Brain farts

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What's some dumb non-dangerous things you've done as a nurse? Today, I changed an IV bag without taking the old one down first. IV fluid poured on the floor. Duh.

Specializes in Home Care, Primary care NP, QI, Nsg Adm.

You all have such interesting mistakes. I can't remember any, so either I committed none or TNTC in my career.....hmmmmm.

Given the thread name, perhaps I need to increase my fiber content. May help the memory? :chuckle

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Specializes in Home Care, Primary care NP, QI, Nsg Adm.

"What are you doing? It's higher...." she asked. I was prepping the patient's rectum! I rolled my eyes!! Good grief!!

"You need to take a breather after this!"

Is this what Freud calls; "Anal"

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You didn't mess up :)

The "direction" of the catheter has no implication on med/fluid administration. The catheter is "in" the vein - that's all that matters!

Remember: it's called "venous access" not "venous access in the direction of blood flow to the heart"!

cheers,

Roy (who has inserted plenty of such IVs pointing 'away from the heart' and has seen doctors do 'em too)

That is what I was gonna say - you beat me to it!

steph

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Specializes in Peds Critical Care, Dialysis, General.

Yesterday I was hanging a tube feeding, not paying too much attention, until I felt wet on my arm. I forgot to open the bag. At least no one saw it. I spent several minutes cleaning up my mess.

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Specializes in ER.
Thankfully I didn't stick it in there....then you'd have to wonder.

One time I received a patient who supposedly had a rectal tube. When I did my morning assessment, I was surprised to find not a FMS, but a foley cath stuck up the butt. Who the heck would do that? THAT was an incredible brain fart....I have to believe it was one, scary to consider the alternative!!

Oh...but it can be done. And in a pinch, it can work for a short period of time.

In the ER (where we have no rectal tubes), and on a crazy busy night. Pt is simply POURING liquid stool...I'm talking running off the bed! We were literally rolling them from one side to the other continuously with no end in sight (yes, I punned!). We were all covered with stool, and it was getting beyond unsafe for the other patients who had no staff to take care of them. I called the units for a rectal tube, but lo and behold...we had changed vendors and had none in the hospital until the next day. :banghead: In desperation, I asked the doc if I could use a foley for just a little while, to at least find some clean linens. It actually worked pretty well! Luckily, they were finally empty within a few hours, and we took it out. But I truly came to appreciate the capacity of the human bowel system that night. :smokin:

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Specializes in ICU.

I had so much going on that one time I let half a unit of blood drip on the floor because I forgot to hook it up to the patient's IV.

I called the doc and told him and he laughed. Thank God he wasn't mad, and we ordered another unit. I never let this happen again!!

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