What is the dumbest order you ever read?

Will the real woman please, stand up?

My personal favorite (from back in orientation):

D/C tongue ring

I got a transfer patient from the floor last night and I was doing my chart check when I came across these orders:

1st doc: "Please ask Dr. So-n-so for leads on rehab facility in Blanksville, Out of State."
2nd doc: "Wife would like to know when pt may be ready for transfer to rehab facility in Blanksville."
1st doc: "As soon as you find me a rehab facility in Blanksville."
2nd doc: "Not familiar with any rehab facilities in Blanksville, suggest you call major hospital in Blanksville for leads."
1st doc: "Social services: please find a rehab facility in Blanksville."

Ugh. Haven't these guys ever heard of a phone? We had a good laugh over that last night.

Same patient has some extremely nervous nellie relatives and has 9 doctors on the case (4 services of which were family requests). The patient developed some hives so they asked for a dermatology consult on Thanksgiving day and could not understand why the dermatologist on call wouldn't come see him. I had a hard time keeping from laughing telling them that dermatologists don't do consults on weekends and holidays because you just don't have too many dermatology emergencies. Not to mention that don't you think maybe ANY kind of doctor could handle URTICARIA?! They also asked for (and got) a GI consult for the patient's hiccups. ARRGGHH!

Now, now, konni...you never know when an emergency pimple might erupt.

I used to babysit for a dermatologist when I was in nsg. school, and this guy used to ALWAYS ask me if the medical bureau had called with any emergencies. I thought he was kidding the first time he said that, but he was flat-out serious.

MOM 30cc po,stat....Sadly the patient was my 30 yr old sister-moaning and crying with abdominal pain in the e.d.....She is and always will be high maintenance and the star of the "Me" show and when our Mother was alive she fed right into it...Imagine going to the e.d. for constipation of 4 days duration-a young health person.... The topper was watching her there on the stretcher waiting for the MOM to work-the staff could not keep straight faces by that point...............One of the docs in our LTC has been known to write orders like-"tune radio to 92.5 q am" or "TV to General Hospital at 3 pm" No one knows how he knows the preferences of our comatose residents...but at least he does try....he also wrote something like" To lick one lollipop with nurse and suction on stand by q weekly" for one of our semi-comatose fellas...

my personal favorite "stat colace" Although one that happened recently "restrict free water to 7500cc/day" UGH!!!!

This is the funniest thread. I am laughing at all of them.................

Funniest one I have seen a urine pregnancy test on a 46 year old female, with history of TAH-BSO. That would be the miracle baby!

Y2KRN

Well now that you mention it, we just had a patient admitted for query appendicitis...after telling the doctor that he's already had an appendectomy! We think that something might have gotten mixed up from the office to the hospital...but even still, when I asked the patient why he was being admitted, he said he didn't know...

Amanda

This one ain't funny, but we had an old guy with cancer admitted to the SICU whose tumor had eroded down to his left carotid. On the admit orders written by the surgery intern was:
1) Carotid precautions. *** were we supposed to do? I called the chief res and we shared a good laugh at the intern's expense.

Stools for occult blood x3 Today!!!!- Do by rectal exam.
(On a patient that had not had a BM in 4 days and not had solid food in 4 days)


What do you want to bet (supposing we had followed the order) that by the third "rectal exam", the OB would be positive?