Hospital Stories...

[stickyshooZ]

I was talking with my mom tonight, who is a certified nurse and works in a hospital. She occasionally tells me about her patients, but lately she's been telling me of a lot of disturbing things that go on in the Hospital she works in. She recalls instances of the night crew in particular, which features neglect, irresponsibility and sometimes nurses being physically (sometimes mentally) rough with their patients.

One story that especially stuck with me, was that my Mom went in one morning and decided to check on one of the stroke patients she had been talking to the other day. The patient is in her early 60's, so it's not like she suffers from dementia or anything...and she was telling my mother about how nasty some of her caretakers are and that she was contemplating making a complaint to management, but was scared to do so because she feared she might be retaliated against.

This really disturbed me, because it just made it sound almost evil...and I started to wonder if this is at all a common thing in some hospitals??? No one should have to be in a hospital and be literally AFRAID for their safety...it just really rubbed me the wrong way.

Has anyone else ever been in the care of a hospital and experienced anything like what I've mentioned? Or even just general neglect and inept care?

[Ellis]

My girlfriend is a Registered Nurse. Man... the stories I could tell.

Suffice to say, there is a massive shortage of nurses, especially in low populated areas. So complaints usually don't amount to anything unless it's a really bad complaint.

[Special K]

Having had a couple relatives suffer strokes, I would take what they say with a grain of salt. I'm not trying to minimize the situation or call this patient crazy as I have absolutely no idea what her history is, but stroke patients often times can be confused due to the insult on their brain from the stroke as well as the heavy amount of medication they are on.

Question though, in what manner of retaliation was she fearful of?

[Special K]

This really disturbed me, because it just made it sound almost evil...and I started to wonder if this is at all a common thing in some hospitals??? No one should have to be in a hospital and be literally AFRAID for their safety...it just really rubbed me the wrong way.

Every profession will have its fair share of bad apples :2cents:

Has anyone else ever been in the care of a hospital and experienced anything like what I've mentioned? Or even just general neglect and inept care?

And to answer this question, yes, I have had a terrible experience during one of my hospital stays. It was during my sophomore year of college and had to do with an ER doctor who was a pompous jackass, didn't diagnose me correctly, and was extremely insulting throughout my whole experience in the ER.

It was so ridiculous that I went straight to a specialist and sought care from a family friend who was a general surgeon. He diagnosed me within 5 minutes and immediately took me into emergency surgery.

Interestingly, I had jokingly but correctly diagnosed myself when I started having the pain, before I'd seen either one of the docs. During a stats class, when my friend asked me what I was up to that weekend, I said I'd probably be having an emergency appendectomy and would be in the hospital if she needed me, lol.

[Burgold]

Related story. I remember being in a Nursing Home (I used to volunteer) and seeing some Nurses Assistants going into rooms and stealing jewlery. It was pathetic on so many levels: As a betrayal of trust, as harming someone that is that fragile, many of the family members wouldn't believe because their parents had cognitive issues.

Twice, on two seperate occassions, I saw someone enter a patients room, once when they were there and leave with their valuables. I reported both and they were caught red handed with the patients stuff in their lockers. Half the nursing staff wound up really liking me and the other half went the other way, but they all behaved after that when I came around and you could almost sense a grapevine thing happening sometimes announcing that I was there.

How can you hurt someone who has so little and is so vulnerable?

[Special K]

How can you hurt someone who has so little and is so vulnerable?

Glad to hear you did the right thing Burgy.

Seriously though, that is just so unbelievably messed up I can't even comprehend the type of fubar'd thinking involved in that sort of behavior.

I'm a big believer in karma and those jerks will get paid back in full and then some for participating in that type of disgusting behavior.

[SolidSnake84]

This is a true story of what happened to me during my stay in the Winchester Medical Center in the summer of 2003. Some people on the board might remember when i posted this this first time:

Late Summer day in August of 2003, i was admitted into the hospital for some kind of a medicine allergy. I was taking an antibiotic named Keflex for an ear infection. i was feeling fine until i noticed that day that i had what looked like little pin pricks on my arms...long story short i go to the Hospital because i knew something wasn't right.

