So new nurses..share some of your duh moments so far! Here is one I did last week:
It was the end of a 12 hr night shift. Pt having weird fecal type residual out of PEG. Ended up hooking it to suction to see how much she had. So we took it off suction per MD orders. Preceptor gave me a big thick strip of tape and said "go use this to mark the canister with the time and amount so the next shift will know how much." I thought "huh why did she give me this LONG strip of tape"
I tore it in half and lined it up ---- this way with the suction drainage, wrote the amt and time.
A few minutes later I'm charting and my preceptor says "um come here I need to show you something"
Well DUH..I was supposed to put the tape like this | to mark it...oops lol. She said she got a chuckle out of it. Made perfect sense once she said it. Scary sometimes that they give us a license huh? lol
So what have you done that you felt like DUH...what was I thinking?
Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.
I am a NOC nurse on a M/S floor. I was chatting to my pt one night and hanging a bag of Cefoxitin when I just couldn't get the darn thing to run. I am checking all the clamps, levels of the bags, pressure port on the IVP and I am just boggled.
I primed new tubing for everything, got it all set up and still no flow.
Well suddenly I looked at my patient, looked at the bag and stated, "Yeah welcome to nursing 101" and popped the last seal on the dual chambered bag and laughed with my patient (maybe a little nervously on his part! )
During my first year as a nurse, I helped a little old lady to the bathroom. She said, "Honey, I'm going to need the paper". So I went and got her newspaper off of her bedside table. She started laughing and said, "not that paper...the toilet paper". DUH!!!
I got a good laugh out of this. I would have thought the same. :lol2:
I keep telling myself that if this 'duh' mistake I made is the worst thing I've done, and the pt's ok, there's nothing to worry about..... I personally love it when I am clearing the condensation out of our oscillator vent tubing (special preemie vents), forget to move out of the way, and the water shoots out and "pees" all over my leg. I look ridiculous walking out of my pts pod with a completely wet groin/leg....
I have one that I did last week. Its a bit nasty and I have learned my leason. Here it goes........... I am still in orientaion and I had taken on 12 patients out of 24, and I was completing my med pass when I went to lunch. I always..always wash my hands after patient contact but for some reason after doing the med pass I only used hand santizier and went and ate lunch. It wasnt until the following night that I realized my mistake. I had given a patient Miralax (powder) yes Miralax, LOL I must have still had some of the powder substance on my fingers when I ate my lunch. LOL I was hurting all night, and couldnt leave the bathroom. My husband and I was laughing so hard because I was curled up in the fetal position.
Not to undo the "duhness" of my "duh" moment, I did happen to check my pts radial pulse prior to calling the MD (which I found to be faint to nonexistant. Not to mentions, she barely aroused to my sternal rub.) It would have been a great idea to have listened apically, though. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking nursing 101. Maybe I couldn't find her radial pulse because my pulse was bounding so hard? Anyways, we learn from our experiences. I definately won't forget this one. "Treat the patient and not the monitor"!
It would make sense for her radial pulse to be faint if she is still in afib... because the beats would be to fast to have significant cardiac output to the extremities...
:lol2:
Tait, MSN, RN
2,142 Posts
I am a NOC nurse on a M/S floor. I was chatting to my pt one night and hanging a bag of Cefoxitin when I just couldn't get the darn thing to run. I am checking all the clamps, levels of the bags, pressure port on the IVP and I am just boggled.
I primed new tubing for everything, got it all set up and still no flow.
Well suddenly I looked at my patient, looked at the bag and stated, "Yeah welcome to nursing 101" and popped the last seal on the dual chambered bag and laughed with my patient (maybe a little nervously on his part!
)
Tait