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The key contribution of healthcare professionals to society's well-being is something that most would agree on. And while the majority of people have visited hospitals on occasions varying from the birth of a child to a life-saving operation, there are many things that patients and visitors tend to not know about.
Healthcare workers from institutions that provide medical and surgical treatment are addressing the lesser-known side of hospitals by answering one Redditor’s question: “Hospital workers, what happens there that’s hidden but that we should know about?”
More info: Reddit
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#1
The lab. The many labs inside a hospital are what you don't know about.
A hospital without a lab is just a bunch of people guessing. A hospital without a lab is a collection of doctors' offices.
Think about that for a moment.
The lab is not where they draw your blood. The lab is where that blood is sent to have various tests. Each color tube does something very specific. Those tubes need to be filled to a certain amount. They need to be drawn in a certain order to keep contamination from causing issues. Sometimes, they even need to be drawn from certain places.
The lab takes your blood, sweat, urine, fluid drainage (from cysts, wounds, around your heart/lungs/liver, brain, etc.), nose swabs, cheek swabs, feces, tumors, removed organs and appendages, growths, and many other unwanted parts and fluids. The lab knows that you eat too much sugar, you lie about that cigarette you enjoy every day, and that you need to stop taking so many over-the-counter pain relievers.
The lab knows when you have chemotherapy. The lab watches your platelet count go down. The lab knows about the deletion of that one gene or the doubling up of another. The lab ran your PCR COVID test and saw you become a statistic. They then asked a blood donor program to hit you up for COVID convalescent plasma, so that you might save a life.
The lab monitored your time on the heart-lung machine. The lab knew when you needed platelets and blood.
The lab saw your lupus diagnosis first. The lab was nearly as upset as you were about it.
The lab was overjoyed when they got the news to pass along to your doctor that the stem cells came in for your bone marrow replacement.
Nurses and doctors see you face to face, but the lab knows you from your insides. The lab is faceless to almost everyone in the hospital (even other staff), which is a shame because the lab is cheering you on in your recovery.
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#2
People abusing nurses and when the nurses report it nothing happens. Nurses deserve safety and the attackers deserve accountability
Captain McSmoot 1 year ago
Good nurses, good teachers, and good police officers all get treated the same: crappy.
#3
In the ICU you spend a lot of time keeping corpses alive until their family comes around or their body gives out
“Oh Jesus ain’t ready for her yet!”
Yes, Jesus is ready for her; we’re just actively delaying it
#4
If you sit there on your phone the whole time the mother of your child is in labor such that a nurse has to step in and fulfill the supportive role instead, yeah everyone knows and you’re getting judged by the whole unit.
#5
When nurses/MDs etc are laughing/joking with each other it is a coping mechanism. We aren't trying to be rude we are compartmentalizing the trauma that we see all day every day. If we don't lighten the load we would cry all day and never come back to work it's literally the only way to watch a baby die and then deal with screaming karen next door with out punching them in the face.
Lil Miss Hobbit 1 year ago
This. I admire nurses so much for their strength and courage. I went to the kid's wing to see my cousin and there was a little sunshiny girl who was saying hi to everyone in her little gown and I just couldn't stop crying. I think she was fine, but not all of them are.
#6
Sometimes when people die we just put an oxygen mask on them and wheel them through the corridors. Less distressing for other patients and visitors to think they are asleep rather than see a body with a sheet over it.
#7
Some families reject death so much, they beg the doctors and nursing staff to do lifesaving measures on their 95 year old grandma who has cancer everywhere and is begging for death. It's just unacceptable.
Sonja 1 year ago
They project their own fear of death onto others. No one is allowed to die, otherwise they have to accept that they themselves are mortal. They do the worst to their poor elderly relatives and even drag out the lives of their pets far beyond what's humane and decent. Death can be a release. Sometimes it's just better to let your loved ones go. But some people are unable to accept that because they themselves are not yet ready to die. It's very sad. Life and death come together. You can't have one without the other. That's a reality we all have to accept. There's no way to avoid it indefinitely. It's natural.