Once i get there, the ER is packed. People dont have any chairs to wait on so people are standing in the hallway. After waiting about an hour, i finally see the doctor, who speaks badly broken english. The doctor was iranian or indian or whatever..

after laying back in the ER bay for like 4 hours, they tell me i am going to get a room finally. Only, i am moved away from the sickbay area and into a hallway, where they hook me to an IV bag and let me lay there. The nurse says its because they are waiting to get the room clean. After laying in the hall for like 2 hours, i am finally moved to a room on the heart floor. I think it's weird because there is someone in the room who introduces theirself as a "sitter".

I ask why one is needed and she says that its standard procedure for anyone who has attempted suicide/overdosed!!! in my drugged and tired state i finally realize that something very very bad has happened.

I tell her that there must be some mistake because i didn't O.D. or try suicide..she didnt say anything except that a case worker was coming in the morning from NorthWestern (The psych. hospital!!!). I start freaking out and telling them that there has to be a mistake or something and that i'm not who they think i am...but nobody will listen to me.

My Mom finally gets to the hospital and finds the room i am in! By a MIRACLE, she somehow realizes that something is wrong and alerts them that there must have been a mix up. Another doctor comes in with her (this time an english speaking american guy), and they realize that i was mixed up with another patient during my admission.

they fixed it right away and put me in a regular room, and FINALLY give me IVs to help my allergic reaction go away. They were making me drink charcoal and giving me stuff to help with drugs!!! And the scariest thing is that a guy was coming in to pump my stomach when my Mom finally saved me.

This is 100% true and to this day i think that we could have had a million dollar lawsuit....

[Special K]

This is 100% true and to this day i think that we could have had a million dollar lawsuit....

Well if you're so sure about that, then why didn't you go for it?

FWIW, I don't think you would have gotten jack in a lawsuit as you were not harmed in any way....

[SolidSnake84]

so there is no harm in mis-identifying a patient, then giving them drugs for overdose, when i was suffering from a simple allergic reaction?!?!

isnt that at least gross negligance or malpractice or something?

[Special K]

so there is no harm in mis-identifying a patient, then giving them drugs for overdose, when i was suffering from a simple allergic reaction?!?!

isnt that at least gross negligance or malpractice or something?

Who knows, I'm only hearing your side of the story here. I would be interested in hearing the physicians' side of this story.

And like I asked before, if you are so sure you had a million-dollar lawsuit, why didn't you go ahead and sue?

[SolidSnake84]

to be honest with you, i never really thought of it at the time...it wasnt until after the fact. i dont really know what made me not at least try and sue. I think it was from being just a kid and not really knowing my rights or anything...i just knew that something was really wrong and i just wanted to get out of there...

[Special K]

to be honest with you, i never really thought of it at the time...it wasnt until after the fact......i just knew that something was really wrong and i just wanted to get out of there...

Okay, that's definitely understandable.

[PCS]

I think one of the big concerns for me when I worked in the hospital,was the condition of a few,(select I might add),of the caregivers,(Nurse,Dr.s,Techs,ect...),while working. Rehab or a drunk tank would have been a better place for them. Yeah. I saw a few cases of neglect or just some abuse,(sometimes people just being mean). Hell I was a victim of it a few times. All of them still bother me to this day if I think about them. As a caregiver,(especially if you made the decision to be one),you have a responsibility,both moral and professional,to give the best care you can to the patients under your charge. These are lives that we're talking about here. The ultimate responsibility,(second only to being a parent to me),a person can have. I realize that there may be mitigating factors that contribute to the attitude at times that brings on some of this bad stuff,but it's beholden upon the individual to recognize it and fix it.

Now all that said,it's no different than most other professions and so forth. Neglect,abuse,ect. are,unfortunately,part of the deal. Hopefully,(and I believe this to be the case),it's like the police and others,where there's more good than bad and we just hear more about the bad.

Now just to make sure it's not a complete downer in here. Did I ever tell the story on how I was working the night shift in the E.R. and decided to go to the lab and tape the bottoms of all the urine specimen cups together? They were all stacked up so nice and neat too. I'll leave out how after I did that I went to several of the clinics and put Surgilube on the earpieces of the phones.

