All of us at one time or another have seen or heard of a nurse doing the most idiotic or blatantly stupid thing that goes against our grain of "good nursing". What's the worst you've ever heard? Here's one for you:
At a LTC where I worked, (this was LONG ago...) we had one nurse on 3-11 shift that all the other nurses kept complaining about because it was "common knowledge" that she always gave her 4 pm meds with her 8 pm meds. Of course, I never actually saw this happen and rarely ever worked with this woman. However, no one else would dare to approach this nurse as she had worked there "forever", and always got her way with whatever she wanted. She would leave the building and not clock out for her breaks, and spend a couple of hours at Walmart then return to work. I was told once that a family member approached her about a resident who thought was having a heart attack and this nurse told them "I'm not her nurse, you need to inform someone else"....this while she sat at the nurses desk filing her nails. Anyhow, one evening our DON just "happened" to check this nurses med cart...and guess what. Supposedly, all the 8pm meds had already been given (or at least they weren't in the med cards) Needless to say, she doesn't work there anymore. Actually, I believe she retired!!!
I don't understand how some nurses can be so PLAINLY unprofessional - not even attempt to hide it! EDIT: Just a reminder, this is what I had heard, not what I had witnessed. Had I witnessed anything close to this you better believe I would be on the phone with someone...and fast!!!
A nurse on my unit crushed up an ursodiol pill, diluted it with tap water, drew it up into a syringe, and proceeded to push it through her patient's triple lumen CVC.
A few weeks later, same nurse also ran two potassium bags (20mEq) wide open PERIPHERALLY (50cc bags), and when the patient complained of pain in his hand, she gave him his prn morphine.
Just because a person has an NG in does not mean they cannot swallow!
There are many reasons to place an NG tube, and often a larger bore NG is for decompression purposes. Pts that have these placed for decompression purposes may have the tube clamped to see how they tolerate it.
Anyway, don't you think it is best for the patient to do what is most normal for them if they can. I woudl think they would rather swallow a pill than have a tube flushed, diluted crushed meds placed down the tube, flushed, meds sown tube, flushed....
If an NG is to LWS, and must remain on LWS, then no pills are not a good idea because they will be sucked back out.
MY POINT EXACTLY!! (LWS) sorry for not being more clear. The nurse came back and everything could be given IV. A confused patient, continiuous suction and large pills not a good mix!!
MY POINT EXACTLY!! (LWS) sorry for not being more clear. The nurse came back and everything could be given IV. A confused patient, continiuous suction and large pills not a good mix!!
Oh, I figured that was probably the case with your post. I just didn't understand the post that stated (my parapharasing) " a nurse with 23 years experience gave a patient a pill to swallow when the patient had an NG in place." It didn't necessarily seem like an error to me.
I can laugh now But it wasn't funny at the time. I was working in long term care as an LPN this agency nurse( who I trusted because I worked with her before) told me a pt. had died and asked what she was suposed to do, so I told her and she followed my instructions, She called the MD, the family and the undertaker, after about 20 minutes she came to me and said "you know those movements they have after they die" I flew down to the room the movements she was talking about was him raising his leg up in the air. I rolled the bed up and gave him o2 then I had to call every one and tell them that he wasn't dead. the family was so grateful that he was still alive they never said anything and the doc had to come in to see the pt. that came back to life. I now check if an agency is on the floor. no matter who they are.
I had an LPN pronounce a pt dead (which she isn't allowed to do in the 1st place) but any way called the family, MD, and funeral parlor etc. Family came in to view the body and undertaker showed up at the same time (this was on the 11-7 shift) well they all surrounded the pt's bed and all of a sudden the pt opened her eye and screamed because all the people were surrounding her bed! This nurse was put on day shift after that to be watched! Written up that was all.
This same nurse also tried to straight cath a man with prostate CA with a SUCTION cath.Needless to say you can imagine the blood. Now I can see picking up a suction cath by mistake in the supply room but the minute you felt the cath it is obviously mucher stiffer than a foley! OY VAY!!!
i reported the incident to the charge nurse, since the patient were at least 90 minutes to 2 hours late getting their meds. i was treated like a leper, told she could manage her group anyway she liked and it was not my place to question why her meds were not given. needless to say, i was convicted of "ratting" on a fellow nurse but no one seemed interested in learning why. i never covered for her again, and i got out of that place as soon as possible.
i feel the same way where i work. it's as if we are telling the nm how to manage their unit, and it's none of our business who she disciplines and who she doesn't. i feel that way any time i need to inform her of someone's actions. yet i know, no one hesitates to 'rat' on me (it's been done before). on a lighter note, we have people who take absolute advantage of sick time, schedule maneuvering (to get off holidas and weekends), and the like. but i'm not allowed to say anything like "why os mary exempt from her weekend commitment"? it's none of my business.
actually, this is your business. your name is signed on that mar, so it's you who they will go to when the pt says he waited an hour for pain meds. just can't win, can you?
When I used to work in STICU there was more than one occasion that a patient received a 25mg bolus of Versed, because the pumps we were using at the time didn't have a bolus feature so the RN would just increase the speed of the infusion but would not decrease the amount to be infused, and then wouldn't you know it something would happen to distract them from what they were doing and the entire amount would be infused. It's hard to believe that something would happen in a major trauma ICU to distract you from your current task :rotfl: . Needless to say these pumps were discontinued in our unit. Thank heavens all the patients this happened to were on ventilators and had no adverse reactions to the drug.
There was another RN whose patient was on a Dopamine drip. This patient was very sensitive to any changes in the amount of med that they were receiving, in other words you better have a continous supply on hand and be sure the drug doesn't run out. We were sitting outside the patients rooms charting on the computers when I heard an IV pump beeping, I immediately got up to check my pumps which were okay, I asked her if it was hers and she replied yes it was just the IV fluids, I assumed she had checked and was going to replace it soon, I WAS WRONG, the next sound we heard was her monitor triple beeping never a good sign in an ICU. Again thank goodness the patient was okay in the end.
this is a funny that happened to me. when I was young I was in ICU with both legs in skeletal tx. the student nurse was told to give me a fleets, I got the fleets but this student missed the proper opening. best part was they reported good results. I found out when I c/o about being constipated.
ahhhh the stories I can tell about nurses just from experience. during my 3 months in the hospital I only remember the name of one nurse and that was because she cared and wasn't afraid to go out of her way to help. when my traction got messed up the other nurses just left me suffer until the ortho tech came in during the day or on monday to fix it. this nurse went to the doc and got permission to be taught how to adjust my tx. the others just said" we're not allowed to touch the tx" took this nurse a whole 5 minutes to learn and prevented me from hours or days of agonizing pain.
heartICU
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A nurse on my unit crushed up an ursodiol pill, diluted it with tap water, drew it up into a syringe, and proceeded to push it through her patient's triple lumen CVC.
A few weeks later, same nurse also ran two potassium bags (20mEq) wide open PERIPHERALLY (50cc bags), and when the patient complained of pain in his hand, she gave him his prn morphine.