Dumb things new nurses do....

Nurses New Nurse

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Drew routine labs from a PICC that was STILL infusing TPN..

Got a call from lab with a critical Blood Glucose of 900.

Learned my lesson, turned off TPN, FLUUUUUSHHHHED the line, re-draw labs...:cheers:

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those stinking prefilled saline syringes will be the death of me. the first time i had to flush a patients line my instuctor instructed me to "burp" it, well i pushed too hard and shot my patient in the face, i thought i was going to die.

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i'm a new nurse, and i used to push out the pressure with those, and then i realized it works better to draw back and then push the saline back up to the top. :) no more sudden gushes of 1.5 mls out of that syringe! :)

this feed gave me a lot of encouragement after feeling super incompetent the other night! :) i mislabeled my tubes with the wrong patient. thankfully, the lab let me sneak under the table and relabel them since i was certain of who the blood belonged to!

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Sorry, I didn't meant to post twice and I can't delete this post! :p

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From a friend: She looked at the monitor, saw V-fib, and told her preceptor "There's something wrong with the monitor. He's too stable to go into v-fib." Yeah, it was real v-fib.

From me: A known seizure patient started seizing. I'd never even seen a seizure before. I froze and all I could think to do was yell "Seizure!" (We always yell that for assistance with seizures) Thankfully another RN took over and I unfroze and started suctioning a minute later and everything turned out ok.

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Specializes in Emergency.

LOL, I love this post. I like to refer to my dumb moments as my "stupid nurse tricks", I had hung a bag of ABX on an IVPB, and came back an hour later to change it for the second IVPB and it hadn't infused at all, come to find out I hadn't opened the roller clamp! DOH!

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Specializes in Peds Med/Surg; Peds Skilled Nursing.

In my first job i worked on an adolescent floor. And we had many teen girls with Stds.....i was giving report and i mixed up which patients had what STD and my preceptor looked up the results and said "no you u have them mixed up" I dont no why but i bursted into tears and was crying hysterically... LOL i was devestated...the nurse i gave report to was like its really not a big deal and walked away... i crack up about it now....it was so silly of me...hahaha

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This happened to me when I was a student nurse. I was giving Lovenox SQ shot to a very skinny pt. I raised the bed and cleaned the skin good at the site with alcohol, slightly got a hold of her tissue, gave the shot and......Lovenox spread out like a fountain ??? my instructor was MAD. I should grab the "fat" hard. Had to request a new dose. Live and learn.

Got 0.9NS shower x 2, forgot to unclamp ATB IVPB X2, burst the green top morphine vial X1.......in my two months of nursing career.

Thanks for sharing stories. Makes me feel a lot better as a new RN.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Patient this week with an NG tube. Offspring of said patient is a nurse on the floor below me. For whatever reason this made me really high strung. Came in to give meds via NG tube. Found the port.....figured I would assess the insertion site while I was down there, so started pulling up the patient's gown to expose the abdomen to make sure skin was okay etc. Searched and searched and searched.....muttering to self about "where is it..usually here on the left...mumble mumble...." Could not find the insertion site, so finally take the tube, getting it out from under the patient's arm and half stuck under sheets and etc etc......following with my fingertips until I realize....idiot. It's an NG tube. Where do you THINK the insertion site is????? You've been looking at it for 15 minutes now. I just somehow was stuck on thinking of a peg tube and was going to be really really thorough, thinking ahead to skin care and dressing change etc. What's funny is the patient was....well....so patient! Never said a word, just let me hunt around like a buffoon. I'm already sheepishly laughing at myself over that one.

I have also shot a patient in the eye with a flush syringe. Yay me.

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I sure hope the lab didn't seriously believe that glucose result. On our chemistry analyzers, we will see a sharp increase in the potassium, glucose, total protein, and usually either see the specimen is grossly lipemic, or if we don't get to see the specimen, we will get a supressed high lipemia index. This is a hallmark of TPN contamination and any lab scientist worth their salt would just call for a recollect. I would NEVER give a result like that to a nurse!

Drew routine labs from a PICC that was STILL infusing TPN..

Got a call from lab with a critical Blood Glucose of 900.

Learned my lesson, turned off TPN, FLUUUUUSHHHHED the line, re-draw labs...:cheers:

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Good Lord, don't these techs investigate before reporting the "panic" value? Anytime I get a result that could be intepreted as a critical, I first check with the nurse to see if that patient is receiving heparin, find out how the specimen was collected to rule out contamination, and get a recollect if there is doubt. Cheers.

:cheers:

I did the same thing with heparin. Drew a PTT and got a buzz from the lab reporting a panic high.

Oooopsie.

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Specializes in Obstetrics.

Omg this thread rocks. I was cracking up with you all. I've done a lot of these including pulling back on the syringe too hard causing the med I'm pulling up to dump all over the place. Thanks so much for the laughs. This is great!

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Specializes in Psych.

Haha, yes I have given myself a NS shower before. It was during my ICU rotation when I was changing the primary. Oh boy was I red in the face. Thank God it was just me and pt in the room and he was intubated and on propofol LOL!

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Specializes in Med/Surg,Cardiac.

It never fails that every single time I do an admission I ask the things they came in for on the history.

Ex: pt comes IBM with CP and HTN, I proceed to ask if there is a problem with their current meds. Hwy l look at me like an idiot while saying that yes... their bp isn't controlled. I profusely apologize while banging my head inside my head. Lol.

They're so repetitive I just spurt it without thought. Ugh. Lol.

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