Wait. I mean I had this friend who did all that.

[China]

Related story. I remember being in a Nursing Home (I used to volunteer) and seeing some Nurses Assistants going into rooms and stealing jewlery. It was pathetic on so many levels: As a betrayal of trust, as harming someone that is that fragile, many of the family members wouldn't believe because their parents had cognitive issues.

Twice, on two seperate occassions, I saw someone enter a patients room, once when they were there and leave with their valuables. I reported both and they were caught red handed with the patients stuff in their lockers. Half the nursing staff wound up really liking me and the other half went the other way, but they all behaved after that when I came around and you could almost sense a grapevine thing happening sometimes announcing that I was there.

How can you hurt someone who has so little and is so vulnerable?

Yes, I think nursing homes are worse than hospitals. Sometimes my grandmother would relate stories from her nursing home. She is 103 and mentally sharp as a tack, however. In fact, her biggest complaint is the seeming incompetence of some of the staff. Actually, recently my father who acts as custodian/caretaker of my grandmother's affairs related a story:

He received a phone call from someone at my grandmother's nursing home who was apparently in charge of social services. Unfortunately, she was seemingly incompetent. My grandmother's hearing aids needed repair and she called and asked my father if he wanted them repaired. He was left wondering why they didn't simply ask my grandmother as she is fully mentally competent, and she's the one who needs them, but he told her to go ahead and get them fixed anyway. Second, my grandmother wanted a check cashed. The nursing home houses a branch of a bank in the building. The bank said it wouldn't cash the check becuase if was from a different bank. My father then asked the social services person why, if she was there to provide the services for the patients, she didn't simply go to a branch of the particular bank and get the check cashed? Further, he wondered why the nursing home, as a condition of allowing the bank to have branch in its facilities with captive customers, didn't require, as a condition of leasing the space inside their nursing home, that they accept checks from other banks.

Third, my grandmother wanted 100 dollars in cash, all in 5 dollar bills. Apparently this befuddled the social services person. First, if she is providing the service, and if my grandmother wants it all in a particular denomination, what's the big deal? Get it for her. My father reminded the social services person that my grandmother is blind, and that for a blind person it is simpler to have bills in all one denomination so that they can reach for them and know exactly how much money they are handing out, rather than having to guess.

[lovetoaster]

And to answer this question, yes, I have had a terrible experience during one of my hospital stays. It was during my sophomore year of college and had to do with an ER doctor who was a pompous jackass, didn't diagnose me correctly, and was extremely insulting throughout my whole experience in the ER.

It was so ridiculous that I went straight to a specialist and sought care from a family friend who was a general surgeon. He diagnosed me within 5 minutes and immediately took me into emergency surgery.

Heyyyy...similar thing happened to me. I broke my fibula pretty badly and jacked up my ankle pretty badly on New Years Eve a couple of years ago. Not drunk, but the nurse assumed I was so she was being a real jerk to me, even though I was being very respectful to her.

For example, she was asking me the routine questions like what medications I was allergic to and I did not hear a question. I had never really had an injury that serious and my mind was racing, so I asked her to repeat the question. She responded with "oh, I forgot you were drunk" in a very condescending manner. So, I was not really in the mood for that, so I reminded her that I was in fact not drunk, and she could test me if she really wanted to. She made a similar remark a few minutes later and I asked her essentially what her problem was. She apologized, and said that she did not mean to offend me...and then made the same comment a few minutes later. I asked for a new nurse.

So then, I get x-rays taken and the doctor comes and sees me. He acknowledges that I have a broken leg, but says it is really not a big deal and that I should just go see an orthopedic doctor the next day. The problem was, it was New Years Eve, and nothing was going to be open on New Year's Day, which was a Sunday, and I think the legal holiday was Monday, so nothing was open. So, a full three days later, I go see a friend of mine that is a athletic trainer for a Division I school to ask him where I should go. He looked at my x-rays and within 10 seconds, he was saying "you need surgery right now." So I was having surgery later that day.

My leg was bad, but my ankle was really bad. I have a plate in my leg and about 10 screws and I had a screw going across my ankle to hold it together. I got asked about 20 times "why the hell did the hospital not do surgery that night?" And I really did not have an answer.