#8
You are doing your 90 year old grandmother a great disservice by making her a full code, she will not survive CPR and her death will be significantly more traumatic because of it.
WindySwede 1 year ago
[According to the Huffington Post, “full code” is a hospital designation that means to intercede if a patient’s heart stops beating or if the patient stops breathing. It is the opposite code of DNR/DNI, meaning “Do Not Resuscitate/Do Not Intubate."] - https://www.reference.com/business-finance/medical-full-code-80393ec34668860c
#9
An ambulance ride is not a one way ticket to the front of the line. You still get triaged and could be rolled right to the waiting room if you’re non-emergent.
#10
There is an army of pharmacists in the basement that approve every medication entered by every doctor, frequently catching errors that need a change in therapy (patient on dialysis can’t have x med due to toxicity risk, why is this patient on two nitrate-containing meds?, this patient is 90 and her QTc is already 500 so maybe let’s reconsider the Levaquin, this guy just got that antibiotic in surgery two hours ago so I’ll reschedule it to tomorrow, why is this patient not on blood thinners when they are at high risk for a clotting event, another doctor already ordered potassium repletion for this patient so do you want me to delete your order as a duplicate, you forgot to order a thyroid test before starting amiodarone, this person’s kidney function has stabilized so we can increase their antibiotic dose again, can I change this pantoprazole order to lansoprazole because you can’t crush pantoprazole and the patient has a G-tube, please enter an updated weight for the tiny NICU baby so I can redose all of their weight-based medications, did you really mean to order 1030 units of insulin for this patient or did you want them to get it at 10:30, etc)
Multa Nocte 1 year ago
I have a deep admiration of pharmacists and all they do. Their knowledge base is incredible. I wish they had a higher rank on the medical pecking order.
#12
Not hidden, per se, but for the love of all that is holy, if you insist on bringing your kid into the hospital, do NOT let them crawl or play on the floor. The amount of literal blood, urine, poop, and vomit that has been on it and hastily (not thoroughly) cleaned up is, well, a lot. The hospital, especially the floors, is NOT a clean environment.
Added to that, think of all the rooms nurses, doctors, housekeeping staff, etc. have walked into. Rooms that have COVID or Norovirus or group A Strep. We walked into those rooms and those same shoes walked into other rooms.
Tl;dr hospital floors are disgusting as f**k.
Boootifull Unicorn 1 year ago
my sister once ate a jellybean off a hospital floor before my dad could stop her and nearly died. she was not on the floor, she just bent down to grab it.
#13
Surgeon here. We listen to music in the OR. Most people seem surprised when they hear that.
Kookamunga 1 year ago
I work with surgeons and they all do this. Our department chair prefers Rush.
#14
If you come into the ER drunk there is guaranteed a pool of bets on your blood alcohol level, possibly with odds if there's a pharmacist available to do the math for us.
#15
Imagine being stuck in a windowless white environment with bright florescent lights, beeping machines, pained moaning, and poop smells for 12 hours. Now do it with less staff than what’s required to manage the volume of people. Now throw in 3 years of burnout from the pandemic.
Now consider how grumpy and frustrated you would be, and consider what would make you stay in the job.
#16
It’s not uncommon for families to abandon elderly members at the hospital. They will straight up ghost or at least will be polite enough to say they won’t give any assistance to us in placing them in a nursing home, so Adult Protective Services will get involved and make them a ward of the state. This process can take weeks to months, so these abandoned people just live in the hospital and take up the resources that could be used treating sick people.
There are also many families that keep elderly members in unsafe living conditions so they can continue to take their Social Security checks for personal use.
Kookamunga 1 year ago
Shocking that someone could do this to a loved one. I guess I should say unloved one.
