Bad room

Ruby Vee, BSN · Oct 30, 2008

i think there's been a "bad" room in every place i've ever worked. one night when i floated to rehab, i was told to stay away from 4c. "don't even get near that bed," the charge nurse told me. unfortunately, i was confused about their bed numbering system and when i went into room 4 to check vitals on the patients in 4a, b & d, i inadvertently approached 4c. (i thought it was 4b.) there wasn't a patient in that bed -- the charge nurse tells me they try always to keep it empty because patients in that bed don't do well. but as soon as i got near the bed, i could feel a wave of malevolence eminating from it. shocked, i started to back away. as i backed away, three pillows came whizzing at me from that corner! i turned around and ran back to the patient lounge where the other nurses were hanging out.

"you went near 4c, didn't you?" was the first thing out of the charge nurse's mouth.

"how did you know?"

"your face, for one thing. and you woke up the poltergeist." she pointed toward the locked med room. through the glass window on the door, i could see that every drawer had been removed and dumped on the floor, and the cupboards were ransacked. apparently the poltergeist takes out his frustrations on the med room when you wake him up!

MaryAnn_RN · Oct 30, 2008

Hey everyone
I work in a busy neuro ICU and was wondering if thee was a room where you get particularly bad admissions. So far in this one particular room I had to admit a guy with a Subarachnoid hemmorhage who stroked his brain stem (35 y/o), a 17 y/o who rolled an ATV who donated organs and a young guy 40 y/o who came in for a transphenoidal who had a basilar tip aneurism within the mass ruptured during surgery and the patients brain herniated. Do any of you guys have room where you cringe when you have it open...

Ours is Bed 5. They never seem to do well, don't know why.

Creamsoda, ASN, RN · Oct 31, 2008

I actually heard a rumor where I work that at one time, there was a room that kept getting horrible admissions, one after the other...they didnt last more than 24 hrs each. So one of our attendings got a priest and a rabbi... ( I know, sounds like a bad joke, but im not kidding....) and he got them to exorcise the room. It seems like often each room will have deaths in 3's, then things will be quiet again, then another room with do the same. I could hardly beleive that he had gotten a room exorcised. Must have been some bad admissions.

jbp0529 · Oct 31, 2008

We have a couple of rooms which seem to get the same type of patient over and over...its like deja vu.

Stay away from our room H if you are getting a lung transplant...you will be there for months and most likely reject.

Or

Pick door #2. Have an esophagectomy and go to room M, get aspiration pneumonia and ARDS, a trach, end up in LTAC.

Our unit is in the shape of a large rectangle. On one end is the entrance to the unit, on the opposite end our 4 large transplant rooms (which we also use for our patients with lots of equipment - basically our sickest of the sick)...for example the other week we had a horribily sick post op patient on: a ventilator, nitric oxide machine, IABP, Bi-VAD, and CVVHD. All that hardware,...we had no choice to use one of the large "cursed" rooms.

General rule of thumb for us is to try and place our patients toward the front of the unit, they usually have better outcomes.

TulsaTime · Nov 3, 2008

Our unit is room 17. We opened our unit in january and about 75% of the patients in that room have done very poorly. We actually DID have one of the sisters at our hospital do a cleansing but so far it still seems cursed!

registeredin06 · Nov 3, 2008

All that hardware,...we had no choice to use one of the large "cursed" rooms.

Similar circumstances. The large rooms on our unit is usually where we put our TAHs, VADS, etc. The rooms that can fit all of our devices and two nurses if 2:1 is necessary. So, they are typically the sickest, and typically have the longest, drawn out, most miserable stay with us. Those larger rooms definately see more of the dark side. :uhoh21:

bethem · Nov 3, 2008

We've got 2 bad rooms out of 16 beds! Bad mojo in our unit.

spiceyqueen · Nov 3, 2008

we have room 12 that always seems to get brain deaths ( young females).... and we have room 7.. its an exceptionallly cold room no matter what they do to adjust the aircon.Patients seem to last not more than 3 days there( most die, or are palliated adn sent of to the pall ward), and if they stay they end up being VERY LOOOOOOng admissions with multiple issues, i have always wondered about that room.I mean we still end up having possitive outcome patients butits a creepy room....

momthenRN · Nov 12, 2008

Creepy!!!