Nursing School Bloopers

LPN4Life · May 18, 2004

One of my pt's was very hard to understand he had Cerebral Palsy, I was trying to give his meds to him and had crushed them and put them in Applesauce, he was trying to tell me something and I didn't understand him, I was getting more embarrassed because he was getting upset that I didn't know what he was saying. I just kept saying, "Okay, take your meds and then you can tell me" My instructor was standing behind me looking at her watch and tapping her foot. I kinda just shoved the meds in his mouth, gave him a drink, and asked him again what he wanted. For some reason, it was clearer this time, and he looked so sad, and a tad bit pissed and said, "I didn't want my meds crushed"

Opps.......

I was charting once, and was trying to describe my pt's cellulitis. It had some drainage, so I charted "The pt has "pussy" drainage........sounds right, doesn't spell the way it sounds, guess purulent would be the word I was searching for huh?

After inserting a foley catheter, I went back to check the output, and found it was in the wrong "hole"

After our first week of nursing school, and learning all of the prefixes and suffixes, and learning how to put them together, our teacher asked us to come up with a word for high blood sugar (now most people would know this, but I had never dealt with diabetes or anything of the sort) I yelled out, confidently and very proud of the new language I had learned to speak, "Hyperhemaglucose" :rotfl:

I pronounced decubitis (dik-you-bite-us')

Half of us girls in the class were floored when we found out the vulva has a majora AND a minora, the instructor told us to go home and have a mirror party.

jannecdote · Sep 6, 2004

My most embarrassing moment happened the first time I inserted a foley catheter into a female patient. Embarrassing because I am a woman and you would think I would know a little sumpin' about sumpin'.

Anyway, I prepare the patient and the sterile field and am ready to start. I tell the patient I am going to touch her, and then carefully and slowly clean her with the betadine soaked cotton balls--taking great care to clean the area I THINK is her urethral meatus. This is so embarrassing--I cringe now just thinking about it. Right before I get ready to insert the tip of the catheter into a small crease that I THINK is the urethral meatus, I get a feeling something is not quite right and hesitate. At this point, I've got the catheter just a few inches away from where I am planning to insert it. I'm so nervous I can hardly think straight because the instructor and 3 other classmates are watching. The instructor tells me to go ahead, and mercy me, I have a moment where the fog clears out of my brain and I realize what I think is her urethral meatus is actually her privy parts. In that split second of lucid thinking--you know how nervous you get with the instructor watching--I took a closer look, saw the 'real' meatus and inserted the catheter correctly--realizing how close I came to making a mistake. I felt so stupid and my face turned red as a beet. I don't know if my instructor knew--I wouldn't doubt it because she was smart as a whip--but she just looked at me, smiled and said "Good job."

Jamesdotter · Sep 6, 2004

This one happened to my roommate. She was giving an iodine soln douche to a GYN patient. The douche can was metal with attached rubber tubing (a long time ago in a county hospital, needless to say). The tubing had become very soft and sticky after several sterilizations. Our instructor said she could fix that, whipped out her trusty scissors and cut the tubing right at the metal nipple, right over the patient's bed. We changed the bed, the patient's gown, and the student's uniform. I don't think the stain ever came out of the apron.

This was the same instructor who, in a class discussing hospital hierarchy, remarked that "sh*t runs downhill". The maintenance crew outside the open door could be heard snickering. We loved that woman!

Victoriakem · Sep 7, 2004

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.

Now if only you had remembered your soap & shampoo, you would have been all set...:rotfl:

celticqueen · Nov 2, 2004

"if it makes you feel better, when i first got out of school i worked for an ob-gyn, and an ob pt called to ask if she could use her vibrator (she had been in that day for lady partsl bleeding). i right away said, "no!!! you might vibrate something loose... like your baby!"posted by tennurse

i find that really nasty? being in hospital strips your dignity as it is without disrespecting yourself with that sort of behaviour - eeeeewwwwwwww!!!

NurseFirst · Nov 8, 2004

here's my embarrassing student-nurse story:
it was the first term of second year, and i was about to do my first catheterization, with my instructor and five or six other students in the room. the patient, thank god, was a fairly fresh post-op who was still pretty knocked-out from the anesthetic, so he didn't really care about all of us being in there, but after i got all my supplies, washed my hands, and gloved up i discovered something i hadn't counted on: i couldn't find his member. :uhoh21:
:uhoh21:

i had to change a condom catheter on a patient; i was running late, so another student and the instructor's assistant (male) were in the room with me. the patient (yes, the patient) kept telling me what to do, but when i looked between his legs there was only a little knob, that didn't seem to have a meatus. the assistant looked at it and asked the man if he was circumcised--he was. i just had to keep pushing back skin until finally the glans showed up. it was kind of like a jack-in-the-box--you wouldn't have believed that little "knob" could have held what ended up to be a normal-sized member. i did, however, get commended for getting the condom part of the catheter on by the assistant :imbar...

one of my fellow students mentioned that she had had a patient whose member was similarly retracted. (is that how you would properly describe it in the nursing notes? )

nursefirst

NurseFirst · Nov 8, 2004

Our instructor had us team up for the day so:
1st my partner draws up all 19 med including several narcs for G-tude
she bumped into my back and spilled them down me
Next during the childs bath I dislodged the G-tube
And finally I pulled the Trach out
The child smiled at everyone exept me
I wander Why
I thought I was going to be kicked out of school or at least the facility
Niether I graduate in June Yahoo!!!!!!!!:rotfl:

Wow....I thought we had a lot of meds on med/surg, but I'm not sure of hearing of 19--all to go down a GT.