Everything worked out eventually, and I have no idea what could have happened if I would not have gotten to the right people when I did. But they seemed pretty concerned at the time.

[KingGibbs]

I have a short story involving my Dad's hospital stay that will make every guy that reads this feel a sudden pain.

He had a decather put in his pee pee and a nurse came in the room and tripped on the tube yanking the decather out of his said pee pee. Needless to say my poor Dad screamed in agony and the Nurse apologized over and over again..

BTW. I'm not making this up.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

This is 100% true and to this day i think that we could have had a million dollar lawsuit....

Well if you're so sure about that, then why didn't you go for it?

FWIW, I don't think you would have gotten jack in a lawsuit as you were not harmed in any way....

so there is no harm in mis-identifying a patient, then giving them drugs for overdose, when i was suffering from a simple allergic reaction?!?!

isnt that at least gross negligance or malpractice or something?

Ok, as a medical malpractice attorney who represents people injured I'll say this. You had a bad experience at the hospital, and maybe it was malpractice. However, you have no case. You had no chance to win any money if you filed a lawsuit because you have no damages.

Also, it comes nowhere near the standard of proving gross negligence... which I am confident in saying has never been proven in the District of Columbia. (I know Winchester is in VA, but I don't practice in VA... although I'm confident they have never had a gross negligence medical malpractice case either.)

On the plus side, you had no damages! If you had attempted to file a lawsuit, you would have had a very difficult time getting an attorney. It woud have cost about 50K to prosecute your claim, and you probably couldn't have won more than 25K, if that.

Every profession will have its fair share of bad apples :2cents:

Exactly. Which is why we need to protect the rights of real victims of medical malpractice.

[stickyshooZ]

I have a short story involving my Dad's hospital stay that will make every guy that reads this feel a sudden pain.

He had a decather put in his pee pee and a nurse came in the room and tripped on the tube yanking the decather out of his said pee pee. Needless to say my poor Dad screamed in agony and the Nurse apologized over and over again..

BTW. I'm not making this up.

Oh God, reading this made my insides wring...

[PCS]

Oh God, reading this made my insides wring...

I knew a guy who actually removed one before deflating the bulb on the end. :yikes: He "forgot." :doh:

[Special K]

As a caregiver,(especially if you made the decision to be one),you have a responsibility,both moral and professional,to give the best care you can to the patients under your charge.

I agree 100% with that. And actually, we are seeing a trend in medical schools (at least the ones I'm familiar with) who are using more than just a high GPA and MCAT scores to determine who they accept into their programs. Again, the schools I am familiar with are begining to trend more toward accepting well-rounded, ethically and morally conscious people who have a relatively normal human being's bedside manner. I am very much in favor of this approach because they are starting to focus more on the physician's or nurse's or other health care provider's character, something that is extremely important in medicine as like you earlier stated, we are dealing with people's lives here.

Yes, I think nursing homes are worse than hospitals.

Oh, I couldn't agree with you more on that. Immediately following my grammy's stroke my family placed her in a local nursing home thinking she would get the care she needed 24/7 and she was really close to home so we could visit her whenever we wanted. Only a short while into her stay, my sister and I went to visit her and give her a manicure and pedicure to cheer her up and holy Lord we were traumatized from that visit! The place was a freaking mess, there were things that should have been sterile but weren't, the staff was rude and gruff with grammy, and it smelled like CRAP.

Fortunately, after a really short stay at the nursing home, my parents, aunts, uncles and other relatives all chipped in to pay for around-the-clock caregivers for both my grandparents at home because we couldn't bear the thought of them spending the rest of their time on this earth in that nursing home. So, both my grandparents were able to pass away at home, surrounded by loved ones and in a room that didn't smell like crap.

I know the majority of nursing homes aren't bad, but my siblings and I have already vowed to never, EVER let our parents spend their final days in a nursing home.

