Black nurse sues Michigan hospital for honoring patient's racist request

[moriah]

44. You may not have been diplomatic, but I can tell you're actually a nurse. ;)

The "dehydrated hamster" line had me rolling. Too bad you can't put it in those words without risking a JHACO complaint to such a patient.

Believe me, if I'm sick enough to be in the hospital, I don't care who gets my IV going. Truthfully, during most admissions I've been too concerned about breathing to focus on anything else. About the only exception was when they started to give me morphine IV -- I had pneumonia and an asthma exacerbation, pleural effusion, yes I was in pain but wasn't expecting THAT (though I have to admit it definitely did help the sense of suffocating as well as pain so very well may have been the appropriate intervention, I was scared of IV narcs).

Said to the nurse, "Woah! Let's go easy there, I've never had that before." She pushed slowly while looking at my pupils, only had to give half of what was ordered before I was good as a result, and it was pills after that.

Not sure how often you get that reaction, but was grateful she understood what I meant -- opiate-naive pt, please don't snow me!