Introduction: What Patient Sitters Do
As a patient sitter, you are a medical professional who is needed whenever hospital or facility officials deem an individual in a long-or-short term care institution to be a threat to himself or to others. Your position is one of absolute trust. You are to sit with that patient and observe him for signs of danger. You need to be attentive and watchful; if the patient’s behavior should suddenly change, you need to be right “on point.” You need to push the nurse call button, and bring such changes to the attention of a nurse or nurse’s aid promptly.
My Background
Back in the late 2000s I served in a certain hospital as a patient sitter. It was an easy way to make money. I was able to build a rapport with the patients, as well as with the hospital staff. When life circumstances dictated that I give it up for awhile, my nursing temp agency let me know that I was missed.
Before you think I am perfect, may I say to you that I have made some of these mistakes. But the key thing is that I didn’t make it a habit. Recognizing my role as an important part of the medical care team, whenever I made any of these mistakes, I quickly learned from it and set out not to repeat them again.
Falling Asleep
The first, and by far, the worst–mistake a person in this profession can make is to come to the job drowsy. If you fall asleep on the job, you are considered a liability, and will immediately be fired, especially if the patient’s behavior significantly changes when you have happened to be dozing. If the person hasn’t become a clear and present danger, the worse that may happen to you is that you are warned never to do it again, and and are offered a coffee break. Take it.
Better yet, you should take precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the first place. Eat a good meal before coming to work. If coffee doesn’t quite work for you, consume an energy drink. Be sure to follow all directions associated with the beverage, though. Remember, an energy drink is not soda pop, and can cause great bodily harm if you abuse it. Think of it more as a drug instead of a recreational beverage, although it happens to be similar in taste due to the carbonation.
Lack of Promptness
Another mistake made by patient sitters is to be anything less than prompt. What a sitter may do is try to wait several seconds to ensure that it’s a true crisis before acting, instead of trusting his gut instincts. At the very moment you notice a change in the patient’s behavior–such as a patient trying to disconnect his tracheotomy, as happened on many shifts I’ve been on–push the nurse call button right away! This could be a potentially deadly situation if not taken in hand right away. The same goes if the patient is a fall risk who is not supposed to leave his bed. At the first sign of him attempting to get up, call for help.
Being a Nuisance
It’s also important not to go to the other extreme, either. You are likely to draw a complaint from a charge nurse if you press the call button every time you notice a small change in behavior. In other words, don’t make a nuisance of yourself. That’s why it’s important to get an understanding of what is considered normal in this patient, and what is not. Do this by asking at the nurses’ station, or by consulting with the sitter on the previous shift, who is to give you a report.
Talking Too Much
Another sin that you can commit as a sitter is to divulge too much information about a patient’s condition. In your report, include information on a need-to-know basis; to do otherwise could lead to some legal ramifications for you, the agency that employs you, and the hospital itself. Don’t even confide such information in your spouse or family members. For instance, while the sitter on the next shift needs to know that your patient is a light sleeper, or is not very well-behaved and is likely to attempt to touch a sitter inappropriately, he doesn’t need to know that the individual is in his last stages of cancer or AIDS.
Touching
Another thing to avoid is touching your patient in any way, shape or form–even innocently, or in the form of a handshake. This is important, as the patient could say that you touched him on an inappropriate body part, even if you didn’t mean to derive sexual pleasure from that act. The only time I touched a patient was when he was obviously about to fall out of bed. Common sense dictated that I intervene in order to guide his body back into the bed, where it belonged.
Taking Rudeness Personally
Additionally, it’s easy to lose your cool, whether it’s because the patient refuses to follow your instructions, or reacts towards you in a rude manner. This is never OK, regardless of the circumstances. Let me say it again: Don’t go there. The test of a true professional is the ability to stay calm and friendly, even in light of the patient calling you out of your name, and using profanity and obscenity. Do not answer in kind. Indeed, the longer you practice patient sitting, you begin to develop a thick skin towards it.
You know, I once cared for a man who pounced hard on me when I would make even the slightest mistake. For a long time, I took it personally. But the young lady I was dating at the time gave me some valuable advice: “It’s nothing personal,” she said. “He is basically frustrated over his condition (he was quadriplegic), and is taking it out on you.”
Considering It a Living
Finally, a word of caution–a big mistake sitters often make is attempting to make a living from patient sitting. By its very nature, it’s feast or famine. You may receive a call informing you of a need at a hospital. Then just minutes before you get into your car, or mount your bike, on the way to the place you are supposed to work, you get a call saying that your services for tonight are no longer required. Cancellation, indeed, can occur for a number of reasons: The patient suddenly improves to the point that he can be released from the hospital, or he passes away. Then weeks could pass before your nursing agency–or hospital–calls you again. Don’t rely on this to pay your rent, or you are likely to be evicted!
The money is not a reason for taking on patient sitting. Instead, this is a profession that should only be entered by people who genuinely want to help people, and are patient, or just want to gain extra skills they might use to gain entry into the medical field as a certified nursing assistant (CNA), a nurse, or even a doctor.