Funniest real orders you have seen in a chart?

sunnycalifRN · Mar 31, 2011

We had an ex-army doc who wrote orders for TV for the patient: Channel 5 at 9 a.m.

gigglymo · Mar 31, 2011

I had a pt who was supposed to be on intermittent suction - but the hospital didn't have enough suction machines for all the patients who needed them. The doc asked if I could hook the pt up to continuous suction, then stand there and periodically turn it on and off. Not kidding.

mspretty · Mar 31, 2011

JUst another RN story.....
I did home care for 11 years and pt. education is a large part of being a visiting nurse. I heard that a new grad who was a RN had told a pt on ATB's to PREVENT A YEAST INFECTION BY SPREADING YOGURT ON HER lady parts. (lol) (INstead of eating it to promote normal body flora. VERY ODD BUT TRUE.

you don't spread it on you doush with it. So i have been told by some natural /holistic people. :eek: :confused:

mspretty · Mar 31, 2011

Many of you are showing your youth and inexperience. 3H enema used to be a very common order. In LTC, wine is often given to stimulate appetite on little 80 pound patients. I suppose you've never heard of using sugar or MOM to put on decubiti to promote healing, either. Gone are the days when the docs from the old school come in and turn off the ICU monitor and tell you to look at the patient and treat the patient, not the machine! And what happened to giving a backrub at bedtime to every patient??

I also rember the slush enema for post op GI pt. Every pt. who did not pass gas got one. I also rember going from station to station getting stickers for sugery consents because they came in a pkg. Only one or two types of stickers was used and the other was sugery specific. that ment you quickly ran out of the ones you needed and had a bunch of the ones you did not need. I might be a little far back or my hospital was just slow to come up. Cause i also the metal ivs before the plastic cannula and having to make your own tubing for ivs. Peri care was every shift for every pt. That was also when you was a nurse because you love nursing cause pay was ok but not the greatest.:redbeathe:yeah:

talaxandra · Mar 31, 2011

you don't spread it on you doush with it. So i have been told by some natural /holistic people.

Yep - apparently the best method is to soak a (non-applicator) tampon in it for a few minutes then insert for an hour or so. Only don't, as one of my colleagues once did, use flavoured yoghurt, for two reasons: 1/it's high in sugar, which encourages bacterial growth, and lacks active culture, which is the point of the process, and 2/"the strawberries kept getting caught in my pubes" :idea:

sparrowRN · Apr 1, 2011

Nurse with long fingers to perfom digital fecal evacuation

sharpeimom · Apr 1, 2011

nurse with long fingers to perfom digital fecal evacuation

eeeeeewwww! :eek: phew! mine aren't long enough...

felineRN · Apr 1, 2011

-Colace STAT... Trust me, it was non-emergent.

-I love the MDs who order a Vanco loading dose stat and then put in orders for blood cultures an hour later...

-We had an MD who kept putting in STAT urine C&S on a pt who was anuric w/ ESRD.

And to the comment about back rubs at night...Call me a snot nosed twenty something, but just no. I'll hold your hand/stroke your hair/use calming words if you are in distress or in need of tlc, but back rubs I just don't do.

carolmaccas66, BSN, RN · Apr 1, 2011

-Colace STAT... Trust me, it was non-emergent.
-I love the MDs who order a Vanco loading dose stat and then put in orders for blood cultures an hour later...
-We had an MD who kept putting in STAT urine C&S on a pt who was anuric w/ ESRD.
And to the comment about back rubs at night...Call me a snot nosed twenty something, but just no. I'll hold your hand/stroke your hair/use calming words if you are in distress or in need of tlc, but back rubs I just don't do.

Yes we are not all snot-nosed 20 something year olds! Thank God the days are gone when grandma's 'home remedies' were used in the hospital! I have seen too many people who were patients and some who were nurses, use home remedies and who have really damaged themselves. Knew an EN who was told to use straight kerosene on her son's head to get rid of head lice, well she kept tipping the whole lot on his head and burned his whole scalp off! No-one had told her to dilute it - very, very dangerous stuff. Using home remedies as well in a professional setting opens up all kinds of litigation nightmares. Home remedies are not something I would be doing in a hospital.

And I'd like to know who has the time to do back rubs - if you had time for that in the old days, well all I can say is nursing must've been very different back then, cos now we just do NOT have the time, and I don't know if I would want to be doing them either. I don't ever touch anyone's skin without gloves either - too many scabies and lice on people I have seen in the past, especially in the remote communities.

God knows what people have got on their skin - eeeww!

RN77 · Apr 4, 2011

As a recent patient, I was horrified to see how little is done for the patients, that used to be routine care. Backrubs help a patient relax before bedtime, promote sleep/rest and decrease pain. It's also a wonderful time to TALK (remember that) to your patients. The ONLY times I ever saw a licensed person was when they did an assessment each shift (some of these were pretty pathetic) and when meds were given. The PCA (Aides) did everything else and, even then, I had to ask for my bed to be changed and for towels to wash up with. No offered to wash my back, leave alone rub it.

"Back in the day" we (nurses) would pass fresh ice water and a clean towel/wash cloth to all patients after visitors left on evening shift. Backrubs were offered to all and accepted by most patients. Patients used these towels/wash cloths to freshen up before bed or for first thing in the am, before regular linen was passed.

How did we have the time? We just did. We did not have computers to help us chart (everything done by hand), med doses were often not individual doses....we actually had to pour pills out of bottles, and we checked on our patients AT LEAST three times per shift, in person. It seems like today's nurses are losing the "art" of nursing. With everything computerized and simplified, nurses should have even MORE time to spend with direct patient care and tending to the "little" things that mean so much!

When I was doing home health, a few years ago, I actually had a patient start to cry when I asked if I could sit on the chair in her room. Upon further investigation, she told me that none of the other nurses had ever bothered to sit down with her. "They're always in such a rush," she said.

Ladies and gentlemen....slow down and give your patients the time and attention they deserve. It will change your life when you actually TALK to them!!

OK, bring on the rebuttals!

RN77 · Apr 4, 2011

Thank God the days are gone when grandma's 'home remedies' were used in the hospital! I have seen too many people who were patients and some who were nurses, use home remedies and who have really damaged themselves.
Many of the things written about in the thread were not "home remedies", but, rather, widely accepted medical practice AT THE TIME. I remember HHH enemas (high, hot, hell of a lot), milk and molasses enemas (these actually work GREAT for impactions), and (my favorite) coffee (brewed and brought to room temp) ememas. Yes, we used sugar and Maalox in decubiti, which worked wonderfully (nowadays there is "Medihoney", which doesn't work as well). These were practiced in every hospital in America, up until about 20 years ago. I bet some still do. I agree, the kerosene was ridiculous and true "folk" medicine can be dangerous; but we were practicing within the written standards of care at the time.

xluescluesx · Apr 4, 2011

This isn't nursing related but when I was a tech at a pharmacy, a patient came in and asked that we call his doctor to get a prescription for promethazine with codeine. I asked why? Normally a doctor won't approve a controlled med without an appointment. He said, "because I smoke a lot of weed and it's making me cough like crazy!" So I wrote it down word for word and had the pharmacist relay the message, and the doctor actually wrote him a prescription for it... with REFILLS!