Why is getting patients to complete bowel prep like pulling teeth??
I dread having to give patients bowel prep. No matter how much I stress that they need to finish the whole thing or the procedure could be canceled, they have a possible GI bleed that needs to be taken care of and if they don’t finish the prep it could lengthen their hospital stay… they don’t give a fuck.
In my hospital, the prep is supposed to be started at 1800 and drink half by 2200. So they have time to sleep and then we wake them up again at 0500 to drink the other half. And most people can’t even drink half of it by the time they’re supposed to go for the colonoscopy. You keep reminding them to do it, they say “yes I will” and they go back to sleep anyway. I can’t keep waking up a patient who’s AAOx4 and force them to drink it. They’re supposed to give a fuck about their own health and take it upon themselves to do the bowel prep. If they don’t give a fuck about it, why should I?