Epic (Nursing) FAILS!

Like any good team member, nurses come to work with our game face on: ready to run hard, field phone calls, intercept doctors, and run interference for our patients. Here's what happens when we play like we left our heads behind in the locker room. Nurses Humor Article Video

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Long Term Care Columnist / Guide

VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

22 Articles; 9,987 Posts

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Ouch.....:coollook:

Reminds me of one of my verbal-incontinence episodes when I worked acute care. I was in this funny, breezy mood when I started my shift; I had five easy patients and the ER was deader than a doornail, so I was feeling pretty good about life as I stepped into a room to answer the call light of the patient I hadn't met yet.

Picture this: I was nearing 50, was already a grandmother, and for some reason I decide to be cute. "WhassUP?" I drawled as I rounded the corner and came face to face with........the only African-American patient in the entire hospital :eek: Maybe the only African-American patient in the entire TOWN. We're so white-bread, we make the redneck population look like dazzling urbanites by comparison......and I had to go in and blurt "WhassUP?" Who the deuce did I think I was, Will Smith?!

To his credit, the young fellow didn't comment except to ask for some soup and crackers, but I was embarrassed just the same. Sheesh.:o:o:o

I guess I had one of these moments last night. Under one minute, I ran into the bedside table, tripped on the patient's shoes, hit my arm on the bed, ran into the door on my way out, got my scrub sleeve hooked onto the door and got yanked back. And THEN was asked to come back in and turn off the light by the patient. So what do you know? I ran right back into the door, chipped a nail on the light switch, and hit my knee on the arm rest of a chair. I had to get out that room, take a deep breath and I had a good laugh!!! I'm clumsy but WOW!.

silverbat

617 Posts

Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.

One day at the desk, I was sitting in a rolling chair, on a mat, and decided to "just roll" over to the chart rack to get a chart, instead of getting up and walking. Well, the chair and I started rolling towards the chart rack, one of the chair wheels hit a crack in the tile and the the chair stopped dead. Of course, once a body is in motion, it stays in motion. I went flying off the chair seat, landed in the floor and I laughed so hard I coudn't get up. The other nurse, was all, "OH MY GOSH"" are you ok?", and I could only laugh. I did get up, was unhurt, except for my pride. LOL. graceful, I am NOT

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide

VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

22 Articles; 9,987 Posts

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I've done that more than once myself, much to my embarrassment (and a VERY sore tailbone). And don't you just love the "Croc Stop"---you know, where you're zipping along and one clog suddenly decides it's not going to move one millimeter further, while the rest of you continues in the original direction at the original velocity? :eek:

Laughtermed

1 Post

Back when I was a CNA I had just started a job with a staffing agency. Until this point I had worked with the elderly but now I was being staffed at the local hospital. I was placed for the first time in the post partum unit. I had helped a new mother to the bathroom. There was a cord hanging by the toilet and, from my experiences with the elderly, instructed her to pull it when she was finished. Not five minutes later my beeper, and everybody else's, went off. The nurses are running to my patient's room screaming "hemorrhage!". We all (3 nurses and 2 CNAs) run to the bathroom door and throw it open. The patient looks at all of us with a shocked expression and says "I'm done". Who knew the pull cords would have such different purposes.

wooh, BSN, RN

1 Article; 4,383 Posts

VivaLasViejas said:
I've done that more than once myself, much to my embarrassment (and a VERY sore tailbone). And don't you just love the "Croc Stop"---you know, where you're zipping along and one clog suddenly decides it's not going to move one millimeter further, while the rest of you continues in the original direction at the original velocity? :eek:

I did that a couple weeks ago. Landed with my arms out in front of me. In front of the nurses station. I looked like I'd decided to slide into home.

GiantJerk

71 Posts

When I was a brand new nurse, just off orientation (not that long ago), I had a patient who was a really difficult stick. I tried to draw her blood several times, another nurse tried to no avail. Finally someone was able to get just barely enough blood drawn up in a syringe to fill the tubes. I took it from her, filled the tubes, and promptly dropped them into the sharps container. The room fell silent and everyone was staring at me like I was the village idiot. I was horrified. Needless to say, I learned my lesson and never get close to the sharps container with a patient's blood in my hands anymore.

LPNnowRN

115 Posts

Specializes in LTC.

OMG--pop came out of my nose on some of these!!

