did (language barriers, confusion from sedatives), but there was a spanish-speaking staff member in the room while the patient was acting out and the patient was fully aware of what was going on. He knew that he was in the hospital and remembered coming to the emergency room with chest pain. If a person is awake enough to realize these things, I think there is no real excuse for actions like that. I’m sure it’s hard being in that situation – not knowing what exactly is going on and having people trying to restrain you, but to lash out and bite someone when you willingly came into the hospital for help is inexcusable.

Situations like these make me weary of getting as close to patients as we often have to. But, my two options as a nurse are to 1) attempt to restrain him and put myself in danger, or 2) let him do what he wants, which would cause a life-threatening bleed from his artery onto the bed or into his abdomen.

What’s a nurse to do?

Original Source: Once Bitten Twice Shy

But, when you take care of a patient that is free of any anesthetics in his/her system, and they are not going through problems related to a medical condition (stroke, DTs, etc), there is no excuse for abusive behavior. These behaviors can range anywhere from ordering you around like a servant: “This water isn’t cold enough; get me a new cup now!”, to calling you a *insert swear words here*, to grabbing onto your hair and not letting go. To be honest with you, I’m not sure which one of these scenarios bugs me the most. They all irk me, but in different ways. They are all so similar because they all cause me to lose instant respect for the patient. I walk into my shift every morning with full expectations that I’m going to have a good day. Even when I get report from the nurse who’s going off shift and he/she tells me “Oh, bed 36 is such a pain in the butt”, I still walk into room 36 with a smile on my face and a clean slate hoping for the best.

But when the patient does something disrespectful, all bets are off. I am still a high caliber nurse even when pushed to the brink. My patients are always well taken care for, all of their basic needs are met, but it makes it harder to WANT to go into the room and check on the patient. It makes it hard to WANT to get them a fresh cup of ice chips because you see the current cup is half melted or WANT to give them a lotion backrub because you know they’ve had to lay in bed for 6 hours straight after a procedure.

I do WANT to be a caring, thoughful, hard-working nurse. Why are you making this so hard for me to do?

Original Source: Nursing Abuse