Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:13

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Please help your healthcare workers help you-don't LIE

So today a nurse who works with a patient I've been having difficulty with for some time came over to ask if I knew the patient had taken herself off her blood pressure medication.  I did not.  Apparently only the social worker knew, and she called the dr. but didn't let the clinicians know.  And I'm pretty annoyed by this because this pt. has had some odd new symptoms develop, symptoms that caused us to get a consult with a specialist, and all the time I'm sitting there trying to figure out what was going on she was smugly congratulating herself.  Not to mention I make this woman work hard and since I had no idea her blood pressure was a bit higher because of being off meds rather than just a little fluctuation she kept explaining away by being active before I came I went ahead with pushing her and she could easily have stroked out on me.  So the next visit isn't going to be so pleasant because we have to talk about honesty and how if she's not honest with me I could accidentally KILL her.  Apparently she thinks (per what she told the nurse) that I'm responsible for people reacting to this.  I didn't even know, I just knew she had new symptoms that could be serious and she couldn't exactly hide them from me.

I'm so frustrated.  Everything is a game with this patient and I'm tired of being a pawn.  I'm almost done being a pawn as she's going to meet her goals relatively soon, but I am very, very patient and she is pushing me to the edge.  I'm thinking we're doing great and she's thinking "haha, I feel good because I know something you don't know".

I did complain about the social worker not letting us know.  I have no desire to kill my patients and if they take themselves off meds that I need to monitor something I want to know.  Hope this lady like having her blood pressure taken as if she's going to be off meds I'm checking it as frequently as I desire until I know for sure how it is reacting.  Even worse, imagine if this had happened and my holiday coverage had not known and she'd stroked on them.

Public service announcement over.

1 comment:

Michal Ann said...

This sneaky non-compliant client is sure the opposite of YOU!!