#17
I worked in the kitchen, so I was the lowly peon delivering food trays. Delivered to one guy who had a horrendously infected foot. Most of the toes were necrotic and black and the rest of the foot wasn't doing much better. I wouldn't be surprised if he was waiting on amputation. His dietary requirements were Diabetic, so it was likely. The room smelled AWFUL.
Anyway, these rooms are small, with typically two beds in them. Because of the smell from his infection, the other bed is empty. I still have to squeeze by the foot of his bed, and as I'm paying attention to the tray so I don't knock it into equipment, I accidentally brush my leg against his infected foot that he has sticking out of the covers and hanging off the bed. His big toenail comes off onto my leg. It's just, stuck to my leg. We look at each other in horror. I clear my throat, ask my usual questions, clear and adjust his table, give him his tray and wish him a good day. I leave calmly, and then run to the nurse's station and ask for help getting this dude's entire necrotic toenail (with bonus flesh) off my f*****g leg.
The nurse who got it off soaked that portion of my pantleg in some disinfectant liquid that smelled like it could take the paint off a car.
Greenmantle 1 year ago
Sometimes the foot is just bandaged and the toes allowed to fall off, because they can be saved
#18
In the US, insurance companies are buying up doctor practices, urgent care centers, minute clinics, surgery centers, and pharmacies. This is centralizing all the profit under an organization notorious for screwing over medical providers and patients alike, and there’s a real risk of insurance companies steering their customers toward centers owned by that insurance company without transparency. Hospitals are corrupt enough, but imagine receiving care at one owned by United Health.
MrsFettesVette 1 year ago
I'm only slightly less worried about this than I am about all the private equity firms buying up medical practices and hospitals.
#19
I got a fast bleep (ie. drop everything you’re doing and attend this emergency please) one night to a side room on the ward to find no patient in the bed. Was just about to leave the room and go back out to the nurses station, where there had been a bit of a hubbub when I’d dashed past the first time, when something caught my eye.
Looked up to see a face with wide, slightly wild “psych eyes” peering down at me from a gap in the ceiling tiles. She was a lady waiting for a bed in the psych hospital who’d clearly thought the ceiling was the best place to hide from the people trying to poison her.
Honestly can’t think of another occasion that I’ve been quite so terrified.
Worst thing was that I had to walk (well, dash) back out underneath her to get help from the nurses and security to get her down.
WindySwede 1 year ago
I would probably pretended not to see her, call for help and then change pants. Hope she got help!
#20
How often we have to hide how we are made to feel.
Patients blame staff for systemic issues. It’s not your nurses fault the wait time is long, it’s not the individual staff that created the big picture issue. Most of us are trying our best in an unappreciated field and are here trying to help.
Greenmantle 1 year ago
True. Nurses are constantly triaging and prioritising. You will have to wait 30mins for a sleeping tablet if there is someone in need of emergency assistance in the next room.
#21
That patient families will do anything to keep the patient alive for their own comfort instead of abiding by the doctors orders. For example: feeding an intubated patient a hamburger because “he’s hungry” when they are already getting tube fed and ordered NOT to interfere with the vent or trach. This has resulted in many patient deaths than you think.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 year ago
After my dad’s accident, he had a trach hole and severe muscle atrophy of his swallowing muscles (he had been in a coma for 6 months.) He also had catastrophic brain damage. After he woke up and we took him home, my mom would blend normal food (like a hamburger) and try to feed it to him by mouth because she insisted he’d “get better” (spoiler: he didn’t) and she didn’t want to feed him via feeding tube. The horrible sounds of my father choking on liquefied food that his esophageal muscles were too atrophied to swallow will haunt me forever. I can still hear them in my head and his accident was 23 years ago.
#22
That all the sweet treats and food you bring in for the units to eat usually only go to day shift and night shift gets left out of yummy goodness.
#23
I am an ICU Nurse. I had a patient who was declared brain stem dead. The family did not want him to become an organ donor so we withdrew treatment. I switched off the ventilator, pumps etc and extubated the patient. A few moments later the patient displayed "Lazarus Sign" which is a reflex that causes the patient to raise their arms in the air. I was by no means new to the role but this really scared me as I had never even heard of it let alone witnesses it.
