Passing pills

I was on hook to pass meds today, which isn't terribly exciting but still better than having nothing to do or waiting for the evaluation with the instructor which also happened today.

I met my patient early in the morning, a nice old man with some dementia and other old man problems. While we chatted he was lying in bed, covered, and I took his vitals. I left to collect his med drawer and the instructor and by the time we got back he was sitting up and eating breakfast. He didn't have any pants on. No pants, no underwear and in fact, just the t-shirt on his back. I noticed pretty quickly, but he was sitting on his bed with the bedside table pulled over his lap, so he wasn't exactly on display. Still, I said "Hi Mr. F - we're here with your medications! Would you like a few minutes to get yourself together before we give them to you?" He said no, he was ready and so I looked at the instructor and she made a "go ahead" motion and I gave the guy his meds.

Once we got into the hall, the instructor grabbed me and said "just for future reference, you should never give a patient his meds when he doesn't have pants on. You should have covered him first." Hmm, there's something they don't put in the pharm textbook. I was glad to have learned the lesson, but it seemed like it was going a little too far later during my evaluation when the instructor used the passing-meds-with-no-pants incident as an example of my "lack of common sense." She also talked to me about my communication issues and hinted that I needed therapy. But I still got off lightly since she actually diagnosed another student with a mental disorder during their eval and recommended drugs.

P.S. I returned to my patient's room with a pair of hospital pants and then helped him find his jeans tucked under the mattress.