Nurses

Room service

Maid service

At your beck and call

We can not be everywhere at once.

There is an order to things:

Higher acuity goes first. Always.

If there is patient struggling to breath and you want another pain pill, you're not the priority. 

If I'm sitting at the computer, I'm not "surfing Facebook", I'm documenting. 

If you ring your call light every fifteen minutes because you want me to: fluff your pillow, bring you another pitcher of water, bring you more pain medication, turn the light off, turn the light on, hand you the remote control that is a foot away from you, etc, no, you're not a priority. I will get to you, but the girl two doors down who is struggling to breath is my priority.

And yes, I do have to teach you the things you "already know". That's part of my job. Making sure, really sure, that you are educated and informed. I'm sorry if that's "annoying" to you. But that is my job. And if I don't do those things, later you might come back and say "the nurse never told me to do xyz" then try to sue me. 

And I'm very sorry that everyone doesn't get their own personal nurse. But due to the fantastic insurance changes, there just aren't enough nurses to go around. We do the best we can. Even for those that are rude and nasty to us. 

And since I just read this, I'll go ahead and say it. Yes, the day shift nurses are busy in different ways than the night shift is. Both shifts are busy in their own right. Day shift is not just dealing with patients, they also have to deal with doctors, admissions, discharges, etc. they don't have as much time to deal with just straight bedside. Night shift generally has more time to do those things. That's why your night shift nurses tend to be more available, you see them more, they can dedicate more time to 1:1 care. 

So please stop bashing us for trying to do our job.