rumor has it...

a head honcho's relative was hospitalized and said head honcho asks assigned nurse about this patient to which the nurse replied, "i cannot tell you anything, it would be a hipaa violation." rumor has it, head honcho was not so pleased.

personally, i am happy that i was not the assigned nurse or even work on this unit. phew. not that the nurse did not give out the correct answer, of course this person said exactly what should have been said, but on the other hand, to piss off upper management is not the best thing to do, is it? surely, some mild, nonspecific information can be given to appease the query by the concerned family member? i dunno. hipaa is so grey, and yet, so black and white.
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there was a code the other night in which the ethics committee was called in. young male, 40s, with advanced liver failure from years of etoh abuse was dead upon arrival, but just not technically. rumor has it that he wanted to be a dnr, but the spouse was not having it. spouse loses her mind, starts hitting walls and acting out when things start looking bad, refusing to grant patient wishes for dnr status, demanding everything be done for him and then accuse the hospital of killing him? ethics committee arrives as coding commences. i suppose that a sat was unobtainable via the standard probe, so a nurse went out to get the portable pulse oximeter, and stated "could you hand me the pulse ox out of the drawer." note, this is in the middle of a full code, the whole nine yards. ethics committee member states " she didn't have to be so rude; she could have said please." (now seriously, can you imagine running a code in this manner: start cpr, please. thank you! could you please push the epi? thanks so much! ok, now let's please check for a pulse, if you find one, raise your hand! great guys! thank you thank you!) *rolls eyes* obviously, this member of the ethics committee has zero clinical experience. oh and by the way, for the spouse whom i have never met, i believe it was probably the years of etoh that killed your man. it's a tough reality to accept, and i for one, understand that even though people have stated you lost your mind, i am sure you were just in the denial/anger phase of grief. hopefully you have the intelligence to see the dangers of drinking in excess and yes, it really does kill you, eventually.
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not really a rumor, but in the news. i have read a lot of differing public opinions on a certain female celebrity, young mother of 2, we all know who she is. so many people believe she is being a spoiled brat, and have said some truly vile things about her and her actions. obviously, this young celeb is suffering terribly, the difference is that there are cameras on her every minute of every day, and we the public are seeing first hand an evolving mental illness, in my opinion. the reactions that i have read are the reason why mental illness has such a stigma around it. people truly cannot seem to understand that rational people do not act this way. rational people are in control of their lives. whether her problems are chemical or physiological in nature, it does not matter. we will be reading her obituary and grief stricken fans will be holding candlelight vigils if something is not done soon. the real losers in this situation are the children. they will forever have to hear about "how their mommy lost her mind." real people suffer this truth every single day. not just celebrities. i think the public needs more exposure to mental illness, to see how it really is. and not the movie made up stuff. real psychotic breaks. maybe then all of this wouldn't be so funny. because it is not funny anymore. they have a tv show intervention for drug users, how about a tv show that is an intervention for our psych patients? they can call it committed or whatever.