Nursing School Bloopers

[Jabber964]

Anyone have any funny nursing school stories from their past?

I had to change an IV bag and went in with my instructor to do so. My instructor always made me nervous but I was determined to remain confident and do the task....it wasnt difficult. She proceeded to ask me what was in the bag and I told her normal saline. She told me "ok, go ahead" and stood back to watch. I proceeded to pull out the line to put it into the new bag, but didn't take it off the IV pole before doing so. I received a saline bath with the remaining fluid that was in the bag. My instructor ran to get a towel and we cleaned up the wet floor. She then asked me to step outside the room. I thought I was going to hear it. What I heard was her laughing and telling me that I had to laugh sometimes and "everyohne has a saline bath once and then it never happens again." I still don't believe her but its funny looking back now.

[TweetiePieRN]

My nursing student buddy asked me to help her pull her pt up in bed. The pt was really groggy and was asking why were we pulling him up in bed. I told him "So your feet don't get caught down here at the bottom." We pulled him up, got him all comfortable, and it was then when I realized he was a double above the knee amputee!!!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

When I was a nursing student, more than a quarter of a century ago, the hospital in which I was doing my clinical had just gotten new beds. Since most of the beds on the floor on which we were doing our clinical rotation were the old fashioned crank beds, we students were all quite impressed with the brand new electric beds with IV poles attached. (I'm sure you can see where this is going.) I was raising the bed to see how high it would go, and it was still going up-up-up when the flourescent light above us exploded, raining glass down over three nursing students and the brand new bed. My nursing instructor walked in just in time to see the IV pole going through the light fixture . . .

Yes, I passed that clinical!

[TDub, MSN, EdD]

This is more of a nursing instructor blooper:

I was checking charting when I see the student has charted "Neg Homan's x 1" I read her the riot act about "A pt's got two legs, it should be neg x 2, You have to chart completely, don't ever assume, blah, blah, blah..."

After I'm done tearing this girl a new one, she meekly says, "The patient only has one leg."

So--I ate some major crow and apologized.

[Audreyfay]

My first IM injection to a patient was for an elderly confused gentleman. As I stood behind him, he lied on his side, with my classmate holding him in place. As I mentally made the "X" on his buttocks, I held the skin taught and went for the poke. My classmate wasn't really holding him. He moved and the injection needle went right through my thumb, barely scratching the patient's skin on the other side of my thumb. In my defense, I didn't even feel it! Had to throw out the penicillin shot. At least it was penicillin though!

[KibbsRNstudent]

Second story, one of my class mates, I believe. The order read, take out of of the skin staples out. She did. The top half!! After returning the pt from surgery for a dehis. it was explained to her.

Mike

I am sorry but I have to ask what was wrong with this? I start cliniclas in the fall and I would have done the same thing. I do not want to make a worng mistake if I can help it so please tell me why if the orders said to take the staples out and she did then why was it wrong? Is there a rule that says only take staples out of a certain part of the body or something?. Eek.

[malenurse1]

I am sorry but I have to ask what was wrong with this? I start cliniclas in the fall and I would have done the same thing. I do not want to make a worng mistake if I can help it so please tell me why if the orders said to take the staples out and she did then why was it wrong? Is there a rule that says only take staples out of a certain part of the body or something?. Eek.

You take out every other staple just in case the incision dehis's (reopens). It apparently did in mcmike55's post as he mentioned goig back to surgery.

[FROGGYLEGS, LPN]

When we had first started clinicals we were assingned to do total care for one or two patients each. Nothing too in depth; just ADL type things. A good friend of mine had this confused elderly lady. The lady's speech was mostly gibberish and the continuous repetition of short phrases. My friend brushed the lady's teeth and got her up and dressed. Then the lady kept repeating "mowf ith thicky, mowf ith thicky" and seemed to be getting rather agitated. She had tried to console the woman, but she got only more agitated. It took a little while to figure out that the woman's "mouth was sticky" because my friend had brushed her teeth with a generic tube of denture adhesive. We got her mouth cleaned up and all was well with the patient. My poor friend had still not lived that one down by the time we graduated.

[jonnygirl27]

My classmate was emptying her first foley bag, forgot to clamp it and got urine ALL over her white scrub pants. Even worse, it was the cherry red bloody sort of urine.

On my nursing home rotation, I was helping an elderly woman tuck her shirt in. We got done and she said "can you get my girls out of my pants please?" I, of course, thought she had gone crazy. Nope. I had tucked her BREASTS into her elastic waisted pants... Whoops.

[jonnygirl27]

My classmate was emptying her first foley bag, forgot to clamp it and got urine ALL over her white scrub pants. Even worse, it was the cherry red bloody sort of urine.

On my nursing home rotation, I was helping an elderly woman tuck her shirt in. We got done and she said "can you get my girls out of my pants please?" I, of course, thought she had gone crazy. Nope. I had tucked her BREASTS into her elastic waisted pants... Whoops.

[ClimbingNurse]

On my nursing home rotation, I was helping an elderly woman tuck her shirt in. We got done and she said "can you get my girls out of my pants please?" I, of course, thought she had gone crazy. Nope. I had tucked her BREASTS into her elastic waisted pants... Whoops.

ROTFL!! :rotfl: :roll

That's the most horrifying nursing tale I've ever heard!

[ClimbingNurse]

On my nursing home rotation, I was helping an elderly woman tuck her shirt in. We got done and she said "can you get my girls out of my pants please?" I, of course, thought she had gone crazy. Nope. I had tucked her BREASTS into her elastic waisted pants... Whoops.

ROTFL!! :rotfl: :roll

That's the most horrifying nursing tale I've ever heard!

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

To give meds via NG you must crush them (or empty the capsule). Dilantin is available as a sustained release capsule. It is my understanding (though I have actually not yet passed meds) that you should NEVER crush a sustained release medication. Doing so can cause the whole drug to act at once instead of slowly over time. So, if it was a sustained release capsule, then that would be why it was ordered PO.

Right? :chair:

Correct. Dilantin Elixir is available to give via tube, and for pts who have difficulty swallowing pills. I would have questioned it being ordered PO for a pt w/ an NG tube.