There is a difference between entitlement and advocacy. While patients seeking medical attention should advocate for themselves and make sure their concerns are addressed, it's also important to note the abuse many healthcare professionals face regularly while doing their jobs.
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who work in healthcare to tell us about their experiences with entitled patients. Here are there shocking and disturbing stories:
1. "I was a nurse practitioner student and about to give a child a flu vaccine. The child was visibly scared and asked if it was going to hurt. To help ease the child's anxiety, I said, 'It will feel just like a mosquito bite.' The mom then looked at me and said, 'This is why kids don't trust medical professionals. You all lie. It DOES NOT feel like a mosquito bite!' I was so taken a back that I didn't respond and allowed my preceptor to give the shot. From now on, when I am asked if it will hurt, I just say, 'Well, it is a needle going through your skin, so yeah.'"
—Anonymous
2. "I worked as a supervisor for a large outpatient clinic. As we all know, doctors run late. It’s just the name of the game and there’s nothing we can do about it. One day, a male patient (I am a female) berated my front desk staff because patients were going in before him, and he demanded to speak with a manager. I’m called to the front and this man straight up laughs in my face. 'You’re the manager?! Let me talk to YOUR boss.' I’m a blonde-haired, blue-eyed millennial for reference. I went to get my boss, who is also a woman. She came out and he burst into laughter and asked for HER boss. OK Buddy, sure."
3. "I worked in an ER for a year. I once had a woman who came in because she had somehow gotten a pin prick on her cheek. She threw a hissy fit when she wasn't seen right away. It was unbelievable! She was screaming and yelling, and security had to intervene at one point. It was not a mental health crisis, just a good ole Karen. People were having actual emergencies and this woman had the audacity to have a fit because she wasn't taken before a teenage girl who had a seizure. This woman ultimately left with a bandaid for her boo-boo."
4. "I worked as a cruise ship paramedic and we have 911 on board just like on land, except the 'operators' are the front desk people who forward calls to us after our beepers go off. Anyway, cruise medicine is essentially concierge medicine. You have to pay for everything and prices go up outside of open clinic times. During clinic time, we get incredibly busy with both crew and passengers. If a call comes through that we determine can be seen in the clinic, we request that you come down. If you can't for whatever reason, we can send a steward to retrieve you in a wheelchair and bring you. Now, picture this: It's open clinic time, and we are SLAMMED. I get a 911 call from a passenger claiming to be a former nurse, who described experiencing motion sickness symptoms and demanded we do a cabin call. I explain repeatedly that she can come down or we can transport her, but that her symptoms were not emergent enough to warrant a cabin call during open clinic hours."
5. "I had a patient demand that we go out and get him Whataburger (I live in Texas) because he didn’t like the hospital food, and since he was a veteran, he should be able to get whatever he wants."
—Anonymous
6. "I worked in a retail pharmacy as a pharmacy tech. I once had a patient cut the pharmacist help line and complain to the pharmacist about the size of his pills. He said, 'These pills are too big and tough for me to swallow. Can you make them smaller?' Unfortunately, the pharmacist told him there wasn't much she could do about it. He'd have to tell his doctor if he was having trouble swallowing them and ask for a new prescription. He complained again, 'But they're too big. Do something about them!' She told him the same thing again. Even though I wasn't the pharmacist, I was ready to jump in and add that if he was really upset about the size of his pills, he could complain to the manufacturer. Eventually, he did walk away."
7. "As an ICU nurse, I’ve had so many! The worst was an older female patient who asked for ice water, then yelled at me because it was too cold! I calmly told her she could wait a few minutes for the ice to melt. She told me she was dying of thirst and if she did not get warm ice water right away, she was going to die. This was in the ICU, where people actually die everyday. I had to go get her warm water, then put three ice cubes in it to make it the correct temperature. Longest shift of my life!"
