[Bonnie J-Lowe]

The Best Revenge is living well!

In our Class that started training in 1969 we had one little girl,young woman, but looked very young, who was constantly unsure of herself, constantly!! The time came to start doing bed baths (yuk) and poor Lisa was assigned to an ex-military man who, unbeknownst to her, was an amputee. She started her bath and did everything according to the manual. At our debriefing in class after the first bath experience, Lisa put her hand up to ask a question.
"What do you do when the book says to wash both legs?"
The instructor looked at her strangely and said "Well, that is what you do, wash two legs!"
Lisa asks "What if the patient only has one leg?"
The instructor was trying to ignore the rest of us snickering, and said, "Well you just wash the one, why do you ask?"
Lisa says "My patient only had one leg and I didn't know what to do." She was near tears by then.
The instructor asked her what she did do!
Lisa answers "Well, there was nobody to ask, so I did the one leg twice!!"
Class was out for the day, Lisa overcame her shyness after sometime, but the washing of one leg twice was her trademark,and is to this day.And we got a class off because nobody could stop laughing!!
Bonnie,Class 1969
Grace General Hospital School of Nursing,
St.John's,Newfoundland,
The only place on earth where something like that would happen!!!*lol*

[gwenith]

I can top this story. When i training waaay back BF (before flo) we had a nurse who was notorious. Told that the doctor had changed the IV antibiotic to oral she unscrewed the needle off of the syringe and squirted the contents down the patients throat.

Her most infamous stunt was when she was told to give the patient two suppositories and an ear syringe. She came back to say that the suppositories kept falling out. this puzzled the RN who went in to see what it was all about only to find the patient with a suppository in each ear.

Other famous 'mistakes" include gathering all the false teeth in the ward and sterilizing them in the autoclave. Sterilizing the oral (mercury) thermometers in the autoclave and finally when told to put a patient who was Rest in Bed on a commode managed to balance the patient on the commode on the bed!!!

[RoadRunner]

If I may ask : are those still working as nurses???????

[Shamrock]

[P_RN]

On the first day of orientation in fundamentals the Sister was taking us on a tour of the hospital. It was the first exposure to hospitals for most of us. As we were leaving one man in the ward said can someone get me some ice?

Our class "Lisa" said she'd do it.......coming back from the ice machine Sister just caught her as she brought ice back to the patient.........................in his nice shiny metal URINAL.

Oh BTW shes a nursing professor now and a writer for NCLEX last I heard.

[Cameron67]

These are great...what a great topic to start.....I know we have all been there!

[Bonnie J-Lowe]

I would imagine most of the new classes of nurses have one or two memorable happenings that never, ever get put aside. It will go on as long as nursing does.The student that collected dentures that a nurse friend tells me about took them all and soaked them in 'dettol'--probably went on to become a great nurse but a very confused citizen!!! Late in replying have been away-I have three sisters who are nurses, the one who is the professor asked me what a foley catheter was--a totally academic nurse, masters degree etc. Just not a hands on nurse and will never be. She is amazed at the things we tell her.It is a great laugh for all of us!! Us lowly Rns and Bscns ya know!!

[Bonnie J-Lowe]

My sister is a nurse in the far north-one of my sisters. She is known for tying the patients mouth shut in post mortem care, as they have no under taker, just permafrost. When she took the Retalast bandage off to show the body to the family the poor face had little squares etched in it from the bandage.She talked her way out of it but won't tell us how!!!*lol*

[Bonnie J-Lowe]

Originally posted by Bonnie J-Lowe
I would imagine most of the new classes of nurses have one or two memorable happenings that never, ever get put aside. It will go on as long as nursing does.The student that collected dentures that a nurse friend tells me about took them all and soaked them in 'dettol'--probably went on to become a great nurse but a very confused citizen!!! Late in replying have been away-I have three sisters who are nurses, the one who is the professor asked me what a foley catheter was--a totally academic nurse, masters degree etc. Just not a hands on nurse and will never be. She is amazed at the things we tell her.It is a great laugh for all of us!! Us lowly Rns and Bscns ya know!!

[NurseShell]

<-- silently prays to the "nursing school gods" that nothing I do ever gets remembered like that !!!

I have my "blonde moments" you know?!

I've saved a couple people from humiliating themselves with incredibly stupid questions - but some people just can't be helped!!

i.e. when discussing the ration/proportion method for drug dosage calc. which is basically two fractions: available = ordered
250mg/1 tab = 500mg/X tab

Someone actually raised their hand because they didn't "understand what you mean by available and ordered" (this was on the LAST day of class!!!!)