Difficult Patient

I was fortunate enough to have went into my patient's room to answer a call light prior to rounding. The patient had many questions and had a pain of 10 on the 0-10 scale. As I went to inform my primary nurse she was just about to go into the patient's room and was shocked to see that a student nurse was placed with this patient. She informed me that I had a, "difficult" patient. Because I was able to already go into the room and meet the patient for myself, what the nurse had said did not really have a large impact on my view of the patient. Then a few minutes later my instructor came and asked if i would like to be reassigned a new patient since she had also heard I had a "difficult" patient. I had compassion for my patient, respected her

concern with her pain and did not find her to be difficult but more so sensitive and worried . I let my instructor know that I enjoyed my patient and suggested it may be best for the patient to be reassigned to me the following day as we got along very well. I think it's best to always establish your own views first and to turn away from gossip and labelling. Don't let someone else make up a decision for you. Being in the hospital puts people in a very vulnerable situation and it can be frightening for them and as a nurse, we need to have an understanding and compassion for these people, not label them as "difficult". I do not believe my patient received the best quality of care because of the established label, pain is subjective and if the patient states they have a pain level of 10 it shouldn't be taken any less seriously because of a label.