—Anonymous
8. "I work as a receptionist at a travel vaccine clinic. We don’t work with insurance and we do charge an office visit fee. I’ve had people ask why they have to pay (it’s to compensate the nurses for their time), but one woman actually insisted that she didn’t need to pay because she was a pharmacist and she could give herself the vaccine in the parking lot."
9. "I used to work in the kitchen of a hospital and boy do I have stories. From parents wanting us to cut up their child's food for them (I don't know why they couldn't do it themselves), to people asking if they could get a Sam's Club-sized box of Rice Krispies treats to take home. One of the worst was a patient who asked for jambalaya. We don't make jambalaya, but for whatever reason, my boss went to Target to get stuff to make it, only for her to say she didn't like spicy. She was a pain in the butt and we were all so happy when she left."
10. "I had a patient one time who was a male in his mid-40s. He was admitted for a fever of unknown origin. He was the biggest baby and totally mean to his wife who was there for his every need. He talked down to her in front of us and wasn’t appreciative of anything she did. I came in to check on him for hourly rounding and asked if he needed anything. He asked me to give him a full-body massage. His wife was currently giving him one, but he thought it would be nice for her to do one side and me to do the other. I told him I couldn’t because, as a care tech, I had nine other patients. He said, 'You have other patients?' After his discharge, he gave the nurse and I poor scores and said we didn’t do anything for him. I’ve never wanted to punch a patient in the face so badly."
11. "I’m an ER nurse, so I have PLENTY of these. A couple of years ago, I had a patient come in who was incredibly rude to my staff and me. They were there for something very controllable and fixable — something they were able to go home for. In addition to this patient, I had to work a trauma room. I got a 'code' coming in, which means a cardiac arrest. I ended up losing that patient, and it was very difficult for me because that patient was 7 years old. After what seemed like forever, I finally went to check on my other patient. Mind you, I had another nurse who was watching and tending to that patient while I was with that code."
"I went into the room and she snapped at me and said, 'Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for over an hour for some pain meds. I’m not sure what’s going on out there, but I’m feeling neglected. You should have been in here. I don’t care if someone was dying.' I immediately left the room to tell my charge nurse. Never saw the patient again after that. I couldn’t believe the audacity."
12. "I've been a registered nurse working in surgery for six years. I recently had a patient in pre-op (for an elective procedure, meaning it was not emergent) waiting to go back to surgery. Her surgeon was about an hour behind schedule because the patient he was currently operating on ended up being eaten up with cancer. A one-hour case ended up taking about three because he was trying to remove as many tumors as possible. The patient’s husband screamed in my face about how hungry his wife was because 'we wouldn't let her eat' before her procedure. I had to explain to him and his wife that the surgeon was currently operating, and he couldn't 'hurry' just because she was tired of waiting."
13. "We had a patient who was expecting to be in the hospital for a prolonged period of time. So, she had her Louis Vuitton suitcases full of her fancy-wear delivered to her hospital room and even brought in paintings and portraits to hang on the wall. The day she was discharged, she hired a moving company."
—Anonymous
14. "I’m not a healthcare professional, but I used to work as a housekeeper in a residential ward. There was one patient with dementia who I would always chat with whilst I cleaned her room. She would tell me the same story over and over again, but I didn’t mind because I could see how excited she was to tell it. One day, her two daughters were there to visit her and as I was passing the room, one of the daughters came to the door and snapped her fingers at me. She told me her mother spilled juice and that I had to clean it up. I came back with a mop and the daughters spent the entire time staring at me. The patient started talking to me, but one of her daughters cut her off and told her that she could speak when I was gone."
15. "I work in labor and delivery. One night I admitted a laboring mom, and she didn’t want an epidural, so obviously she was uncomfortable. After I got her all admitted and as comfortable as possible, the dad said to me, 'So, can we get another bed in here for me?' I pointed to the couch and said, 'Buddy, that’s your bed,' as if I should take a hospital bed from another laboring mom to suit his needs better!"
