Embarrassing clinical moments... share yours

[dblpn]

Today at our clinical sites, which is a ltc facility, we started out doing our normal routine got report, am meds, am care...all was well so far. helped out the staff with serving breakfast to residents eating in the dining room. i took two plates one was a mechanical meal the other regular meal. i gave MY patient who i've had for the past week the mechanical tray and the regular meal to the patient that was supposed to get the pureed food. i don't know where my mind was honestly. as i was about to sit down the dietary aide comes over and wisper "you gave your lady the wrong meal". i'm like wth! i goes over to the table and she ate everything and poor man that was supposed to get the pureed food was just sitting there like i can't eat this stuff. luckily they were able to get another meal for him. my lady says "honey that food was good but really soft i didn't need my teeth in". i felt so stupid.

What are your embarrassing moments? i know i'm not alone. :chuckle

[DaniLPN2RN]

During my first clinical rotation, I was taking care of a patient who wore an EUD. I had never applied one before and had no idea how to determine what size to use. I grabbed a large and was amazed at how easy it was to apply. I got him up in his chair and he was on his way for the day. The next morning, he told me that his "condom came off". He asked me what size I used, I stated it was a large. His response ... "Oh, honey! You give me more credit than I deserve. Please use a medium this time. I don't want my shorts to get wet again"! I was so embarassed ... luckily he was a nice guy with a good sense of humor. No harm done!

[CandyGyrl1985]

my moment happened while trying to shower a patient. i had just lost some weight and my pants and undies were loose. i squatted down to wash my pts legs and the top half of my pants rolled on down - so i had total plumbers crack. i decided that since my hands were wet - to just ignore the problem since i was in a private shower and no one was there and the patient couldnt see. i didnt want to contaminate my pants during mid shower and stop to reglove- so i just dealt with it. needless to say - my instructer walks in and sees my crack. i was mortified. i immediately told her what happened of coorifice which made it that much worse. but she started cracking up and said "i have seen so many cracks that it doesnt matter anyways." she did recommend drawstring pants and said the weightloss made me look great. lol

:lol_hitti

[belgarion]

Wasn't nearly as embarrasing to me as it was to my insrtuctor. I was going to do a BBG on an elderly female patient. I was asking her which finger she wanted me to use when my instructor popped up and informed me that I should pick a finger and not ask. The patient, who was at least 88 or 89 years old said "If it's all the same to you, I always prefer that a gentleman asks where I would like him to stick me". While I was nearly choking to death to keep from laughing out loud, my instructor, who was beet red, mumbled something about another student needing her and left the room. The little lady gave me a big grin and a wink. I don't think I saw my instructor the rest of the day.

[MattiesMama]

I had my first patient with a colostomy, and I read in her chart "pt may have up to 6 wafers per month with colostomy change". The day came to change her setup, and I went into the kitchenette and started rummaging around. My instructor asked me what I was looking for, and I said "Oh, I need to get wafers for her"

I was looking for thin crackers for her to snack on while it was changed :imbar:imbar:imbar

[picurn10]

my very first day in med surg, I followed the RN into the pts room and she had me take vitals. I was so stinking nervous I couldn't get a bp. After a couple attempts (I just wasn't hearing anything) she took over. She was so sweet about, I know she must have thought I was the biggest moron, but after that I calmed down and was fine.

Oh another one came in leadership (I just finished LPN) The nurse asked me to d/c this pts IV and I pulled them out (he had one in each FA), taped them up, and went to grab some d/c paperwork. When I came back about 1min later the poor guy had blood everywhere! It actually helps to apply some pressure when you d/c an IV, who knew!?!?

[NurseCubanitaRN2b, BSN, RN]

I've never had any embarassing moments myself, but I was embarassed because of what one of my temporary clinical instructos did. We were on our last 3 weeks of the quarter and our normal clinical instructor was on maternity leave so we had a dingbat substitute. Well anyway she decided that she was going to have us do a wound dressing. Well she was attempting to show us how to do one (mind you we've done them before) since she thought it was a good opportunity to do it. Well the RN was present because she was there doing something with the IV. Anyway our instructor didn't even know how to pack a wound. She just shoved a 4 X 4 in the wound and covered the thing without irrigating it. The worst part of it was that it WAS A DRY 4 x 4, she didn't even follow the whole orders. The RN looked at us like we were crazy and tried not to laugh. Luckily the facility knew that this was a temporary instructor.

[justiceforjoy]

I was asking her which finger she wanted me to use when my instructor popped up and informed me that I should pick a finger and not ask.

I laughed at your story, but I'm going to back you up here by saying that it is just awesome that you let her choose which finger. Keep doing that!

I haven't made any mistakes just yet (I still have a practicum left, so bite my tongue), but I have accidentally swiped/slapped/punched a resident in the face while trying to pass my hand over her to her other side during a bed bath I must have had a really silly look of mortification on my face after that, because my barely-able-to-talk-due-to-CHF resident was actually laughing at me haha She was wonderful.