One of my coworkers was doing their admission assessment and the patient was getting super irritable because it was late and they wanted to go to bed (and the irritation was manifesting in a lot of colorful language up to and including racial slurs). From a style standpoint I knew my coworker often preferred thoroughness over patient comfort vs I’m a lot more likely to just chart “Pt refused / unable to tolerate xyz, full assessment deferred to morning in favor of rest.”
So I offered to take the pt off my coworker’s hands and they could try their luck with the next one. Done deal, I take over and the patient instantly calms down, (“finally a [my ethnic group] who can take care of me properly!”). OK, here’s your admission packet, the supplies you requested, have a nice night." “…but what about my suboxone?”
And I was just immediately like “oh, OK. Small misunderstanding here. My plan was going to be to just tuck you into bed and hope for the best. If you do actually want to take the time to get all your meds straightened out tonight my coworker here is actually a much better fit for your needs.” The pt did not give my coworker any more trouble. Pt successfully educated on the importance of active participation in their treatment plan.
Y’all got any good ones?
I had patient in their mid 50’s with a nearly 90 pack year smoking history (2-3 packs a day since they were a teenager) that wasn’t interested in quitting smoking because he thought he would rather die of lung cancer than dementia like his mother did. I spent a good chunk of time explaining how smoking can actually increase chances of dementia, and how much the health consequences of heavy smoking suck. He already had the early stages of COPD and explaining how much worse it could get made it make sense to him.
I had a childhood friend that died from cancer that metastasized to his lungs and my grandmother died from severe emphysema leading to respiratory failure. Amazingly, getting someone to understand that what they’re doing is going to result in slowly drowning in their own lungs as they lose surface area and fill up with fluid and tumors really turns on a light-bulb for them. The vivid description of a person gurgling with each breath and the reality that this went on for months or years until it finally killed them was a good illustration. I made good use of my humanities degree where I learned how to use descriptive language to make a convincing argument for this one. The patient did end up agreeing to getting meds to help with quitting and information on support groups to help with it.
I got like halfway through the first paragraph and was Lille “somebody tell this man about vascular dementia!” Glad to hear you did and it worked!
