'Diagnosing' co-workers?

[Awesomocity0]

So a tech where I work was volunteering for a health fair, and she asked to borrow one of the unit's manual bp cuffs. She wanted to try it out on someone first, so she asked another tech to take his bp. He agreed, and I (don't judge) was nearby eating a candy bar. I watched her take the bp, saw the needle start ticking, and saw when it stopped ticking. She announced, "you have really great blood pressure 120/82!"

He said, "that's lower than it usually is," and I asked, "does it normally run more like 132/84ish?"and he said it did. So then she asked me how I knew, and I said that it was just a guess based on the movement of the needle, which led to the awkward conversation of, "well no, you shouldn't go based off of visuals; you should still use your ears; yes I know I just looked, but I didn't have the stethoscope. You didn't hear it until 120? Let me give it a try. it's probably just the low quality of the disposable stethoscope. Yes, you can borrow mine, but let me try this one first."

So I took his bp, and it was 132/84. Thinking I might be biased based off what I saw, I called another nurse, who without knowing our discussion, got the same reading as I did.

We tried on someone else, and she had a similar issue.

So now I'm wondering... does she have some hearing loss? Is it okay for me to tell her to get checked out? I don't want to think she can't take manual blood pressures otherwise.

And have you guys ever run into a situation where you spot something medically about your co-workers and have had to tell them (or wanted to tell them) to get it checked out, because you suspected an illness or deficit?

And let me add that I'm limiting this to NON-psych issues. LOL.

[Coffee Nurse, BSN, RN]

And have you guys ever run into a situation where you spot something medically about your co-workers and have had to tell them (or wanted to tell them) to get it checked out, because you suspected an illness or deficit?

Wasn't exactly a coworker, but one time we had this awful high-pitched squealing sound in one pod in our unit that turned out to be plumbing-related; it would only go away when we left the sink running a bit. When the plumber turned up, he asked why the tap was running. I explained the noise, he turned off the tap and the noise resumed, and he said, "what noise?" When I described it and said yes, it was happening right then, he looked at me like I was hallucinating. Fortunately a few other nurses were there and backed me up. He went away and some other guy came back to fix it; I can only assume the first one went straight off to get his hearing checked!

[klone, MSN, RN]

I would not consider saying "Hey, maybe you should get your hearing checked" to be diagnosing.

What I would do first is ascertain if she's got the stethoscope in her ears correctly, and is placing the bell in the correct place on the antecube.