[PCS]

I agree 100% with that. And actually, we are seeing a trend in medical schools (at least the ones I'm familiar with) who are using more than just a high GPA and MCAT scores to determine who they accept into their programs. Again, the schools I am familiar with are begining to trend more toward accepting well-rounded, ethically and morally conscious people who have a relatively normal human being's bedside manner. I am very much in favor of this approach because they are starting to focus more on the physician's or nurse's or other health care provider's character, something that is extremely important in medicine as like you earlier stated, we are dealing with people's lives here.

Now that's pretty darn cool right there. I hope this works out in the long run.

Reminds me. True story. A nurse and I were "discussing" something or another one night shift,and she looked at me and said ; "Don't bull**** me. You don't care about these patients."

"Yes I do."

"Oh please. No you don't. You're no different than anybody else."

"The hell I don't. Just because you don't doesn't mean I won't."

That pretty much ended that one. If she hadn't been an officer,I would have asked her what the hell she was a nurse for.

[Special K]

My leg was bad, but my ankle was really bad. I have a plate in my leg and about 10 screws and I had a screw going across my ankle to hold it together. I got asked about 20 times "why the hell did the hospital not do surgery that night?" And I really did not have an answer.

Okay, I am not defending the doctors here because it appears as though you had a pretty bad experience. But having worked at my dad's ortho. office here and there throughout high school and college, I've seen several instances where a patient will have a bad break requiring surgery, but the surgery is put off until the next day. This usually occurs if the patient is intoxicated upon arrival at the ER (not saying this was you at all) or if they have eaten a meal immediately prior to the injury (can't take a patient to surgery if they have a full stomach). I don't know if any of these factors were involved in your case, but regardless, it sounds like there was a lot of confusion and miscommunication.

Exactly. Which is why we need to protect the rights of real victims of medical malpractice.

Correct. And I've never claimed otherwise.

[lovetoaster]

Okay, I am not defending the doctors here because it appears as though you had a pretty bad experience. But having worked at my dad's ortho. office here and there throughout high school and college, I've seen several instances where a patient will have a bad break requiring surgery, but the surgery is put off until the next day. This usually occurs if the patient is intoxicated upon arrival at the ER (not saying this was you at all) or if they have eaten a meal immediately prior to the injury (can't take a patient to surgery if they have a full stomach). I don't know if any of these factors were involved in your case, but regardless, it sounds like there was a lot of confusion and miscommunication.

Yeah, I certainly understand that. I just remembered that the doctor at the hospital told me that he did not think that I needed surgery. :doh: Everyone else I saw had a very different opinion.

But oh well, that was a long time ago and everything worked out OK.

[Special K]

Okay, here's one that might make you boys grimace... :evilg:

I was laying in bed in my hospital room after an appendectomy and this elderly gentleman shuffled into the room with his butt hanging out of his gown. He was completely disoriented. Well, my girlfriend who was with me at the time got up to ask him a question and I saw her eyeballs just about pop out of her head and she was like "um Katie, stay right there, I'm going to get help"

Turns out the poor guy had yanked out his cath. and was bleeding profusely all over floor in my room and bathroom...all the while asking for his wife....who we later found out was deceased.. That poor u)

Now that's pretty darn cool right there. I hope this works out in the long run.

I know, I think good character is of such great importance when dealing with other human beings, especially ones who are entrusting their lives to your care.

Anyway, I don't know if all medical/dental/nursing/public health schools are doing this, but this is what I've been hearing from one of my uncles who's the asst. dean at the dental school and sits on the admissions committee. He coached my sister for her med. school interview and he kept on stressing how important it was to present a well-rounded character during her interview....

[Burgold]

The one problem with threads like this is that most of us will never recognize when a nurse, doctor, or health care provider goes way above the call of duty. Anything that goes well or amazingly for the most part is par for the course. All the things that go right are invisible. It's the the tiniest things that go wrong that we notice.

That said...

My grandmother was in the hospital for a kidney infection. The doctor noticed that her bloodsalt was on the low side and order it be upped. The rise in sodium caused a congestive heart failure. About five months later, my Grandmother got another kidney infection and the same doctor, her personal physician, noticed that her blood salt was on the low side and ordered it to be upped. Same result. Congestive heart failure. It irritated me no end that neither the doctor nor anyone else who had access to her history paid any attention and repeated the same blunder in exactly the same way in such a short time span.