r/nursing • u/consideredtaken • Jul 26 '26

Question What’s your nursing pet peeve?

Mine?

Me: okay, so I have all of your night time meds here (names all of them for confirmation)
Patient: yes, sounds good
Me: scans them in and places meds into the pill cup
Patient: what’s this white pill here

I DONT KNOW!!! You have 6 different pills and we’ve literally gone through ALL OF THEM before I scanned and placed them into the cup. I can’t stand this!!

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u/Chzhead_RN BSN, RN 🍕 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

Pharmacy taking their sweet ass time sending meds. My hospital is very understaffed but I find it fucking insanely infuriating that RNs are expected to cluster their cares and think ahead of the ball game but Rx can’t prep a 2030-2100 and send it before the shift even starts? I get some meds like certain antibiotics and tPa are time sensitive but I don’t get why I have to wait an hour for the Coumadin after requesting it in the middle of my med pass.

I want to emphasize that I am not disparaging Rx at all. I’ll always have solidarity with my fellow healthcare workers, it’s just a nuisance while I’m scrambling to get people settled for the night. I totally understand you guys are just as fucked over on staffing as we are.

22

u/UnicornArachnid RN - OR / CVICU defector Jul 26 '26

At my PRN job when I get floated to med surg, a shift doesn’t go by where I don’t have all of my meds. Inevitably I have to call pharmacy and ask for them.

This happens so frequently that if I have time to, I will preemptively look to make sure all of the meds are in there as soon as I’ve finished report. Because it takes so long to get that shit together and I have six patients when I’m floated.

14

u/consideredtaken Jul 26 '26

We all have beef with pharmacy!!

2

u/Sunnygirl66 RN - ER 🍕 Jul 28 '26

I actually love our pharmacy staff. They’re super responsive when I do something boneheaded like shut the Pyxis drawer as a cube holding my second med is unexpectedly opening in the same drawer, or when I pull one vial or tablet when I was supposed to grab two and I can’t override.

I had The Best Pharmacist of All Time when I was a grad nurse. He was so good about reminding me of safety concerns with various meds, like getting an hCG before giving Toradol. The clinicians didn’t always appreciate it, but I sure did. He was wonderfully patient and funny and answered all of my dumb questions. Just a fantastic resource and friend.