where I work we have a not very loved bed bound male patient: he is short with answers to my female coworkers and refuses to take his medication but has never attacked anyone and has never yelled at me so far. To me, while he is rough and can come off as unfriendly, he is not somebody scary and I don’t understand why my female colleagues rant constantly about him.
I go into the room, ask if he plans to take his medication and if I can check his vitals. He agrees? fine, he doesn’t agree? I don’t push it, I simply explain why it’s important that he takes his medication, document and move on to the next patient. I have the feeling that my female colleagues nag him and that triggers him.
I feel neutral about him but not a single female coworker I’ve asked likes him. Today one of them asked me if he was unfriendly towards me and I answered their question with a no. One colleague replied that he’s been unfriendly to ‘each and everyone of your coworkers’
I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking this, but the way she said that I thought she was inviting me to hate him as much as them, if that makes sense.
I don’t care. If a bed bound patient acts aggressively I call security, they may call the cops while some security personnel deals with the aggressive patient and I’ve already moved on to the next patient and left the danger zone. And document.
Do I have to be part of the hivemind?
You failed to include a very relevant part of information in your post: your own gender. I don’t know if you omitted it on purpose, or out of obliviousness, but going on the assumption that you’re a man due to your language towards women:
Did it not occur to you that a male patient could actually be acting more aggressively towards your female coworkers? That he would be less cooperative towards those “damn nagging women” than towards a man? And that the standards of what makes a male patient scary could be completely different from the perspective of a woman?
Men experience the world very differently from women, particularly when it comes to social interactions. Just because YOU haven’t had too much of a problem with this patient doesn’t mean that your female coworkers have experienced the same thing.