16. "I’m an RN that works in a hospital, and one night, my new admission came up while I was on my break. Apparently it was unacceptable that I wasn’t there to greet her the moment she came up. When I finished my break, she was still in a wheelchair in the hallway refusing to go into her room since it wasn’t private and she 'didn’t want to share a room with some nasty other person.' She kept repeating this within earshot of the other patient. I told her the only way she’d receive medical treatment was if she went into the room, and she was welcome to leave if she found that unacceptable. I left her sitting there."
17. "I work in a small emergency department. I have had multiple patients complain about having to wait while the department worked on a code blue. In a code blue, a patient has lost a pulse, so it's all hands on deck. Multiple nurses, doctors, RRT, etc. are required. The department flow comes to a halt because the majority of staff are trying to revive a patient. I’ve had a patient say to me, minutes after we called time of death on someone, ‘He’s dead and I’m alive. Shouldn’t I be the priority?' Code blues can be long, stressful, and ultimately, many don’t make it. It's so demoralizing to walk away from trying to save a human life and failing, only to be yelled at by another patient. I am not surprised there is a nursing staffing crisis."
—Anonymous
18. "More than 90% of patients are entitled. They think nurses are a concierge service. Most of them act like their legs stop working as soon as they walk through the ER doors and they become completely helpless. They won't even reach for the call bell or their water. They sit and scream, disrupting everyone. There are also patients who will repeatedly hit their call bell knowing you're working in the trauma unit, then complain you took too long to get their ice because you were taking care of a trauma patient. I had a woman who was there for cold symptoms tell me she didn't care if someone was dying because her water should've been my priority. I told her to feel free to walk to the vending machines."
19. "I had an older patient request 'fresh-squeezed' orange juice instead of the bottled kind from the cafeteria staff. She also requested heavy cream be swirled into her tomato bisque. Fun times!"
20. "I was an ER nurse for many years. One day, I was participating in a resuscitation effort on a patient who had gone into cardiac arrest. We were in an area with bays divided only by curtains, so it wasn't like people next door couldn’t hear! In the middle of the resuscitation, a nearby patient’s family member had the audacity to open the curtain and ask when I was going to bring her mother some socks. I could not believe it. One: It's incredibly insensitive to open the curtain, and two: could she not see that there was CPR going on? People are unbelievable."
21. "I'm a pediatrician and parents ask me to write letters in attempts to get insurance companies to pay for all sorts of wild requests. I've been asked to write a letter requesting an insurance company pay for some boy's swim lessons because the family lived near a lake."
—Anonymous
22. "I work at a hospital that has a lot of well-off patients. I work in labor and delivery, so most patients that come in bring lots of bags and luggage with them. One couple came up to check in for their induction, and the husband threw his car keys at us, told us their bags were in the trunk, and said they needed to be brought up to the room and unpacked. All of the nurses looked at him in astonishment. We then said, 'Oh, great. We’ll bring your wife to the room and get her all set up, so once you’re back from getting your bags, she’ll be all ready to start her induction.' He was not too pleased, but he didn't argue too much with 25 nurses staring him down."
23. Finally: "I worked at a drive-thru COVID testing site. We were always super busy and very short-staffed, so sometimes people would have to wait in line for hours. Most people were understanding, but some were so rude about it. I have a lot of stories about entitled patients but probably the worst was a man who came in to get tested on a day when it was just me and one other person working. It usually takes at least four people for the site to run smoothly — one to check people in, one to collect samples, one to run the tests, and one to send patients their results — but it was just the two of us doing everything, so it was pretty chaotic. We were so busy and working as fast as we could that we didn’t even get to take breaks."
"About halfway through the day, the man got to the front of the line and immediately started yelling at us. How dare we make him wait even though he (and everyone else there) had an appointment! My coworker tried to calmly tell him that we were working as fast as we could, but there was only so much that the two of us could do with the amount of tests we had to run. This guy wasn’t having any of it and he literally spat on my coworker. I honestly can’t believe how entitled some people are that they think it’s acceptable to abuse people who are clearly doing the best they can."
—Anonymous
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.