strangest question a friend or acquaintance has ever asked you?

Nursing Students General Students

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i'm still in school but the questions have already started. i get a lot of random calls from friends looking for medical advice. i remind them that 1. i'm not a doctor, and 2. i'm not even a nurse yet! still, their desire to discuss their bowel habits and the state of their genitals is amusing, and i do participate, for learning purposes of course.

anyway, today i got the strangest question i have ever received. after discussing with a friend his current stomach flu issue, he asked me in all seriousness, "will taking a molly make my stomach flu worse?" i'm glad we were on the phone so he couldnt see my face.

what is the strangest question a friend or acquaintance has ever asked you?

Specializes in Medical-Surgical / Palliative/ Hospice.

I was in my very first semester of nursing school, and went to a family picnic with a guy I had just started dating. One of his relatives asked me to pull the loose tooth out of her screaming 4-year old daughter, thinking I would be able to do it without hurting her because I was a nurse.

Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

I don't know what it is about nursing that makes people assume we are willing and able to dispense free medical advice. My go to answer is "I am not you doctor, maybe you should call him/her." Most times I think it's funny, but it does occasionally get on my nerves if I am in a mood. After all, I don't expect my friend that's a plumber or my electrician neighbor to come fix my house for free so why would I come over and change your dressings twice a day just because I am a nurse? And yes, I had a neighbor ask me to do that once.

Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

BIL asked if, while we are conducting mock drills in ER, do we just ignore the real patients while we "play our game". I was tempted to say of course, the game is always more important than saving someone's life. But I refrained :)

My mother-in-law is a raging hypochondriac who is convinced beyond a doubt that her body is different than every other human body on the planet. I not only have to sit through explanations of fake medical problems that she does not actually have without rolling my eyes or telling her she is crazy, it is also my job to convince her with out flat out saying it that if her GP says her cholesterol medicine will not give her pneumonia or make her allergic to chocolate (yes, this was a real thing she brought up), she should probably believe him as he is the one who has the medical degree, and it really is not appropriate to then call her neurologist and cardiologist just to be sure :yes:

I had a female friend who was convinced she had prostate cancer because she had all the symptoms. It took a while to convince her that she does not have a prostate to worry about, and that if she is having strange symptoms she should talk to her doctor instead of Googling them. I also have a male friend who seems to constantly have things like hemorrhoids or pain in his testicle or something he thinks I want know about. I don't.

I am usually really patient, but the one I actually got kind of mad about was when a friend called me at 10pm to say her 2 year old had had a 104 degree fever for a few hours and she was starting to worry and wanted me to come look because she knows I am in nursing school. Seriously?! Since the doc in the ER gave her the same lecture I did about calling the pediatrician when the baby first gets the fever, I think she learned that calling the nursing student when your baby is that sick is not the proper procedure.

Specializes in ICU.

My mom cannot wait for me to get a little more nursing experience under me because she thinks I will be able to diagnose her and help her. I've been trying to explain the difference between a doctor and nurse to her. My sister is a physical therapist. She thinks because she has her PHD she is a physician. It's crazy what people think.

Specializes in ICU/ER, Maternal, Psych.

My co-worker (i work as a waitress PT) talks to me about her sons smegma. ew. apparently he is uncircumcised and is having issue. its consistently.

Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.
Ah yes, two days after passing the NCLEX I found myself kneeling on the bathroom floor staring at a spot on my grandmother's butt where she'd had a mole removed recently. All the while she kept turning around and asking me "Does it look like it's healing ok to you!?"

Oh no! Not grandma's rear! Couldn't do it! I guess because they were so old when I was born.

Anne, RNC

Specializes in Med-Surg.
I've also checked my own sister's cervix in two of her three labors.

Is it weird that I think this is kind of sweet? Haha!

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
Is it weird that I think this is kind of sweet? Haha!

Lol I just told this to my pregnant sister and she said "Don't get any ideas!" Lmao!

Specializes in Med-Surg and Neuro.

Quite the opposite. My family still won't listen to me when I tell them they need to go to the dr to have something checked out. :sarcastic: I even explain how simple the tests will be, and offer to go with them. My mother ended up hospitalized from not listening to me, and I worry my father is developing a CAD or something cardio. I wish I had half the respect some of you seem to!

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