Space Cat<3 1 year ago
That’s creepy! I imagine working with a patient declared dead and they start moving.
#24
I help patients to the bathroom nonstop all day. The amount of patients that just leave the bathroom without washing their hands is disgusting. If I didn’t hear the sink or soap dispenser your a*s is getting led right to an alcohol hand station
#25
Not really hidden and kinda minor but I’ll say it anyways. I deliver food to patients and it’s not hard to tell when someone is on their way out. Could be simply not being hungry, or could be the inability to eat. Had one patient who hadn’t eaten anything off their tray for 3 days straight. The last time I delivered to them, they smiled and gave me a wink. Next day, they were gone. It’s rough seeing these things happen in real time. I’m a grown a*s man who doesn’t cry often, but it always leaves me feeling extra empty picking up the untouched trays and replacing them with another tray that I know will stay untouched as well.
Miss Frankfurter 1 year ago
This is so true. You deliver food to our patients, but it’s more than that. You see things you never thought you would and have to deal with it with no health profession background. If the patient is there long enough you do Establish a relationship with them. You see them 3 times a day. You talk. And then one day there’s no tray for them. You see an empty bed, or someone else there. Their passing effects you too. No one thinks about that.
#26
Just because the person seeing you is professional in the room about your weird issue doesn't mean they aren't walking out of there and telling other staff members all about that person that slipped on a bottle and it went in their a*s. No names are used to avoid HIPAA violations but chances are within an hour the entire floor will know about it.
#27
I haven't seen it on here yet, may have missed it but I'll add.
You, as a patient, have every right to refuse any test or treatment or even leave. At any time. For any reason. (Unless a harm to self or others- that's different, at least in the US) Added bonus you should know: leaving against medical advice DOES NOT mean insurance will not pay for the care you've received. Your insurance will still be billed the same as anyone else who stayed the whole time till discharge.
But if you leave with an IV in your arm we will call the police to find you and bring you back to remove it, because of [substance] abuse..
Miss Frankfurter 1 year ago (edited)
Yes, you have the right to refuse. But, if your a patient in the hospital, it may drive you nuts, but for a medication you refuse, we are obligated to offer it to you every time you’re scheduled to receive it. We explain the pros and cons and are you still declining to take it. If you’re leaving against medical advice we are obligated to explain why it’s a really bad idea and have you sign you’re fully informed and doing it anyway. If anything happens because you left, it’s on you. If you left refusing to sign the form it’s on you if anything happens. You can leave but we’re sure going to make every attempt to advise why you shouldn’t.
#29
There is sex and drama, but not in a Grey’s Anatomy way…more of an overgrown high schoolers shoved together in really stressful situations way. And not as much sex as Grey’s…though maybe I’m just ugly and not in on the scene
Miss Frankfurter 1 year ago (edited)
I don’t know where these people work, but We do not have sex in the linen closet, the storage room, the break room with the door locked or any empty bed. A) were too busy and B) the doctors?🤢
#30
Hospital lab worker here - Not particularly scandalous, but most people don't realise their lab tests are just very accurate guesses, and have an error range. When we say your 'X' is 10g/L, we might actually mean it's 10g/L ± 10-20%.
I see too many people get extremely worked up about small fluctuations in blood test values that aren't actually in excess of the reference change value, and so technically aren't genuinely different from a previous value.
EDIT: If you're interested, have a little play with [this tool](https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m149/rr-8) to see how variability affects things!
DOUBLE EDIT: Also, inter-lab variability is a big problem! [Check out this inter-lab comparison data for oestradiol](https://i.imgur.com/zsSUZpu.jpg). Identical copies of 3 samples sent to 230 labs around the UK and tested using all our various different machines. As you can see, none of us could agree on an answer, only that the true value was '*Somewhere between 100 and 200, probably about 130*'.