NurseFirst

Antikigirl, ASN, RN · Nov 8, 2004

I was in watching a pace for bradycardia...now I was warned very heavy to "be part of the wall...don't make eye contact with the cardiologist..that one look from him and medusa would seem tame!!!!" Okay noted..so I was perfectly walled!

SO the nurse, RT and him get started..but they forgot one little thing..watch your patient! THey knew they had me in the room and were acting all cool...but me, I was watching the patient! So here I am noticing that the patient.....oh wasn't breathing! LOL! So I said "hey RT!!!!!!!" and threw an resp bag at him! He caught it and looked...you could see the lightbulb come on!!!!!!!!! OH WOW!!!!!!

Anyway he coded, and I got to work...I wasn't the wall but the one telling everyone else what to do..and the doc..he LEFT THE ROOM!!!!!!!!!!! MID CODE! He lived no probelm! Only slight probelm was..the defib wasn't set for this or was even plugged in!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!! I did a pre card thump and that was all it took!!!! Wow...my hubby (paramedic) drilled into me..witnessed, hit em! It worked!!!!!!!!

Well...after that the doc came to me to "talk"..okay I was terrified!!!!! But he laughed and said..."yep...watch patient not machines...I forgot but don't tell anyone!"

I gave him a smile and said.."okay, as long as I don't catch ya doing it again..LOL!...I will be watching you now! And by the way...you didn't have the pacer plugged in either!".

He was so humble after that..but only for me and I kept my secret with him. And actually he was a riot! Just no one took the time to understand..I have many stories abut him...he died this year from prostate cancer at 56...and I have great memories of how funny he really was!!!!! A special gift I got I guess!

But I will tell you..I have never laughed so hard as I did that day!!!!!!!! And I was a student..oh boy, I knew I was in for trouble!!!!!!

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Nov 8, 2004

Giving my first IM injection was a nightmare. I was so flustered it took about 30 minutes just to draw it up. To be honest, I don't know who was worse--me or my brand-new instructor.

So I get the injection to the patient, locate the site, mentally mark it, and dart it in. I hear the instructor whispering over top of me, "Aspirate! aspirate!" and making weird motions.

Which prompts me to look at the patient, who is certainly not aspirating, but whose respirations are regular and even......

Took about 15 minutes before I realized that she wanted me to aspirate the syringe.:imbar :imbar

Kingbandit · Nov 8, 2004

Wow....I thought we had a lot of meds on med/surg, but I'm not sure of hearing of 19--all to go down a GT.
NurseFirst

Yea I had one kid who was seizing and I had to push Rectal Lamictil After the "code" I checked my drug book and the dose we gave to bring him under control (by order from the MD) was more than the max for an 190KG adult. I neary quit nursing school that day. But I didn't, I just realized I was destined to be an adult nurse. Now I work in the ER of a level 1 trauma center.

Sarah, RNBScN · Nov 9, 2004

1. I had a pt. with confusion and renal failure. Here I am attempting to calm him down by leaning over the bedrail and talking softly to him while my elastics from my braces hit him in the forehead. I was mortified because the pt. just looked at me and I thought he was going to freak but he did calm down. I laughed about it later and my braces came off in 2nd year nursing. :lol2:

2. I went to give my first foley catheter and when I opened the iodine package, it went all over my face, hands, and white uniform. My mentor and the pt. were :lol2: so hard that it broke the tension for all of us. My uniform was saved from this blue enzyme cleaner we soaked our instruments in because of its protein remover. This was 3rd year nursing.

3. Just a few months ago, we had a lamp in our gyne room to use for vag. exams. Anyhow the doctor was late and I went up to him and said "O.k. lets go the slit lamp is ready to go." Well everyone was laughing because the pt. in need of the slit lamp was an gyn pt. and not an eye pt. Needless to say I was a little flushed.

This is what keeps us human.

Thanks for sharing and keep them coming.

nyost · Nov 10, 2004

ROTFL!! :rotfl: :roll
That's the most horrifying nursing tale I've ever heard!

Long, long ago I was a student. My first bed bath was to a comatose man. After washing his back I proceeded to his buttocks and then rectal area. He seemed to have some brown stool there that I could not seem to wipe off. It was the poor man's scrotum that I was trying to remove. Talk about being naive!!! I did figure it out, but I will never forget!