Hospital care is unpredictable, except for shift change. That's guaranteed to happen at the same time every day and every night. Right after Ativan and Haldol, shift change is the second most thankful aspect of a nurse's job. As a patient in the hospital, you should be nice to your nurse. They are your strongest advocate for compassionate care in a scary, unpredictable and frightening environment.
Always remember that your nurses have an extremely difficult job. After praying for a bunch of easy patients, but instead, ending up with some of the most needy, complex, and time consuming call light riding patients and their families, your nurse just wants to get the heck out of the hospital and get home before the ER calls at five minutes before the hour with a new admission. Those bastards. Who do they think they are?
If you're a patient, I highly recommend you don't interrupt your nurse during shift change. Find out when that is and use that time to disappear. I don't care what the problem is that you think you have. You wait until shift change is over before asking for help. Shift change is sacred time for nurses. If you interrupt them, this will annoy them and nurses have a tendency to never forget anything that annoys them, forever, as this crude nursing someecard so eloquently explains.
Always remember that your nurses have an extremely difficult job. After praying for a bunch of easy patients, but instead, ending up with some of the most needy, complex, and time consuming call light riding patients and their families, your nurse just wants to get the heck out of the hospital and get home before the ER calls at five minutes before the hour with a new admission. Those bastards. Who do they think they are?
If you're a patient, I highly recommend you don't interrupt your nurse during shift change. Find out when that is and use that time to disappear. I don't care what the problem is that you think you have. You wait until shift change is over before asking for help. Shift change is sacred time for nurses. If you interrupt them, this will annoy them and nurses have a tendency to never forget anything that annoys them, forever, as this crude nursing someecard so eloquently explains.
