Most embarrassing mistake you've ever made

General E. Speaking, RN, RN · Dec 18, 2009

I decided to be nice (since the patient had a huge room full of visitors) and shut the bathroom door behind me while I was flushing the urine down the toilet. I have a habit of knocking on any closed door before entering. There I am INSIDE the patients bathroom knocking on the door and even waited for the invite to come in (or out in this case).

Then I hear a quite, "Come in?" from one of the visitors. I was beet red but laughing too when I came out.:imbar

meluhn · Dec 18, 2009

Just for fun. What the most embarrassing mistake you've made in your nursing career? (I'm not talking about sentinel events, please keep those to yourself.)
Well, here goes: Maybe two weeks into my orientation in ICU, I'm going to administer some med via a PEG tube. The PEG is buried beneath gown, sheet and blankets and I finally find the Lopez valve. The patient is receiving tube feeding also. I turn the stopcock on the Lopez valve, try to administer the med with the syringe . . . it won't go in . . . I push a little harder . . . still won't go in . . . one more push and suddenly, the tubing on the Kangaroo pump disconnects and showers me with Jevity!! I had turned the stopcock off to the patient and being new I didn't notice which side was the PEG and which side had the feeding tube!!
I looked around quickly and saw my preceptor standing there, bent over laughing!! Thankfully, the patient was sedated, so he couldn't join in.

:yeah:Been there and done that. Sticky isn't it?

meluhn · Dec 18, 2009

One time I was taking care of a pt who was a dr at another teaching hospital in our same health system. I was making small talk with him as I was doing colostomy care and I was very focused on getting the hole in the wafer the right size and doing a good job. I asked him, "So what kind of surgeon were you?" Kidding around, he said, "General surgery, we did all kinds of things, you know brain transplants and such". I was not really paying attention and I just kind of laughed and said, "Yeah right, they don't do those at Hospital X". I felt so incredibly stupid at that moment.

jtmonique · Dec 18, 2009

while precepting my preceptor told me that I had one bath to do and pointed to the end of the hall...Well I had meds to pass, assessments to make and dressings to change by time I got to the bath I was apologizing and promised to make it a good one...Well the elderly man was going on and on about how nice it was for me to bathe him and what a good job I was doing...My preceptor pops in the room and asks why I was bathing him I replied you told me too she replies the aid did his bath already your bath is in the next room...she is able to shower just go tell her to my face turns red, then my preceptor says to the man Mr._ why didn't you tell her you had a bath? He gets this devilish grin and replies It's not everyday you get such a sexy light skinned nurse offering you a bath how could I resist? I was mortified and the nurses spent the rest of the day making jokes about allowing me to bath all of the old men because I come highly recommended...geesh.

JessicRN · Dec 18, 2009

We always wait for the new grad to get chrisined by IV fluid. It never fails when a new grad is asked to put a pressure pump on an IV bag only to pump it up so hard the tube flies out and lo and behold everyone gets a bath. We usually make them do it as practice so it never happens in a real situation. ( I learned the hard way with blood many years ago). We also usually make an excuse and say keep going and step out of the room then watch from afar. There is also the one when a new nurse absentmindedly goes to switch an IV bag to another Solution without taking down the original bag from the pole. (again something I did many many years ago)

Gold_SJ · Jun 2, 2011

Lol ok, the dumbest most embarrassing thing I've ever done I believe was when I was a second year student in emergency. I was working alongside my preceptor and I really admired her, super smart, she knew exactly what to do all the time. So she told me to do an ECG and then we'd work on cannulation together, I was excited to try this and rushed off to do the ECG.

I talked with the little old man who was my patient at that point as I hooked him up not realising due to my hurry and anxiety about what I was about to try, that I was doing it wrong.

My preceptor walked in and just cracked up, she couldn't help laughing I'd done the ECG with everything hooked up to the wrong side. The right instead of the left. --.-- I mean you don't even have a heart on that side. Another nurse popped in to see why she was giggling, she started laughing too, they both teased me thoroughly after that.

I don't think I've ever been so red in my life.

To make matters worse when I was wailing about it to my mum (she's a Registered Nurse too) She started laughing.

Heh I learnt to take things with a grain of salt after that XD But still I'm much more compassionate to students and grads I'm with now for silly mistakes. All it takes is for me to remember that one night and how embarrassed I'd been to stuff up infront of my much loved preceptor XD

Heidi the nurse, BSN, RN · Jun 2, 2011

I guess this is the most embarrassing thing I didn't do in nursing :)

While going to nursing school, I worked at an emergency vet clinic, so I knew how to read an X-ray. Our first nursing school rotation was through surgery, and our first surgery was a hip replacement. I kept looking at the x-ray, and thinking that's the wrong hip. But I was just a little peon nursing student and didn't speak up - sure enough, it was the wrong hip. I felt terrible that I didn't have the guts to speak up and risk being embarrassed by the surgical team.