OK, in to give meds to patient, scan bracelet, try to open little pill blister pack and flip it under the roommates bed!! I'm on my stomach crawling under the bed to find and retrieve it, apologise with a red face and tell them I'll be back with a new pill. At least it was metoprolol and not some outrageously expensive med...but I still had to explain to my charge why I needed a new one out of Pyxis...when I got to the crawling under the bed part that's when she lost it!

Specializes in ED/ICU/TELEMETRY/LTC.

Psych clinicals. I had no aspirations to do anything with a psych patient except get through this and forget it. Still here we are. My patient was hallucinating. We stood in front of a one way mirrored, locked door. He was batting at a "little fellow" who was apparently bothering him, although he was the only one who could see him.

In my feeble attempt to do what I thought was therapeutic communication or reality orientation (I said, I'm not great with this population) I said, "See there is no one there except you and me." And pointed to the mirrored door. He said, "Yeah, I see you, and I see me, but don't you see him?" Uh no.

At which point someone unlocked the door and my patient ran through. Security caught him, but oh I was so mortified.

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide

VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

22 Articles; 9,987 Posts

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

HAHAHAHA!!! Reminds me of the time during my last Med/Surg job, when I had an elderly female patient who was actually quite alert, oriented, and charming. She wore an adorable bed jacket and sat up knitting most of the day.....except she kept insisting there were mice in the corner of the room and could I please get rid of them?

There were, of course, no mice. In fact, there was NOTHING in that corner, not even dust kitties. But she kept perseverating on those mice until I decided to take matters into my own hands and grabbed a broom from the housekeeping closet. By this time the patient was standing up on the bed, shrieking "Nurse, nurse, there's more of them! They're in that corner, oh, please kill them before they bite my toes!!" So I proceeded to 'enter her reality' and began whaling away at the invisible vermin with the broom, unfortunately smashing an overbed light and knocking over a trashcan in the process. The look on my nurse-manager's face as she ran into the room and surveyed the hysterical woman running in place on the bed......and me, red-faced and still armed & dangerous......was priceless. :rotfl:

Oh, and I must've gotten all the mice, because the patient calmed right down, thanked me, and went back to her knitting.

babyIT

5 Posts

New ob nurse, back in the old days when patients did not routinely get IV starts when in labor. Old-fashioned doctor would request pitocin IV push at delivery of baby’s head and you had to make sure you had a tourniquet, good vein, etoh wipe, and pitocin drawn up and ready to go. I had just gotten my RN a few weeks earlier and was very proud of my ability to quickly and accurately perform this task. Delivery occurs, doctor orders his pit ivp, I successfully give it in her antecubital, at which point the doc leans around the surgical drape, looks at me like I’m insane and asks, “Why didn’t you just give it in her IV tubing?” Yep, this patient actually had an IV in place. Which I had started and had been maintaining all evening. In the same arm where I stuck her antecubital.

Fast forward many years later, this now seasoned ob nurse is standing in the hall at the nurse server, drawing up some nubain to give for pain. I had pulled the cap off the syringe with my teeth ( I know, I know….) and was getting ready to insert the needle into the vial of med when two of my coworkers walked by and said hello. Distracted, I then proceeded to “take the cap off the syringe” again, in the process jamming the needle directly into my lip. I still remember the look on my friends’ faces when they saw me do that!

silverbat

617 Posts

Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.

I had a resident in a Nursing home, sweet little thing. At 7:30 PM every night she would scream FIRE. Well in a NH, this is not something you want to hear, at all. So, of course, I, a new CNA, go running down the hall into her room, checking carefully for smoke, fire, etc. I see nothing except this sweet thing pointing to the floor beside the dresser, with terror on her face, screaming fire.

I, in my innocence, said, "Oh, that's the 730 fire. It is supposed to be there." She said, "Really?" I said,."yep". She immediately calmed down and that was it. the next night, at 730, the same thing happened. I ran in and she she said, oh yeah, its the 730 fire and it is ok. I agreed, made sure she was fine and left the room. This only happened a couple more nights. Then she quit hollering. I don't know if she she still saw the fire, but if so, she thought it was the 730 fire and it was ok. Not sure if that was the correct thing to do, but it seemed to make her feel better. LOL guess I had better hoped there never was a fire in her room that started at 730!!!!