4. We just don’t listen.
Nurses are knowledgeable in what we do. Because we are knowledgeable, it becomes hard for our health care providers to feed us information. We insist on what we know.
A critical care nurse went to see her doctor because she was coughing for a few days already. She was ordered to take antibiotics and to take a good rest at home. She was also given antipyretics to control the fever. Because she felt her condition is a lot worse than what her doctor thought, she insisted that the doctor orders her to get an X-ray and a Culture and Sensitivity test. Her doctor spent a full 30 minutes trying to get her see his point.
5. We become the annoying patients we greatly disliked.
The four other reasons relatively sum up the type of patient we wouldn’t want to encounter in our area– obnoxious, doubtful and control-freak. Unfortunately, these same adjectives describe ourselves as patients.
Nurses are generally kind-hearted and good people. It must probably be the fear, worrying and anxiety of being vulnerable that change us. So, the next time you’re placed in the same situation, try to be calm and be the patient you, as a nurse, would love to take care of.
Have you ever cared for someone from the profession? Are nurses really that difficult as patients?