Did you contract anything from a patient?

Nurses General Nursing

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Silly question but I am just curious. I have never directly seen or heard of any healthcare workers I know contracting anything from a patient at work, and I am in frequent contact and air borne isolation. Obviously it happens, like the ebola RN I remember reading about, but have you ever seen anything in your facility?

Specializes in critical care, ER,ICU, CVSURG, CCU.
S.E Tex...... bangs as for many decades has been eliminated un American cattle, but the bacterium still in soil as clostridium, tetorifice ...etc

My little terrier was harassing the cow to a boiling point.....I made the mistake to going in the pen to call my dog off, I was two pickup trucks length away from the cow and in the next breath she charges me head buts me in chest, flips me and walked on left elbow , causing laceration with her hoof ...thankfully my 5 mo old aust. Shepherd, chased her off me and held her up in a corner till I could limp to safety, I was covered in mud, blood and cow potty........ When my husband saw. Me , he wanted to call EMS, I said no I use to work in that ER, I have to clean up first.....I should of called my self in as trauma alert....as I had closed chest injury, compression fracture T5, and grossly contaminated laceration ....

Thankfully our rural clinic does ultra violet blood treatments all day long, along with other integrative modalities......

Specializes in critical care, ER,ICU, CVSURG, CCU.
I had to Google Bangs....where were you, what were you doing, to be in the presence of a crazed cow. Inquiring minds want to know. Who, where, how, do you get ultra violet blood treatments?

A class mate, after 30 plus years of nursing, found out she was hepatitis B surface antigen positive when she tried to donate blood. She has none of the obvious risk factors for exposure, and admitted to me she had several needle stick injuries in her many years of nursing she never bothered to report!

As far as acquired immunity to hepatitis B, taking care of alcoholic in DTs, with esophageal varieties......and hep b...... Blakemore tube tied to the face plate of a football helmet, he spit bloody junk in my mouth, I ran to dirty utility room and washed my mouth out with almost gallon beta dine......( that was another pretty site)..... I was young, and thankfully only acquired immunity.....

Specializes in Neuroscience.

I usually contract a headache when dealing with patients seeking opiates. Other than that I've been fortunate. We did have a nurse who had a needle stick injury, and her blood work came back clean.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

I don't think I've ever contracted anything from a patient other than temporary insanity.

My husband, though, was helping another nurse clean up his patient. This was a good 20 years ago, and was before we got married. I was minding my own business in my own patient's isolation room when the other nurse (we'll call him Paul) came to me and said "I'm really grossed out! Pedro was helping me clean my patient and she had projectile diarrhea right in his mouth!" I'm assuming that Pedro was laughing with his mouth wide open, but I wasn't there and Pedro would never share the details. It turns out the patient had C. Diff and although Paul had seen the culture results, he hadn't yet placed the patient in isolation.

Pedro claims he "forgot all about it because it was so gross", but at the appropriate interval for incubation, he began to experience all the exceedingly unpleasant C. Diff symptoms. Because he suffers from an abundance of testosterone, he didn't go to the doctor until I insisted. And then he had a mental block about submitting the requested stool cultures. And then he was too sick to go back to the doctor. Rinse, repeat. Eventually, he was in the hospital. AFTER having lost about 30 pounds, with a hematocrit of 20 and so pale he seemed to glow in the dark. I took him to the ER when his temp hit 105 F and he was too out of it to refuse. His temp broke in the car on the way, and when we arrived he was sitting in a puddle of sweat. A puddle! In the ER, they couldn't get anything bigger than a 22 gauge . . . this is the guy whose veins closely resembled garden hoses . . . he used to let all my students put IVs in him because my veins are deep and puny.

Pedro now has ulcerative colitis and takes Mesalamine -- even on Medicare he's paying over $400/month for the meds. All because of a C. Diff infection I'm certain he picked up at work.

Nothing crazy yet. We had a patient a few months back on our floor who called us after he was discharged to let us know he was just diagnosed with active TB. It was a few days after his discharge and he was in no type of isolation during his stay. Not sure how we missed that one but I didn't directly care for him. Interestingly, none of the nurses ever tested positive for TB or had symptoms.

Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
S.E Tex...... bangs as for many decades has been eliminated un American cattle, but the bacterium still in soil as clostridium, tetorifice ...etc

My little terrier was harassing the cow to a boiling point.....I made the mistake to going in the pen to call my dog off, I was two pickup trucks length away from the cow and in the next breath she charges me head buts me in chest, flips me and walked on left elbow , causing laceration with her hoof ...thankfully my 5 mo old aust. Shepherd, chased her off me and held her up in a corner till I could limp to safety, I was covered in mud, blood and cow potty........ When my husband saw. Me , he wanted to call EMS, I said no I use to work in that ER, I have to clean up first.....I should of called my self in as trauma alert....as I had closed chest injury, compression fracture T5, and grossly contaminated laceration] ....

As my Dad used to say, "You can always tell a nurse ... but you can't tell her much!" :whistling:

We used to hear that whenever Mom refused to go to the doctor.

Specializes in Hematology-oncology.
YEARS ago, I am talking about at least 20 years ago, when I was working inpatient in the hospital, we had a patient that was diagnosed with SOMETHING (I cant recall what now) but anyone who had come in contact with that person before the diagnosis had to go Cipro. After the DX of course he was on precautions, but not before, it took like a week to get confirmation, and of course I was his primary!

And that is how I found out I am allergic to Cipro!

I stopped taking it, after 1 dose, but thankfully I never got what he had.

I'm pretty sure you are talking about meningitis scuba nurse. We've had a few patients test positive before isolation was initiated, and anyone who had contact had to report to employee health. Here's a good pdf link with some info :)

http://www.health.wa.gov.au/circularsnew/attachments/75.pdf

Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

Had a few nurses catch scabies from a patient and several that got norovirus and of course the flu. Personally, I've only ever caught your everyday head cold. I've always been pretty good about washing my hands and not touching my face.

I also take my scrubs off as soon as i come into the house and jump right in the shower.

Specializes in Med-surg, telemetry, oncology, rehab, LTC, ALF.

I contracted Type A influenza from a patient. I've met plenty of nurses who contracted influenza, strep, norovirus, etc. from patients.

I also knew a nurse who contracted MRSA.

numerous resp infections

And I'm only partially kidding about this, too. It's like my Dad use to say: "It's hell to get old!"

One of the residents in the nursing home once gave me some advice: "Never get old."

The only thing I've ever contracted is sadness.

And who are we kidding? We probably all have MRSA. Why do you think they don't swab us?

I recently had a weird fungal ear infection that eventually led to a ruptured ear drum. Though I couldn't pinpoint an actual patient, my ENT said it was more than likely something I picked up from work. Good times.

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