It's end of shift and I'm leaving on time. Not!

Nurses Relations

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I was thinking about those shifts when everything seems to be going smooth, shift is almost over and you think "Yes! I might ACTUALLY leave on time today." You are mentally doing a happy dance, THEN something happens. It always does, right? Here are a few of those lovely little events:

I was closing up my charting, fifteen minutes left...woo hoo! Then I hear a little commotion down the hall. I am praying to the the end of shift gods, "Pleeease don't be my patient...." Yep. It's my patient. She tried to get to her bedside commode (she usually could) but lost her footing and slow motion like, slid to her butt. Another nurse witnessed it while helping his patient in another room. I see myself at the computer filling out an incident report in my near future. As I am walking to the patient's room I hear "Hey, nursefrances your ER admit is here." Really?!? :yawn:

Then there is the patient who pulled out their___________ fill in the blank. For me it has been an NG tube and an IV that of course looked like a murder scene when I walked in.

Ooh, don't forget the patient who wants to go AMA "now" because they want a cigarette.

Once (or twice) realized the CNA forgot to empty the foleys and put the I&Os in the computer and went home already. On a side note our CNAs were awesome and this didn't happen often.

Also, the doctor who called 5 minutes before end of shift and wanted me to take down 2 pages of orders.

I am sure I have more but can't remember right now.

Anyone want to share?

I hear ya! I work 3-11p. It seems if the night is going well, I just have to assume at this point that at the magic hour of 2200, something is going to happen! My last shift was going great, so I knew it was coming. 2200 rolls around and two patients who were fine all night are suddenly in distress, another patient is sundowning and while trying to "get to the store" crawls out of bed, takes off his clip alarm and rips his IV out, and now suddenly 2 other patients who refused pain meds now are asking for them. Hey, at least I was expecting it so I was mentally prepared :)

Before going out of the hospital decided to give my next nurse shift a favor by signing the request for surgery form. Heads out to the OR to find out that the surgeon on duty is at the doctor's lounge sleeping. Goes to the lounge. It's really dark in there and I can't see nothing. Takes out the cellphone to switch for a flashlight (A really bright flashlight!), accidentally hits the surgeon on duty in the face with the really bright light.

Surgeon on duty becomes a grouch, saying "****" "F" words, etc. Had to say "sorry it was an accident I got you with the light". Now surgeon on duty says I'm somebody who has no respect for them. :(

Now I have to make an IR for accidentally hitting a surgeon with bright light on her sleep. :(

Specializes in Med/Surg/ICU/Stepdown.

1. RRT is called.

2. Code Blue

3. Order set comes in to get a stat lab order and then run blood/albumin.

4. Order comes in to transfer patient to the ICU.

5. Patient begins having an extreme anxiety attack and physically doesn't allow me to leave the room.

6. Patient falls out of bed after being fine independently ambulating.

Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.
Before going out of the hospital decided to give my next nurse shift a favor by signing the request for surgery form. Heads out to the OR to find out that the surgeon on duty is at the doctor's lounge sleeping. Goes to the lounge. It's really dark in there and I can't see nothing. Takes out the cellphone to switch for a flashlight (A really bright flashlight!), accidentally hits the surgeon on duty in the face with the really bright light.

Surgeon on duty becomes a grouch, saying "****" "F" words, etc. Had to say "sorry it was an accident I got you with the light". Now surgeon on duty says I'm somebody who has no respect for them. :(

Now I have to make an IR for accidentally hitting a surgeon with bright light on her sleep. :(

Why do you need an incident report for that?

Specializes in ICU.

Happened to me this morning! I was sure I was getting out by 0715 at the latest since the nurse from yesterday was there, but the freaking engineering team did a fake fire drill on my unit RIGHT AT 0645, which is when the day shift nurses arrived, and then they took a good ten minutes to debrief us afterward, so I couldn't even start giving report until around 0700. Then, day shift nurse told me she'd thrown away her report sheets from the day before because she thought she was going to be off today, so I had to go through the patients' full histories and everything all over again. Then, a nursing student walked up to the day shift nurse and told her she was going to be with her, so I gave her a brief rundown on the patients as well. Then, three doctors rounded on one of my patients at the same time while I was trying to catch up on my charting, while the day shift nurse was in the other room getting the second patient ready to be transported. They all kept interrupting me and asking me questions.

Yeah, the day I should have gotten out on time for sure ended with me leaving after 0800...

Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
Generally I find what goes around comes around, so you know which nurses are team players and plan your"favors" accordingly

I just love the coworkers who huddle around the assignment sheet at 0630 and then plan patient care - what they'll finish and what they won't - on the basis of who their relief is. :banghead:

Really - is this a professional work environment or a junior high lunchtable?

Specializes in Med/Surg/ICU/Stepdown.

Stable patient all day ℅ chest pain radiating into the left arm …

Annnnd I'm definitely not leaving on time now!

Specializes in Ambulatory Surgery, Ophthalmology, Tele.
I've had some real end of shift doozies but HyperSaurus' post takes the cake...yikes!

My big pet peeve is when I've busted butt to get everything done on time and then while I'm waiting to give report the critical labs start coming in as the AM labs are being run.

The other night I had two critical labs on two different patients. Spent 45 minutes getting call backs from doctors and processing a half a page of orders. Didn't get out until 0800.

Which leads to another peeve.... calling the primary doc to tell him of a critical value and him giving you orders to call all the consult docs and let them know about the critical value, too.

He can't let the consult docs know?

I had one doctor (a cardiologist) call me (sounding kind of upset) telling me he didn't want the on call cardiologist to see his patient because the Dr on call was incompetent, etc. So the doc tells me, "Call the doctor and say...." I politely suggested that they keep this doctor to doctor.

I wasn't touching THAT conversation with a ten foot pole. :no:

Or the doctor who says, "Can you call Doctor Smith and have him call me?" Really?!? :yawn: I don't have the doctor's personal phone number but you probably do. I would have to page him. This happened when I was a new nurse before I knew about big girl pants. ;)

I had one doctor (a cardiologist) call me (sounding kind of upset) telling me he didn't want the on call cardiologist to see his patient because the Dr on call was incompetent etc. So the doc tells me, "Call the doctor and say...." I politely suggested that they keep this doctor to doctor. I wasn't touching THAT conversation with a ten foot pole. :no: Or the doctor who says, "Can you call Doctor Smith and have him call me?" Really?!? :yawn: I don't have the doctor's personal phone number but you probably do. I would have to page him. This happened when I was a new nurse before I knew about big girl pants. ;)[/quote']

No way! UN-Believable!

I work in LTC. One minute before my shift ends, a resident had a fall incident and the night nurse was receiving hand over from the other unit, well of course I had to assess the resident since the night nurse was not available to do it. Imagine one minute before home time!!!

Another lucky moment is I already finished my shift and went to pass a resident's room when I witnessed the resident falling and broke his rib. I was quite fortunate right? I had to do Incident report, assessment, call the family etc.

15 minutes before my shift ends, a resident had heart attack and had to send to acute care and I had to stay late.

Anyway, this is how our profession works we cannot really foresee what will happen to our patients.

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