Dangerous nurses

gonzo1, ASN, RN · Jan 12, 2009

yes, 2 or 3. They ended up getting fired. Thankfully before they hurt anyone. But they probably just went to work somewhere else. I know they did because I have heard this.

leosasha · Jan 12, 2009

I have also met these unfortunate souls. Am very grateful that there have not been many. I have reported 2 in my career. Their behavior was outrageous. Thankfully, something was done to adress the issue both times.

allnurses Guide · Jan 12, 2009

Almost weekly when supervising dressings I see people contaminate thing and attempt to continue. They are genuinely surprised when I tell them they have to reglove/get a new setup etc. I don't know if that qualifies as "dangerous" per se, but it astonishes me how many people cannot maintain a sterile field.

so alive LPN · Jan 13, 2009

yes. only 1 comes to mind thought. He was about to give a beta blocker to a pt who's HR was in the low 50's (this was the pts first dose, have no idea why it was ordered.). Luckily, another nurse was chatting with him, and the topic came up. needless to say, the b-blocker was held. but had she not been there...:uhoh21:

Sue Damonas, BSN · Jan 13, 2009

I worked with two, one was a young nurse and she was eventually asked to leave. The other was an older woman who was the manager's friend. She made some serious med errors and couldn't learn the computer system properly but she never got into trouble with the manager. She eventually retired.

pagandeva2000, LPN · Jan 13, 2009

There are three agency nurses that come to mind. I suspect that they are either friends with the nursing administrator or that the nursing administrator is somehow getting a kick-back from their agency because no matter what the complaints are, they continue to return. One is an elderly woman who did not know that there are at least three types of insulin. She also refused to administer IMs in the clinic. I just can't comprehend why she remains working with us.

southernbeegirl, BSN, RN · Jan 13, 2009

true story....

pt's potassium level sky high. one nurse takes telephone order from doc to give kayexelate pr. she yells down the hall to the other nurse what the order was. the nurse gives the patient KCL rectally instead. yep, you heard me. she shoved 4 KCL tabs up the woman's butt. 4 ENTERIC COATED KCL tabs..right up the butt.

pt died.

noone knows if the nurse on the phone with the doc mistakenly told her to give the pt KCL or if the nurse on the hall just wrote it down wrong. either way, she gave the KCL knowing the level was high AND she gave it rectally.

it's wrong on so many levels i dont even know where to start.

did anything happen to either of them? NOT A SINGLE THING. NOT EVEN A WRITE UP.

i also work with a dangerous nurse right now. she's one of those nurses that thinks she knows everything, that thinks she knows more than any other nurse in the building....you know the type.

example #1...pt c/o pain after being lowered to floor. pt had hip ORIF. xrays come back that afternoon and shows no new fx. results read something like "fx R hip, rod intact". she's all excited tellng everyone "he has a fx!!". as her supervisor, i tell her "that fx is not new, thats why he had the surgery and is here for rehab". as soon as i leave, she calls the doc and says "new fx". she charts "new fx". she sends pt to hospital. guess what? no NEW fx! pt was in ER for 14 hours and so was his 88 yr old wife. both exhausted on return. he shouldnt have been sent!

example #2...

pharmacy runs out of Roxanol and sends plain ole morphine liquid until Roxanol available. nurse continues to give the med as ordered instead of refiguring the dose based on the concentration so pt is undermedicated. pt has lung cancer. pain level gets so high one evening that it takes me a couple hours and a few dilaudid injections later to get his pain under control. doc says "get him some roxanol and stop the morphine liquid". so im giving this nurse report, telling her i called the pharmacy and they are sending the roxanol and in the mean time continue the Dilaudid injections. she questions me (in that tone we all know well when a nurse thinks she knows more than everyone) on how roxanol and morphine are the same drug and i obviously didnt tell the doc we were giving him morphine. i say "yes, they are the same drug but are absorbed differently which affects effectiveness". she continues to argue with me (im the supervisor) that i dont know what im talking about. i even tried explaining drug absorption to her and how morphine is poorly absorbed in the stomach and thats why Roxanol works so well because it is very concentrated and is absorbed SL, which works as well as IV".

i'll have you know she went to not only the DON but the administrator as well, telling them that i didnt know what i was talking about and she wasnt going to work with me anymore because *I* am stoopid and dangerous.

sometimes i wonder how people survive our care, lol

southernbeegirl, BSN, RN · Jan 13, 2009

There are three agency nurses that come to mind. I suspect that they are either friends with the nursing administrator or that the nursing administrator is somehow getting a kick-back from their agency because no matter what the complaints are, they continue to return. One is an elderly woman who did not know that there are at least three types of insulin. She also refused to administer IMs in the clinic. I just can't comprehend why she remains working with us.

that's the deal with the second nurse i posted about...she's big buddies with the DON.

she's horrible! and she's one of those nurses that likes to "tell" on people. she clocks in, counts her cart and then heads straight to the DON office daily so she can sit and gossip about staff. you know how one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch type person? thats her. she is constantly causing negativity on every shift she works. she refuses to work certain halls, changes the assignments to what she wants, talks about everyone...she's just horrible. the DON actually said to us one day "we are SO lucky to have her! she's the best nurse in the building". i almost choked to death on my coffee when she said that.

nitenite · Jan 14, 2009

Once had a student nurse unplug a vent to plug in an IV pump and not realize it. Pt died. Massive lawsuit ensued.

To this day I still wonder how someone would even consider unplugging anything in an ICU! I'm glad I don't work in that particular hospital anymore.

mylabz19 · Jan 14, 2009

i've known a dangerous nurse...i assessed her as such when i was admitted and had an operation, she did not practice the sterile technique in the OR... i dont know if she does it habitually or just incidental...

RN1982 · Jan 14, 2009

Have any of you ever worked with a nurse you would classify as dangerous ---- dangerous as a nurse and as a person?

Some of the new nurses I work with are dangerious. Examples of their actions would be continuing to press the silence button on the bedside monitoring because another patient's HR is 200 and not responding to the alarm and another would be not assessing a new colostomy stoma which had turned blue.

southern rn · Jan 14, 2009

Several years ago, I worked with a nurse who accidentally hung TPN on a pt. intended for someone else (both had it ordered). When she realized her mistake, she took the TPN down and rehung it on the person it belonged to:banghead:

She was also known to run out of rooms if a pt. coded cause it scared her so bad-think everyone running into the room with a crash cart as she is running out:banghead: Did I mention she was one of our charge nurses??