[hello_nurse_mel]

Originally Posted by anichols

once grabbed a donut to eat surreptiously during report. scooted my chair to grab a chart, tilted back in slooow moootion..and fell out in a near somersault. landed trapped under chair against med files...with one arm stuck up in the air triumphantly displaying the donut, which never hit the floor! (got offered a lot of donuts after that one!)

you should get bonus points for a graceful execution of a gymnastics routine while maintaining integrity of said donut.

[bissie]

I've done several stupid things in the ER since I've started working there. My first psych pt, I went to do his triage, and for his privacy shut the door. When I went to leave I found no doorknob. Luckily one of my 6 laughing coworkers watching on the monitor came to let me out!
Then there was the pretty blue button on the wall when I tried to turn out a call bell...oops! Code blue ER.
Not to mention how many times I've asked a "daughter" for info on her "father: only to find out it's her husband.
Gotta laugh!!

[Rayrae]

I am waiting for one embarrassing thing to happen to me: to fall on my face while trying to hang something on an IV pole. I am rather short (under 5' club), and seems like my first day on, all my pts' IV poles have their tops all the way up to heaven and try as I might I cannot reach them. And it can be hard to adjust if there's multiple pumps on a pole... I need to find a stool! I just have this picture in my head of me balancing one foot on the rolling "foot" of the iv pole and one barely on the floor, trying to hang something, and me falling over, breaking some bone and knocking the IV pole onto the pt's head! Hopefully that won't ever happen... I am a big fan of those Bard pumps that you can just set on the bedside table, or something and have to do NO reaching at all!

[fluffyredfox]

Originally Posted by anichols

once grabbed a donut to eat surreptiously during report. scooted my chair to grab a chart, tilted back in slooow moootion..and fell out in a near somersault. landed trapped under chair against med files...with one arm stuck up in the air triumphantly displaying the donut, which never hit the floor! (got offered a lot of donuts after that one!)

i would have paid money to see that!!
getting ready for my final placement at 5.30am and that has made me laugh out loud!

[MichaelLooney]

I get some petty brainless ones. Like our resident rooms (I work LTC) are so small, I swear I've seen dorm room closets bigger than them (I keep getting reminded they WERE built back in the early 70's, when no one expected a resident to actually move into the room with their entire household's worth of 'junk').
Well, I happened to prove the rooms were too small when I had a resident who put her feet up, where they were nearly touching the wall in front of her, and I had to reach behind her chair to pick up her call light (which the residents always refer to as 'the panic button' for an added laugh), and I fell down and got wedged back there. She didn't know what was going on, I couldn't reach the cord, I couldn't move with one leg in the air and the other pinned between the bed and the chair. So I'm yelling for help for like 10 minutes before one of the nurses comes to see what I've done 'this time'. She couldn't hardly stop laughing long enough to help me out of there.
Another?
Not too long after I started working there, I was relegated to doing a bath one evening. We have a rule where you CANNOT let the tub air dry (b/c of contaminantion issues) after you clean it, so you have to dry it out with towels. Well, I fell in head first b/c the side of the tub comes up just above my lowest rib. I couldn't get out, and no one wanted to help me out until they'd found a camera to get a picture. I glad they didn't, beleive me!
ANd something embaressing?
I actually fell asleep feeding resident one evening. And no one noticed until the whole dining room had been cleared out.

[TexasNS]

Originally Posted by Chad_KY_SRNA

OK so this story is from when I first started in nursing going on three years ago so don't judge me too harshly. While performing routine peri-care one of the other CNAs had covered the residents entire scrotum in zinc oxide cream and it was white and wrinkled. Thinking it was a balled up wash cloth I tried to pick it up, when it didn't come easily I tried again and said "What is this?" When the elderly resident cried out in pain I quickly realized what was going on and let it go. The other CNA said, "I hope you know, you should have one". Well I was so embarassed that I was glowing bright red. Few people know this story but I have learned much since this time.

Classic I will tell this story to all I know!!!

[icyounurse]

once during a code we were getting ready to shock and i quickly grabbed the ekg pads and in my urgency to quickly open the package ripped the pads in half. the nurses i work thought this was hysterical. the mds at the code thought i was an idiot.

[seun]

patient passed out on commode;;;;what a pity but actually very funny i can't stop laughing .

[been there]

Originally Posted by ClaireMacl

Ok, here's my story.

A couple of months ago, we changed from zip uniforms to poppers. So, last night I was with an intubated patient in CT and walked around the table, catching my uniform and giving everyone in the room a nice view of my bra I'm still blushing thinking about it!

So what's the most embarrasing thing you've done?

I didn't do this but they say revenge can be wonderful. A rather hard and strictly business nursing instructor of mine in nursing school chastized me for not being able to catherize an extremely large woman with cellulitis in both legs. Two other students had to assist because this woman was LARGE and the site I needed was well hidden under multiple belly folds, not to mention the pain caused by handling her legs. My instructor marched in and called me incompetent, etc, etc. and said she would show me "one more time". She got on the bed, kneeled between the patient's legs and shoved them aside. Then she promptly contaminated two insertion sets. The third was the kicker. Each time she tried to "insert" the lady would yelp out "Whooo". The doctor came to the door and asked the instructor what in the he.. was she doing!. The patient told him she didn't know but she sure got a charge out of it. Seemed as if the site she was poking wasn't exactly where the catheter was to go!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know this is gross but ....AAAAAAAAAh sweet revenge!!!! Oh, I got an "A" for that clinical!!!

[Helen307]

Originally Posted by ClaireMacl

Ok, here's my story.

A couple of months ago, we changed from zip uniforms to poppers. So, last night I was with an intubated patient in CT and walked around the table, catching my uniform and giving everyone in the room a nice view of my bra I'm still blushing thinking about it!

So what's the most embarrasing thing you've done?

The most embrassing thing that happened to me at work happened when I was a Partial Hospitalization Nurse. I was having lunch in my office when a piece of lettuce became lodged in my throat, I ran towards a coworker but a patient intervened and had to give me the Heimlich maneuver.