Need help with HW!

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Hello!

Hi, I'm supposed to make a case study presentation about burn victims with complications! I would love to hear your experiences about burn complications and how you handled the situations. The hardest part of this assignment is that we should use humor in presentation and that is where I am gonna need help.

Any help would be appreciated. For those who's gonna call me lazy student, you're not being helpful. I do my readings I just want to come up with a realistic story and one with HUMOR.. :nailbiting:

Specializes in PCU, ICU, LTAC, LTC, SNF.
You can easily look this up and your teacher expects you to do your own work. More importantly I'm a little concerned that you are not hearing us when we tell you that burns are horrific and there is absolutely no way anybody will find humor in this topic. Well nobody who isn't some sort of psychopath which I'm a bit suspicious describes your teacher.

i understand what you mean. i was in tears watching cases of burn patients. and yeah im almost done with my case study. i jsut dont know how or when i can incorporate humor in my presentation.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
i understand what you mean. i was in tears watching cases of burn patients. and yeah im almost done with my case study. i jsut dont know how or when i can incorporate humor in my presentation.

I know. Do your presentation, then after tell your teacher that you thought long and hard about how you could incorporate humor into a presentation regarding a burn patient, tell the teacher you even consulted with a bunch of nurses and you came to the conclusion that you CAN'T!!! Tell them not even sick humor. Because let me tell you, I worked briefly on a pediatric burn unit and there is nothing even remotely funny.

I am someone with a very dry and warped and sick twisted sense of humor, working Emergency we often will get chastised for the inappropriateness of our humor, but even with that even we have lines we don't cross or that we feel shouldn't be crossed.

Do you know on a lot of adult burn units you will find not a single mirror?? There is a reason why. You will hear more screams coming from a burn unit than a labor and delivery unit.

So stand up for yourself and your case study and tell your teacher there is not a way to incorporate humor into this type of patient unless you want to dumb it down to a low degree sunburn and have humor in the different patterns the person got. Which would be a waste of a case study. Part of nursing is knowing when to stand up and advocate for what's right!

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I totally agree. There is is just no way to incorporate humor into this scenario. If I was a student with such an assignment I think THIS would be the hill I would choose to die on. I'd rather take a zero than make fun of one of the worst possible things that can happen to another human being. I'm actually sick to my stomach just thinking about it and I too have an extremely developed gallows humor. OP if you catch any flak about not having humor in your presentation maybe you should show your instructor all of these replies from nurses who are absolutely horrified at the prospect of learning about burn care through humor.

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Specializes in OB.

The only one I can think of who ever was able to bring any (still very dark) humor to this topic was Richard Pryor. I think he could only do this because of his reputation for outrageous humor and because he was talking about himself.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I totally agree. There is is just no way to incorporate humor into this scenario. If I was a student with such an assignment I think THIS would be the hill I would choose to die on. I'd rather take a zero than make fun of one of the worst possible things that can happen to another human being. I'm actually sick to my stomach just thinking about it and I too have an extremely developed gallows humor. OP if you catch any flak about not having humor in your presentation maybe you should show your instructor all of these replies from nurses who are absolutely horrified at the prospect of learning about burn care through humor.

Yup this would be a battle I would choose to fight. After not just working on a burn unit but having fire be one of my biggest fears, you wouldn't see me trying to be funny about a burn patient and if the teacher decided to fail me over it, it wouldn't end there. Especially if I worked hard and presented a very good case study and only left the "humor" part out of it. I would tell them to either give me a different patient type or excuse me for not being willing to joke or make light of a burn patient.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
The only one I can think of who ever was able to bring any (still very dark) humor to this topic was Richard Pryor. I think he could only do this because of his reputation for outrageous humor and because he was talking about himself.

Yea I think when talking about yourself and your own experience you always get a pass. Others might be offended but the struggle was yours.

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Specializes in PCU, ICU, LTAC, LTC, SNF.

I understand you guys. I just added a stick man figure asking the class what to do next? thats the best i can do for humor. it makes me very sad to read stories while doing my research. i cant imagine how much pain the patients and their families are going through. I dont think I would be able to work in a burn center. Its just so traumatic for me.

well im done with my story. I respect my professor, he's one of the best i had and I know he didnt mean to make humor to burn patients.

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Do you have control over creating a fictitious patient/patient story, was it assigned to you, or is it based on an actual patient?

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Specializes in PCU, ICU, LTAC, LTC, SNF.
Do you have control over creating a fictitious patient/patient story, was it assigned to you, or is it based on an actual patient?

yes i do! I can make up my own patient and own story. i could use a real story but not required.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.
i jsut dont know how or when i can incorporate humor in my presentation.

You can't. That's what we have all been saying.

I'm not a burn nurse, I just float to the burn unit when the SICU is overstaffed. Often times I am assigned ICU level pts though. Our burn unit has a very high turnover rate...I was not surprised to hear it. Dealing with not only the truly horrific physical pain, multiple surgeries, months in the hospital, the tub.... but also the disfigurement. The unfathomable level of mental illness that makes self immolation their suicide methodof choice, the child abuse cases.....

One of my uncles was a pediatric burn pt back in the 60s. He got full thickness friction burns to an arm and back due to a freak farming accident; they harvested graft skin from his own thighs. Half a century later, my mom still remembers his screams.

Again, there is absolutely no way to incorporate humor into this topic. None.

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Oh Lord...the tubbing. No amount of bleach will ever remove the memories of the sights and sounds from when I had to do that to another human being and what's worse it was in peds.

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Specializes in Critical care.

I can't help but think of Josie's Story anytime I think about burns. If you haven't heard it- look it up. So so tragic. A little girl died of dehydration from burns while at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

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