Healthcare for nurses

For the the nurses, did you feel that you received differential treatment as a patient because you were a nurse. I see it alot, I'm not sure its because I am a nurse or because of being a REALLY informed consumer. If you or someone you know have experienced this, let me know. I'm really curious, because we talked about it at work a few months back. I was a little surprised to hear some of the comments.

Diva, I'm not sure if you mean by other nurses, like when I'm the patient in a hospital, or by doctors when I'm the patient in their office. I just had my surgery last week. I tried very hard to be understanding to the nurses on the floor I was on post-op because I've been there, done that. I was treated very poorly. I felt ignored, no-one checked on me on a regular basis. I went a whole shift without ever seeing a nurse one evening. I called and asked for my pain med. It finally came after 90 minutes and three more calls. If that was preferentual treatment I'd hate to be "just" a patient. Robin, RNC

I'm sorry you had that negative experience, so far with all my previous surgeries I wasnt fortunate. Even when my daughter was admitted to the hospital, they were nice, but when they found out I was a nurse they just couldn't accomadate us enough. Orginally I wrote this post because there were some really bad surveys about the hospital my doc is out of. There were positive ones too, though. I also know a lot of nurses and medical personnel are against the procedure and that may influence behavior.

This might not be an answer to your question, but my co-nurse just recently made this comment to me. Her hubby is going through some tough medical times. She chose not to tell them that she was a nurse. She felt that once they knew she was a nurse they might assume that she knew the "basic stuff". She was geriactric in a LTC facility which is very different then hospital nursing. She at times didn't understand alot of what was said and thank god they explained it to her in "layman terms". Sometimes it's good to play "clueless". She felt she was very informed.

Hi everyone! I am 7 days post-op. I had some bad experiences also in the hospital due to being a nurse. They didn't check on me and it took them awhile to bring my pain meds to me also. It couldn't have been the patient load. When the nurse has a bariatric pt. they have only 3 pts. per nurse. So, I know that it had to be because I am a nurse. Also, they didn't come in and empty my JP drain. I ended up having to empty it. But, I did have a few excellent nurses too! Well, anyway yall have a blessed day! God Bless, Tamara