Questions You Can Expect Patients to Ask a Nurse

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Based on the few times I’ve been to a hospital or have visited someone there, I imagine that the most common patient questions are “When can I go home?” or “Is this going to hurt?” But, after asking some nurse friends and scanning around online, it seems there are a bunch of questions that patients ask nurses quite often—some funny, some challenging.

On the Lighter Side

One friend who works as a nurse on the short-stay rehabilitation floor said she gets a lot of patient questions about medications – what they’re for, how often to take them and what they do. Another friend who works as a pediatric nurse said the kids ask most about games and videos… and when they can go to the playroom, while the parents ask about visitors and changes made to the care plan.

While there will be more common medical-specific questions for each of the different nursing careers (for example: labor and delivery nurses getting questions about breastfeeding or swaddling), some patient questions seem universal, such as:

•What did that doctor just say?
•When will I be discharged? (Or… When am I getting out of here?)
•When will the doctor come to see me?
•When can I have pain medicine?
•Can you get me more water?
•What time does breakfast get here?

I can only guess that nurses get used to these questions and have a little laugh on the inside after hearing them enough times. It also makes me think how similar we all are when it comes to healing quickly and getting our food!

Difficult Patient Questions

Along with the most common questions comes the more challenging questions. Again, it probably depends on the nursing career, but some nurses will also find themselves answering common questions that would be difficult for the rest of us, such as:

•How bad is it?
•Am I dying?
•Will I ever recover from this?
•What are the odds?

While these questions are more often answered by the doctor, patients turn to nurses with their questions if they feel comfortable with their nursing bedside manner. As professionals used to handling every kind of patient question, nurses learn to answer them in caring and honest ways—a great skill for both work and life.