Post-Its from the edge

Nurses General Nursing

Published

We're always putting little post-it notes for the docs or other nurses on the chart. Sometimes it'll be to clarify a nonessential med, or to suggest a lab, medication, or consult.

Sometimes I want to write a little different kind of a Post-It note. Like one to the family of one of the patients from a few weeks ago:

"Dear Family,

Despite what some doctors have led you to believe, your loved one is not going to live forever. Please make him/her a DNR so that we all can stop the craziness. Your loved one is miserable--and terminal--and we're only making it worse."

OR:

"Dear Dr. K,

I have noticed that your H&P refers to Mrs. X as a bilateral BKA. However, my assessment found her to have both legs and pedal pulses of +2/+2. Please advise."

Some of my favorite t-shirts (that the hospital hates when I wear) that should be on post-its.

I am here to save your ass, not kiss it!

Your HMO has refused your enema, so I am here to slap the **** out of you!

Do you want the doctor in charge or the Nurse that knows what is going on?

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy nurses can handle the pressure.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy nurses do it deeper.

I got a big kick out of these. Especially #3: Do you want the doctor in charge or the nurse who knows what's going on? You could probably get rich selling that one. :roll

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Scrub Nurses Do It On a Sterile Table

Specializes in Tele, Home Health, MICU, CTICU, LTC.
Dear Administration -

It has come to my attention that you have no idea what goes on in your facility and are completely out of touch with what is feasible to expect from your staff. Please get a clue, leave your plush new renovated offices and speak a civil word to the people who keep your facility going 24/7 - 365.

PS - have lost "ask me if I've washed my hands" button again. Am willing to do without a replacement for the sake of the budget. Also am willing to volunteer to filter all ideas stemming from administrators with too much time on their hands. Free of charge, for the sake of the budget, of course.

So far this has to be one of my favorites!!!!!!!! So true!!!!

Note to Administration:

I will be expecting a substantial pay increase for doing my part to raise hospital revenue. Since your recent budget cuts do not allow for PRN staff and the hiring freeze that is in effect, I have been forced to work while deathly ill. I have managed to infect every staff member and visitor I have come into contact with. The current patients were excluded from said bioterrorism attack, so don't be concerned about losing money from increased length of stay. Hospital admissions have sky-rocketed, thanks to me. I hope that the cost of using agency nurses to care for all of us hospitalized staff members along with the rest of the patients doesn't eat up too much of your precious profits. Please hand deliver my check to me in room 1313 by noon today because I have to make a 25% down payment on the lung transplant that I must have due to the severity of my untreated lung infection. Our crappy, so-called "insurance" has an exclusion for this particular treatment.

Thank you

P.S. This is not actually a Post-it note as they are not allowed for in the budget. This is just a plain piece of scrap paper stuck to your desk with my infectious green snot.

Dear previous shift nurse,

Please stop trying to give me (and our patient) heart failure. You can't need Code practice that badly.

KCL boluses MUST BE RUN ON A PUMP.

However, hospital policy is that PRBCs do NOT run on a pump.

Mmmmm-Kay?

Lovin' every minute of it,

~AngieO~

In our hospital, everything can be run on a pump, even IVPBs. And guess what? PRBCs do wonderful on a pump.

:lol2: :chuckle :clown: :lol2: !!! I love this site!!! keep em comin' AMARTIN1
In our hospital, everything can be run on a pump, even IVPBs. And guess what? PRBCs do wonderful on a pump.

you don't run prbc's on a pump?

Dear Dr. Resident:

Your shift ending in a half hour is not a good reason to start pitocin on this patient.

Thanks...

In our hospital, everything can be run on a pump, even IVPBs. And guess what? PRBCs do wonderful on a pump.

My gripe is when we don't have a pump available people don't realize you can run regular IVs without them (you would of course not run a heparin or insulin gtt without one for instance). There's an ancient technique called counting the gtts and using the roller clamp to regulate the rate. The patient doesn't need to be without fluids because a pump was unavailable.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

The only problem is that there are certain meds you need a pump for, though.

The only problem is that there are certain meds you need a pump for, though.

Of course there are some medication you never run without a pump, what I'm referring to is when a patient has let's say: 0.9% NaCl to infuse at 100ml/hr and no pump available you can infuse without a pump.

Specializes in Emergency, Orthopaedics, plastics.

Dear Doc...

Decided not to give that Phosphate enema PO as the Pt is Nill by mouth!

Dear Dr.

I re-took the Urgent bloods from your patient. Please remember to either take the bloods to the lab, tell a nurse you have taken them or call the specimin porter to collect them because, contrary to the myth that many doctors share, the bloods do not grow legs and walk down to the lab on their own...

But of course its not just the doctors that we can send these too...

Dear Radiology

When we state on a X-ray order form for "hard copy to return with patient to the ward" it is not a code for "please loose the films in the reporting room till the next day's shift come on..." Thanks and have a nice day!

Now i know this is not a post-it message and is infact a phone call i had with the overnight radiology staff... but its still worth a mention

"A&E Radiology"

"Hi its Staff Nurse on $ £ ward. Ive got a patient here by the name of $%^&* who is due an urgent chest x-ray."

"Let me see... right ive got the form here."

"Well it was ordered over an hour ago and we were told you would call us when we could take her down"

"Did we?"

"Yes..."

[silence]

"So when can she go down?"

"You want it done tonight?"

"Well when we filled out an urgent request we were thinking we could either wait to diagnose a pleural effusion when the fluid overflows from her mouth onto the floor and she drowns... or we could just get an x-ray and put in a drain..."

[silence]

"Im going to bring the patient down to you now..."

"Erm... ok"

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