Dumb things new nurses do....

dudette10, MSN, RN · Feb 2, 2012

Those stinking prefilled saline syringes will be the death of me. The first time I had to flush a patients line my instuctor instructed me to "burp" it, well I pushed too hard and shot my patient in the face, I thought I was going to die.

Did that too. Right into my instructor's face.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Feb 2, 2012

One that hasn't been mentioned yet. As a student, I was getting ready to do my first finger stick for blood glucose. The lancet device was one of those with the side trigger. I took out the safety thingy, got distracted for a second, then promptly forgot which end the lancet would come out of.

Hoping I put the correct end to the patient, I went for it. Nope, stuck myself. I told my instructor I needed a new one, and she said "Why?" I said, "I'll tell you in a minute." Afterward, we went to the hall and explained to my instructor. She got a good laugh out of that.

pockunit, ADN, RN · Feb 5, 2012

Gave Humalog 70/30 injection with a pen...forgot to remove the cap when administering the shot. Patient said..."wow...you have finesse with a needle. But I don't think I got the insulin." He continued with, "The cap is still on the pen." We laughed for about five minutes over that one!

I tried to administer Lovenox with the cap still on. I could NOT figure out why the plunger wouldn't go down.

bayareastudent0711 · Feb 7, 2012

i did that too! as a precepting student! we were lowering the patient's bed, and the tubing was stuck under the rail, and the bag unspiked! explosive shower. and i did not know how to stop it. i eventually stuck my thumb in the hole! lol.

jelly221,RN · Feb 7, 2012

On new grad orientation, was trying to draw mucomyst up out of the vial into the syringe, so of course I instilled the amt of air that correlated with how much of the drug I was drawing up. It was taking a LOT of pressure to get that air in, but I finally did it and then BOOM!- the mucomyst literally explodes out of the top of the vial and all. over. me. I smelled like rotten eggs. Even after changing scrubs and mini-washing up. All day. And of course this happened before 0800 med pass. Argh.

Yeah it'll do that. And geez it does smell horrible! Patients tell me it doesn't taste that bad if you can ignore the smell or hold your breath. Blech.

NayRN · Mar 26, 2012

Drew routine labs from a PICC that was STILL infusing TPN..
Got a call from lab with a critical Blood Glucose of 900.
Learned my lesson, turned off TPN, FLUUUUUSHHHHED the line, re-draw labs...:cheers:

I did the same thing. Only lab called me with "your patient has a potassium level that is incompatible with life." Oh, ok. hold on a minute. I'll send you a new one.

NayRN · Mar 26, 2012

antiemetics, yes, but how many times have you thought-boy I hope IV morphine (or fentanyl, or dilaudid) can't be absorbed transdermally because I just got it all over myself!

sharpeimom · Mar 26, 2012

the usual saline shower

i did a really dumb thing my first week as a new grad on an ortho floor. it was back before disposable ice bags and central

supply hadn't delivered enough for a very heavy postop day. ziplock top plastic bags were brand new and gimmicky then. great idea!!

i could just double up a couple of them, fill with ice, and voila! instant ice bag without the l-o-n-g trip to cs to pick a few

up! clever, huh?

yeah. right! great until the ice began to melt and water appeared in its place... :uhoh3: water is heavier than ice is. slowly...

then woosh... a huge icy cold gush of water soaked into my very dignified, middle-aged, executive, patient's pj bottoms and

the bottom sheet. fortunately, he had a good sense of the silly, because his wife did not! :eek: when he had quit laughing, i

apologized all over the place...again. when i saw them in a restaurant later, his wife glared at me while his comment was, "there's

the girl who tried to drown me!":lol2:

Guest 360983 · Mar 27, 2012

I've done a LOT of the things on this thread (including giving myself a shower twice from the same bag!) but the most embarrassing moment was losing a patient. The transport techs grab patients and don't always tell us where they're going, and sometimes I'm so busy and distracted they'll tell me but it won't register. I looked at my patient's bed and realized I hadn't seen her for a few hours, so I had to call 2 different departments and see where she was and when she'd be back.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 27, 2012

hehe, at least it wasn't a full bag of blood. that would look like a scene from a slasher film.
oh, i have on more than one occasion pulled too hard on the plunger of a syringe while drawing up a drug (often an antiemetic as my patient is retching) only to have it plop out and the drug to splash all over.

i did it with a bag of blood. well, 1/4 of a bag anyway.

i also put too much air in a bottle when preparing a penicillin mini bag. the bottle exploded, spraying me with penicillin. did i mention that i'm allergic to penicillin? i bought a trip to the er in the middle of my shift . . . and came back to the unit in time to finish the shift.

BelgianRN · Mar 27, 2012

I recall this near-code trauma patient up in the ICU. First the surgeon puts in a chest tube for a hemothorax but she didn't clamp the tube quick enough or underestimated the pressure. Needless to say the walls got colored red for that one.

Then we are prepping this patient for emergency transport to the OR. I'm cell saving at the moment and I check the cell saver and see the program is still set on "washing" and decide well it's safe to disconnect the empty bag for a second because it's still washing. I don't recheck the cell saver and naturally don't notice the program switched to "emptying". I d/c the tubing and I dread as I see the line fill up with red liquid quickly rushing to the exit. In a vain attempt I try to reattach the bag as it is hanging on a hook so the end of the line is at everyone's eyesight. Of course I fail to reattach but manage to create a pressure faucet between the two connections and the result is a huge spray of (possibly contaminated) blood all over everyone running the trauma.

Some laughed some looked mad. I was possibly more red then the blood that was covering me and everyone else. So I went to offer peace food later to everyone. But as a nice result I did get washed by the hottest nurse in our ICU ^^.

Ran 100s of cell saves, always warn new grads to double check their connections to prevent these blood sprays... I failed to listen to myself ^^.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Mar 27, 2012

the funniest booboo i saw, was the pt was sitting inthe chair in the room and let his wife lie down in the bed with covers on. the cna took the vital signs of the "pt in the bed" lol.. which was really the wife!! the cna got to the door of the room, said, wait a minutes, this pt is supposed to be a male, turned around to find the pt laughing. she took the correct vital signs and came out of the room so embarassed!!! lol

one of our residents (as in baby docs, fresh out of medical school) was a patient on our unit, and all of the other residents used to hang out in his room. one night when i was working midnight shift, the charge nurse asked me to get vs on all 15 patients in our "pod". i did, including the guy in scrubs lying on the patient's bed. turns out it wasn't the resident who was actually the patient. he had sneaked out to get a smoke and the chief resident was napping in his bed. he must've been tired, though -- he didn't even wake up!