The other night I had two patients.

Patient 1: Turns out she had pancreatitis. She wanted more narcotics while we were waiting for a room for her to be admitted. I couldn’t give her anything else at the moment since she was already maxed out. She also wanted to eat but she was NPO. Told me that I was useless and I should not have become a nurse because clearly I was not providing proper care for her.

Patient 2: This super tall college guy who was literally the nicest patient I had in a long time. He had a concussion while playing football and they just wanted to keep him overnight for observation. Waiting for a room for him.

Patient one hits the call light and I go in to see what she needs and might as well update her vitals while I’m there. She wants to know how long until she gets a room. No update yet. She scoffs and asks if I can provider her with a phone charger since I haven’t been able to do anything right for her (literally her words). I told her I would look and see if I could find one.

I figured since I’m up I might as well go into patient’s two room to update his vitals and check in with him. He’s super nice and pleasant. Everything looks good and before I leave he asks if I happen to have a phone charger. I tell him I’ll look to see if there is one.

I found one. Both patients had the same type of phone. I give it to patient two.

I’m not saying this was right and I feel bad for picking one patient over the other, but patient one was just so rude. Maybe I should’ve just told both I couldn’t find one? It’s been eating me up all day.

I just needed to get that out of my chest.