difficult nurses

On my rural placement, I found myself in a difficult situation with one of the ward nurses who was looking after a patient who was Day 1 post THR. This patient had been extremely nauseas all morning, so myself and my supervisor saw her after lunch to transfer her out of bed. Everything went well, however upon sitting upright was feeling very nauseas and vomited. We stood the patient and took a few steps, then decided we would put her back into bed rather than have her sitting out as she was feeling extremely unwell, and tomorrow we would see her again for ambulation. Later in the day (at 4.30pm), I overhead the patients’ nurse trying to phone the OT’s- who were no longer in their office. She then spotted me as I was leaving the ward and asked if I could find a suitable chair for the lady to sit out in, as she had not yet been seen by the OTs. I informed her that the OTs were seeing the patient first thing in the morning as they like to measure up their chairs to the patients height/ leg length (especially as she was a posterior approach). I also informed her that the patient was still vomiting and feeling unwell, and had been given bed ex’s and breathing ex’s to perform until we saw her again in the morning.

The nurse insisted that the patient be transferred out of bed (OOB), and she was going to get her up whether I would help or not. I again explained the patient’s situation, and also that if we transferred her OOB now, she would need to sit out for around 2 hrs before dinner, which would be too long. The nurse then gave me big lecture/ abuse saying how I was just being selfish as I probably just wanted to get home on time (although I only had the nurses quarters to get back to?!) and that being a student I should listen to what she wanted for the patient.

Her comments really upset me, as they were not only completely wrong, but because I knew it was not in the best interest of the patient to transfer her OOB. In the end, I ended up assisting the nurse to transfer the patient into a chair that I found and sized up, the whole time of which she was trying to tell me what I was doing wrong or a better way to do something. To cut a long story short- we transferred the patient OOB (TOWARDS her operated side which again the nurse tried to tell me was wrong), the patient sat in the chair, threw up 3 times and then had to be put back into bed- all of which I could have predicted.

From this experience, I learnt that although I may have been a student, I knew what was right and I should have been more assertive and stood up for what I knew, but I ended up just trying to please the nurse and avoid conflict. My supervisor believes I did the right thing, as in small hospitals she assured me it would have been worse to get on the wrong side of the nurses, however I still feel this was not right or fair on the patient.