Funny doctor orders

[laurenicoleRN]

I worked at a teaching hospital for about a year. I really enjoyed closely interacting with the interns, residents and staff physicians. Many times hilarious orders were written by the newbies. One of my personal favorites was from an intern who only wrote "Vicodin" and that was it. No route, dosage, frequency, etc. Haha! We also had a doctor write "b4" in the chart. We assumed they meant "before." I guess they forgot that this wasn't text messaging. Lol! We also had an older doctor who would write things like, "please call help desk to get the printer fixed." Yes, in the chart. Good times. Please share any of your funny stories from charts!

[Callisonanne]

As a student I remember being in the room with a patient who was going home after surgical repair of a uterine prolapse. She was in her mid 40s and the physician came in to give her and her husband post-op instructions. He must have known the couple well because the next thing I hear is "Nothing in the lady parts for X amount of weeks (points to husband) that means you". I had to slip out of the door to stop from laughing. His facial gesture just made it too much.

[allthesmallthings]

Haha.. recently there was an order for orthostatic BP's and then following that were some unidentifiable hieroglyphic-looking figures.. no one could figure it out until the UM realized it was drawings of actual "orthostatics". There was a picture of a very crude looking stick figure person lying down, sitting, and standing, except it just looked like strange ancient characters that no one understood. Orders in secret codes! Only the intellectually privileged can follow them..

Um, Doc, we know what orthostatics are! We don't need visual depictions, but thanks!

oh, my Lord, I literally laughed out loud when I read this! thank you, Cat_LPN.

[allthesmallthings]

Had an order that said "4 mg. prn" the Dr. signed. Had another one nobody could read. I chased him into the parking lot with the chart and asked him what it said. He said, "How would I know? I can't read it." Have had quite a few that say "change wound drsg. daily" but the pt. has 6 wounds and they never say which one. The worst was one that said DNR. So we put a band on the patient and made her a no code. Three days later he came back from vacation and asked how the pt. was doing with the drug neb Rxs he ordered. That's what his "DNR" meant. Great.

OMG! Don't know whether to laugh or be scared by that.

[allthesmallthings]

Had a kid that consistently failed room air trials and could not get weaned from 02. Doctor wrote "Give next dose of prednisone to oximetry machine, as child is pink and without s/s of distress."

Has the FDA done any trials on giving prednisone to oximetry machines?

[allthesmallthings]

"Please feed and water patient stat!"

This was an order written by an intern after he made rounds on a little old man who was constantly yelling "I'm hungry!"

lol. "Dietary, we need a food tray, STAT! Hurry! His life is on the line here!"

'feed and water'? sound like you're talking about a horse!

and yes, I see the image of the little old man.

[allthesmallthings]

This kind of reminds of me a note one of our docs wrote one time. He's notorious for putting random, non-sensical things into his progress notes. I don't remember why the lady was in the hospital, but in the middle of his note, we have this gem, "the pt is laying next to an uneaten chocolate chip cookie. I think this is good."

As for the funniest order I've ever seen, insert NG PRN for hiccups.

No, gotta disagree, the "lying next to uneaten chocolate chip cookie" is funnier! :yeah:What does it MEAN??

[allthesmallthings]

Wayyy back, when I worked ortho, we had one doc (my favorite) who used to write the following on the pre printed discharge orders for all of his total knee patients:

SEXUAL ACTIVITY- Not on your knees....

I miss you Dr.C.

oh, no way! :yeah:but...it does make sense!!

[AgentBeast, BSN, RN]

Administer 1 ding of cowbell, repeat Q 1 second as necessary until patient's temperature 37C or less.