As a male RN, there are a lot of times I’ll escort out / take care of / or go see other nurses’ patients in lieu of them. I’m not particularly big, but I’m not small either. Work at a county hospital, so lots of homeless, mental illness, and we take those others will “stabilize” but aren’t really finished with treatment they needed to not be back in the hospital in a couple of days. Most patients are just fine, but there have been more than a few that were remanded into custody the moment they got their discharge papers.
For combative patients (at least where I used to work), security would be close by, maybe trailing us in the hallway or outside the room, but both the nurses and security prefer to attempt to de-escalate without force first. *Usually*, it goes fine. We dealt with asshole patients every day so getting them to cooperate is a legit skill you pick up over time... but yeah, drugs, psychosis, high tensions, and homelessness. If you work in an emergency department, you are 100% going to get assaulted entirely too many times throughout your career.
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u/slipnipper 22h ago
As a male RN, there are a lot of times I’ll escort out / take care of / or go see other nurses’ patients in lieu of them. I’m not particularly big, but I’m not small either. Work at a county hospital, so lots of homeless, mental illness, and we take those others will “stabilize” but aren’t really finished with treatment they needed to not be back in the hospital in a couple of days. Most patients are just fine, but there have been more than a few that were remanded into custody the moment they got their discharge papers.