notes for note-takers

Okay, so if you're in health care, there's always a few things, no matter how good the job is, and how nice your co-workers are, that just bug you.

One of the things that annoy me, personally, is Weird Family of Patients. And okay, in a hospital, you get a lot of weird, and you deal with it.

But sometimes, certain kinds of weird just sticks in your craw a little more.

For me, I get personally annoyed with the family members I like to call The Note Takers.

These are the people make it very obvious that they're taking notes on patient care. They want to know your name, so they can write it down in their spiffy spiral notebook, in case they want to sue you for not bringing the water pitcher fast enough. And they always leave the notebook out in plain site, in case it wasn't obvious to everyone what it was in the first place.

This note-taking really annoys me, because the point is to try to subtly threaten and intimidate care givers into giving better care. In reality, what it does, is make us not want to be in the room as much--but we are any way, because it is our job. So, you writing down, 'Nurse Jamie brings in pitcher of water, precisely 15 minutes after it was requested.' is just plain condescending to us as professionals. It does not make us bring in the pitcher of water any faster. It does not make us respond to call bells any quicker, or give better care in emergencies.

Because, our job is to do those things any way, regardless of any other criteria.

And, the other part that is stupid about the note-taking, is hey, we take notes too. Notes that are part of a legal record.

We already understand you can sue us for malpractice. We get it, people.

And, if we see you with your notebook, and it's not to write down important things we say, or the doctors tell you, so you don't forget them, and instead, it's to document "our every move, in case we want to sue" I'm telling you, the first thing I think is that you're hunting for a lawsuit, and you know what?

Your ridiculous litigation-seeking behavior doesn't impress me. This doesn't say to me, "You care about my husband/wife/grandma/grandpa/sister/brother." This says: "You're one of those annoying litigious bastards who drives up the cost of malpractice insurance with your frivolous lawsuits."

What I'm trying to say here is: that kind of behavior is totally obnoxious, no matter what Good Morning America says you should do when your loved one is hospitalized.