being called mum by nurses in hospital

[thecatsarecrazy]

I know its only a small thing and its probably because I've been here to long but the nurses calling me "mum" I'm not your mum, would it be so hard to learn my name? Has this annoyed anyone else?

I absolutely hated this when I was in hospital having the DCs and when asked about mode of address I asked to be called Mrs Shortbread and didn't volunteer my first name at all. I don't know these people so why would I want them to call me by my first name or 'Mum'!

I get nurses are busy but we are regularly told it 's a graduate profession and many of them have post grad quals too. It isn't hard to note the parents' names. I really do believe it's done to be reductive.

My dd has had some mh problems. You know what when she's been in a&e after an o/d and a nurse has reported to ss, the very least they can do is call me Mrs Roses. When DH turned up, they called him "sir" WTF.

jocarter67
I'm trying to be kind but as I've been on both sides of NHS as a HCP and Mum of poorly twin, I just keep being thankful,!
All the people who are moaning about remembering ever persons name (whilst caring for 30 plus patients) are probably the same ones who reduce younger Drs and nurses to tears because they didn't get the right lunch!
Not realising that the professional just attended a "crash call" patient possibly died haven't had lunch during 12 hour shift.
It's why I will never work in a hospital again and also why your care is performed by agency staff who in most cases are from third world countries.

I hope your son gets better soon.
I personally love being referred to as mum, it is the best name I could ever be called! Do you know the name of every member of staff on that ward and call them all by name? I would think it's tough for the nurses to remember all the names and in front of the child I think it's nicer to call them mum or dad. Just like I always call my husband 'daddy' when my daughter is around.
However, I'm sure if you addressed this problem with them, I'm sure they will change their ways for you. It's probably just habit for them.

I assumed you cease to have a name when you have children. All the mums and dads at my kids' school are "Emily's / Archie's / Beatrice's mummy / daddy". Isn't that just how it is? I would assume it would happen that way in hospital.

All the people who are moaning about remembering ever persons name (whilst caring for 30 plus patients) are probably the same ones who reduce younger Drs and nurses to tears because they didn't get the right lunch!

I don't give a shit if they remember my name or not. I just don't want them to call me 'mum'. It's totally unnecessary.

When my dc were at school the teachers never had a problem remembering parents' names. My dc were called ds Roses and dd Roses. The teeny trip to calling me Mrs Roses wasn't hard at all. I was never ever called "mum" by a teacher and I think amongst HCPs it's got worse during the last 20 years.

I don't recall my mother ever being called her first name or "mum" when I was a little girl (50 years ago). If a Dr introduces himself or herself as Dr x I expect them to call me Mrs Roses, not my first name and certainly not mum.

Also, yes I do remember people's names. D'S 1 was delivered by Susannah, DS2 by Dorothy and the Registrar who asked me to call him Zak, DD by Hawa. I remember the children's consultants names, many of the nurses who have treated them. It's easy peasy if one has half a brain cell. I have 300 staff on my caseload at work and yes I remember their names, their teams, their line managers. It isn't hard at all.

Remembering someone's name doesn't also give the actually legally required familial connection though does it? As in, not everyone can give their consent for a child. Only the mother and father (and even then not always). It's helpful to say "he's here with mum" or "he's here with grandma" because that indicates the actual relationship.

Not "he's here with Mrs Jones" who is here from the 1950s and wants to be referred to as that and then having to caveat that with "she's his mother". Woe betide you if you get these complex families wrong when the entire clan turns up, checking in on Facebook because the kid's got a sore throat. How are you supposed to know who's who then?
Get over yourselves.

No Fatburger but the note in the file should. Also the NHS has spent so much on E&D and EO that one would hope it's staff to be capable of differentiating up as well as down - you know being mindful of people who don't resemble the Boswells and who call their offspring children because their heritage is human rather than cloven hooved.

It's helpful to say "he's here with mum" or "he's here with grandma" because that indicates the actual relationship.

How much more difficult would it be to insert the word 'his' into that sentence in front of mum/grandma?

