On my high horse... Sorry!

Sometimes, nurses make me mad. Sometimes, nurses make me really mad. Do they not ever remember being students themselves? Are we really that much of a pain?

I was working with this particular nurse yesterday, who refused to give me report on my patient because she was late for her lunch break. I never did get report, but I did get to listen to her whine for 6 hours that she didn't get her break. Seriously? Get over it. You are a nurse, who takes care of ill people. You cannot just drop your patients to take your 30 minute break if they need you.

This not getting her break ordeal gave her a very, very, nasty attitude.

For example: I took my patient's blood pressure and got 158/98. I took it twice just to make sure, and got the same exact thing. I reported this to my instructor and the nasty nurse. The nurse said she wanted to check it herself, which was fine, she is afterall the licensed caretaker of the patient. However, she decided to humiliate me in from on my patient, and I am pretty sure she did it on purpose becuase she despised our being there, apparently in her way. Or something like that. "Your blood pressure is wrong. I got 148/88. You need to chart MY blood pressure and NOT yours, since obviously yours is wrong."

I know how to take a blood pressure. I have been taking blood pressures since I became a CNA at age 16. Is it just me, or is it odd that her blood pressure was exactly 10 digits off of mine for systolic as well as diastolic? Her demeanor made it seem like she was just doing it to spite me.

I understand if my blood pressure was wrong. I'm a student, she's the nurse, so what she says goes, but she coud have gone about it in a more appropriate mannor. Like not embarrassing me in front of my patient, for instance? Thankfully my patient was so nice about it, and made a comment about rudeness of the nurse. I just put on my sweetest smile and said, "It's okay. I know that kindness goes a lot further with people than rudeness, and I'll know the right way to talk to students when I am a nurse."

I'm off my high horse now.

But seriously? Are students really that terrible?