What do you think ?
ConstantlyJon 1 year ago
Our empathy is gone. Nurses in-particular tend to be some of the most caring people I know, but they've been walked all over so much that there's just no empathy left for the humans they work with. We are short staffed to hell, causing long waits to get appts and long waits once you come to your appt. Just this week my clinic stopped accepting new patients. I've got 18 doctors in my clinic and none of them can take anyone new, at one of the largest clinics in the state. People come to us from hours and hours away. But we're having to shut it down partially because we're short 5 doctors, at least that many nurses, and about 10 support staff. We're all burnt out, and hate people for the most part. We hate being here, patients hate being here, it's a big clusterfuck.
Cerridwn d'Wyse 1 year ago
Thank you for being accurate and calling it empathy and not calling it compassion
Load More Replies...
Papa 1 year ago
I had a brief stay in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. It caught me by surprise when I was released. The nurse asked if I was okay to walk. I said yes. "Okay then, you can leave whenever you're ready." In the past whenever I or a family member was admitted to the hospital, even for inpatient care, we had to ride a wheelchair all the way out the door. Apparently the policy has changed.
Huddo's sister 1 year ago
I wasn't even made to use a wheelchair when I was released after I had surgery earlier this year. It was a 'minor' surgery, but I was opened up and it wasn't just an outpatient surgery like I'd had in the past.
Load More Replies...
David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
I've met two nurses who were kleptomaniacs, stole from every patient they visited. On one occasion a nurse had one job, and was completely incompetent at it (had no idea how to use an epi-pen). I have yet to meet one hospital that didn't contain major incompetence of some kind, either distributing diseases to patients, or browbeating relatives of patients, or complete inaction on the part of nurses. Nurses begin as highly caring individuals, but after being allocated the literally shittiest jobs in the hospital have lost all of that caring by about a year in. I've seen vomit left on the floor for half an hour or more with people stepping in it. Management is based on the Army style of constant bullying.
ConstantlyJon 1 year ago
Our empathy is gone. Nurses in-particular tend to be some of the most caring people I know, but they've been walked all over so much that there's just no empathy left for the humans they work with. We are short staffed to hell, causing long waits to get appts and long waits once you come to your appt. Just this week my clinic stopped accepting new patients. I've got 18 doctors in my clinic and none of them can take anyone new, at one of the largest clinics in the state. People come to us from hours and hours away. But we're having to shut it down partially because we're short 5 doctors, at least that many nurses, and about 10 support staff. We're all burnt out, and hate people for the most part. We hate being here, patients hate being here, it's a big clusterfuck.
Cerridwn d'Wyse 1 year ago
Thank you for being accurate and calling it empathy and not calling it compassion
Load More Replies... Papa 1 year ago
I had a brief stay in the hospital a couple of weeks ago. It caught me by surprise when I was released. The nurse asked if I was okay to walk. I said yes. "Okay then, you can leave whenever you're ready." In the past whenever I or a family member was admitted to the hospital, even for inpatient care, we had to ride a wheelchair all the way out the door. Apparently the policy has changed.
Huddo's sister 1 year ago
I wasn't even made to use a wheelchair when I was released after I had surgery earlier this year. It was a 'minor' surgery, but I was opened up and it wasn't just an outpatient surgery like I'd had in the past.
Load More Replies... David Paterson 1 year ago (edited)
I've met two nurses who were kleptomaniacs, stole from every patient they visited. On one occasion a nurse had one job, and was completely incompetent at it (had no idea how to use an epi-pen). I have yet to meet one hospital that didn't contain major incompetence of some kind, either distributing diseases to patients, or browbeating relatives of patients, or complete inaction on the part of nurses. Nurses begin as highly caring individuals, but after being allocated the literally shittiest jobs in the hospital have lost all of that caring by about a year in. I've seen vomit left on the floor for half an hour or more with people stepping in it. Management is based on the Army style of constant bullying.
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