Do you also say 'he's here with wife' or 'she's here with daughter' about adult patients?

And I'd suggest that any HCP who, on hearing that their manner of addressing decision-making making family members can be experienced as distancing/patronising/reductive/rude, says that 'they should get over themselves' rather than listening and reflecting, could do with a little getting over themselves of their own.

Indeed. And the last time a nurse called me mum and I asked for my name to be used, I could have done without the tsk and the eyeroll.

Hello Mum, I'm here to take baby's temperature.

Hello Nurse My name is Buttered, I'm Nameofchild's Mum

Glad your Lo is better OP

kyph actually yes I did because my son was in SCBU for 12 weeks - I wish he hadn't been but he was, so I got to know all their names and they got to know mine.

They have to learn fucking hundreds of names, they get paid a pittance and work staggeringly long hours. YABTU.

I work with children with special needs in a therapy setting and I always make the effort to call parents by their name. On our referral info we ask parents what they would like to be called (i.e. first name /Mr... etc). When I went into hospital to have my baby it felt very strange to be called mum or for my baby to be called baby rather than his name. It drove my dh mad, I wasn't too bothered but I wouldn't do it at my work.

I work at a swim school and we often do this too - I just about remember 90% of the 300 kids' names...the parents don't stand a chance.

I personally didn't mind it to be honest. Although one nurse started calling me Mama instead after hearing my 2 year old call me Mama and me telling my twins I was their mama xD

Have been in hospital more than 30 times with our daughter. From a few days to a few weeks. Staff come & go on their relative shifts, and I have never even considered it remotely disrespectful to be referred to as Mum. I guess there are just some things rather more important to fret about at times like that...

Sorry I'm a NICU ANNP (like a nurse/doctor hybrid) and I have up to 20 patients a day to myself plus anyone I see before/during/after labour that doesn't come to the neonatal ward. I try to remember your names honestly but I'm thinking of a hundred things I need to do for your baby, loads of alternate diagnoses running through my head and keeping track of at least 20 blood results per patient.
Sorry we do respect you and you are SO important to us and your baby. It's just that most days half of our patients are swapped with new ones and we are continually learning about them.
Hope your son is improving and they find out what the problem is soon x

Sorry we do respect you and you are SO important to us and your baby. It's just that most days half of our patients are swapped with new ones and we are continually learning about them.

I think most people who don't like it understand that, and appreciate what you do - but still find 'mum' a bit awful. Most of the time, do you need to use a name at all? I find that many HCPs manage really well without having to resort to 'Mum', it really does seem like a habit / culture in some wards. My son's plastic surgery registrar has never used it, and when talking to the consultant referred to me as 'his mother' and 'DS2's mum' which is so much better and more accurate than 'and now Mum says he's having trouble with x/y/z.'

Hope your dc gets better soon. I'm the mum of an ex scbu child and I honestly liked being called mum, it recognises my importance to the person they are looking after rather than just mrs max. But I have sympathy with not being able to remember names I regularly forget the names of people I've known for years. But each to their own. So long as my child was looked after and got better they could have called me Muthaf**ka for all I cared (was slightly off my head on lots of drugs -of the prescription kind at the time though)

He is a beautiful baby! I wish you both happier days ahead.

It isn't so bad to be called this.
I got to think about it at a child's bedside too.
'Mum' is one of the titles you have earned. Your name is just one you were given.

(Nurses and Doctors are also often called by a title they have earned rather than their given name.)

Doesn't bother me, never has. And I would imagine the overworked, underpaid nurses and medical staff cannot POSSIBLY remember everyone's name(s.)

I do hate being called 'the wife' or 'the missus' though. (When people are talking to DH.) I am JEN. My name is JEN. Not 'the wife.'

Oh jeez we spent 20 months straight on the childrens ward haha I started of as mum then my name as I had been there so long.
I wished I was still at the stage of being called mum.

I have even got to the point where I was in our cubicle and a doctor literally shouted my name from the desk to get my attention 😂😂instead of politely coming to our door ha