Nursing School Bloopers

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Apr 26, 2004

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.

AmyB · Apr 26, 2004

I had a friend working in a nursing home once who was helping an elderly woman to get dressed for bed. The woman kept complaining about how she just couldn't find a bra to fit anymore. My friend looked down and almost fell over laughing. The woman had her bra on backwards!!! No wonder it didn't fit correctly.

AmyB · Apr 26, 2004

I had a friend working in a nursing home once who was helping an elderly woman to get dressed for bed. The woman kept complaining about how she just couldn't find a bra to fit anymore. My friend looked down and almost fell over laughing. The woman had her bra on backwards!!! No wonder it didn't fit correctly.

KibbsRNstudent · Apr 26, 2004

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.

I can say I have done both of those! :) I was a home health CNA(LNA) when I did them. I forgot to clamp the foley for a man not once but 2 times! Shame on me! And I had tucked a womans breasts into thier pants on more than one occasion. It is not hard either. when some women get older the breasts get really soft and sag really low and to me, I thought I was just tucking her shirt over rolls of fat. I did not realize it was her breasts until she said something to me. :imbar

EarthChild1130 · Apr 27, 2004

This happened to me the very first day of my very first clinical rotation, which was back in February of this year. I was taking care of an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman when she suddenly said 'I have to go to the bathroom NOW!' Well, our instructor told us to not lift anyone from a wheelchair unless we had assistance from her or one of the staff...by the time I found someone to help me, she'd had a watery BM and it was dripping off of her and out of the chair...I felt terrible, especially when she said 'Well if you'd just helped me this would NOT have happened!' She was not happy to have me take care of her for the rest of that VERY long day! :uhoh21:

SchoolNurseLisa · Apr 27, 2004

Well, mine I think is the worst, When I had just started working as a cna in a nursing home (10 years before nursing school) I was draining a cath bag into a graduate, when I went to hold it up to see how many cc's were there someone called my name, I turned, bumped my elbow and dumped urine over my shoulder and down my back, Oh god, I was sick, but without even thinking, I started stripping all of my clothes off and jumped into the shower in the patients room, pulled the emergency cord and had my charge bring me a gown. When I was leaving the patients room smiled and said, "thanks for the show sissy" I went straight home and took anouther shower or two.

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.

Repat · Apr 27, 2004

LOL! It sure is nice to know that I am not the only one to have gotten that 100mL NaCl shower!

Try it with tube feeding!

gypsy_wandering · May 3, 2004

These are all very funny stories!!!!! but can I just say that, as a student nurse looking forward to her first clinical in September, they kind of make me feel a bit uneasy!!! :rotfl:

Rozhinitsy · May 3, 2004

I made a major bloop when I was in my second year of training. We had a poorly patient who needed reviewing by the doctors so my mentor told me to bleep the team who were looking after her to come and see her. Well, I had a big thing about bleeping doctors as they scared the living daylights out of me, so my mentor used to make me do it all the time to try and increase my confidence. So I bleeped the team, they did not respond, I bleeped again still no response, after the third try, my mentor told me to go through the switch (operator) to see if she had better luck than we did, So what I was supposed to do was ask for the consultant's team, but which I actually did without realising it, because I was soooo nervous, was to ask for the consultant. The operator had patched me through to his home (without me realising it!! Scatty as usual) and I told him (thinking I was speaking the the house officer) that I had bleep him three or four times and no - one was responding. The consultant told me he would come and sort it out. About half an hour later, my mentor called me into the office and told me what I had done, I was absolutely horrified. The team weren't too happy either, apparently they got a right rolikering from the consultant for not answering their bleeps, so I wasn't favour of the month. All the nurses thought it was highly amusing, as did the consultant.

calimarinewife · May 5, 2004

A friend of mine who I was in clinicals with, went into the pt's room to do her head to toe...well, she asked him to squeeze her finger to check his strength and he said "I Can't" When she asked him why he replies "I can't b/c I'm a Quad" ugh! She was so embarrased! So of coorifice we all rag on her and hold our fingers out for her to squeeze. lol:rotfl:

minnieme104 · May 14, 2004

During my med/surg rotation I had two patients. I gave the first one her combivent and went to attend to the other patient, by the time I got out of the room my first patient had been on her mask for over 1 hour, I felt so bad and embarrassed at least my instructor could laugh at it

Adam D. RN2005 · May 16, 2004

Hi, I new to the boards but have been reading them for months. Well, I have to throw in my two cents on bloopers!

On the clinical floor two weeks ago, my patient had an axillary temp of 100.4 F. My instructor suggested that I get a rectal temp on him. Go searching the unit for the red temp probe, but can't find it after a few minutes of looking. Walk over to the nurse's station and ask the unit secretary where the rectal probes were kept. She starts to tell me that they don't use rectal probes on this unit but gets interrupted in the middle of this by a call bell which she promptly answers.

She then hits the PA to ask for the nurse to hit her call light returns to me and pulls out a box of Rectal TemperDots. She then proceeds to tell me how to take a rectal temp, (never mind the fact that we were taught how to do this in Nursing 1) finishing off with "That is how we take a temp on J5".

At that point she turns bright Red and I drop to the floor laughing along with everyone in the unit. It seems that the Unit Secretary forgot to take her hand off of the PA button, thus broadcasted how to do a rectal temp to the entire unit.

BTW, my patient's temp was 104 using the temperdots.