funniest thing you saw a nurse do.......

Nurses General Nursing

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One night in the icu, I needed help to turn a patient who was on a vent, and sedated with a versed drip. I had asked a nurse to come into the room, and she followed. We went to both sides of the patient and proceeded to grab the lift sheet when she said........"Wait just a minute, I have to FART!". She then proceeded to back up from the bed, turn around, lift up a leg, and farted as loud as can be. She then returned to the bed grinning to herself and helped me lift the patient.

I couldn't wait to get out of the room. I about died laughing inside. I couldn't wait to "put on a play" for the nurses in the nurses break room and replay that moment for them. They were laughing so hard. We still laugh to this day!

Anyone have any others to share????? :chuckle

I was working 3-11, one other RN, on med surg. We were standing at the desk and my patients family came out to say that they didn't think Dad was breathing. The other nurse and I sent the visitors out and pulled the curtains. I stood on one side, she on the other. I was using my stethoscope listening for lung sounds and I assumed she was planning to feel for a carotid pulse. All of a sudden, she turned his head towards me ( I was bending over, inches from his face) and pulled down on his chin. In her best ventriloquist voice, she said, "hello". Unfortunately, it was my patient and I had to try to tell the loved ones that Dad had indeed ceased to breathe without losing my composure. When I got to the charting room I laughed till I PIMP!

This was supposed to be funny? Sorry, I missed the hilarity there.

Cara

Cara are you still a student? As morbid as it seems, when you spend a long enough time in the trenches this type of humor is what keeps you going. It is human and yes it is irreverent but I assure you these nurses probably have as much respect for their patients as you or I do.

deedee :)

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This was supposed to be funny? Sorry, I missed the hilarity there.

Cara

Cara are you still a student? As morbid as it seems, when you spend a long enough time in the trenches this type of humor is what keeps you going. It is human and yes it is irreverent but I assure you these nurses probably have as much respect for their patients as you or I do.

deedee :)

We have some new nursing profs this semester - fresh from the trenches - and they are fantastic w/ their dark humor and tales from the OR/floor/ED, etc. I will admit, tho, that it leaves some of the class looking shocked and confused.

SJ

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think i've worked with you cara. got myself reamed by a new nurse one night after losing multiple pts on the shift. we all stood around dazed before getting down to the paperwork and without thinking i quoted the "bring out your dead" line from monty python. :imbar

btw--no families bothered to come...don't ya love when you're making a call that you hate, sure you're about to ruin a loved one's life, and they just don't care?!?!

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I once worked an agency day in a local nursing home. Let's just say it was my first and last experience in such an unsafe setting. I was assigned to approximately 32 patients during a 3pm-11pm shift. Well, while doing medication rounds, I was becoming very overwhelmed because none of the residents had ID bracelets on, so I had to depend on nursing aides to assist in identifying the "right" patient. I approached a large room with four beds in it. The first 2 beds were empty, a gentleman was in the 3rd bed and a curtain was hiding the 4th bed with another gentleman in it. All I can remember is a voice yelling out: "I need some cream for my balls!" In my frantic search for this "cream" and wondering if it was humanly possible for me to finish my med. rounds in time, my mind became rushed. Well, I found the cream and went up to the man in bed number 3 where I thought this voice was coming from. He did not have an ID bracelet on and there was no picture of him shown on the MAR. Anyway, I asked: "What is your name?" He did not answer me, so I then asked: "Are you (name of the patient)?" He said: "Yes". I proceeded to place the cream on his privates and then put it away. As I walked out, I heard: "I need some cream for my balls!" The man that really needed the cream was in bed 4. I felt so bad and embarrassed. The man in bed 3 obviously was confused...or was he?

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LOL There's one in every crowd.

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ok, I agree that we use morbid humor to cope. God knows our job really sucks sometimes and it takes more than alittle FUNNY to tolerate it. HOWEVER, we have to remember that we should respect the dead. That dead man could have been YOUR dad, or grandad, or even husband, and how would you have felt if you sensed or God forbid...heard the nurses giggling and laughing??????? No, I am NOT "one of those", but I do try to rmember what we are here to do, and that is to give the BEST most PROFESSIONAL care to out patients and their families....

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I once worked an agency day in a local nursing home. Let's just say it was my first and last experience in such an unsafe setting. I was assigned to approximately 32 patients during a 3pm-11pm shift. Well, while doing medication rounds, I was becoming very overwhelmed because none of the residents had ID bracelets on, so I had to depend on nursing aides to assist in identifying the "right" patient. I approached a large room with four beds in it. The first 2 beds were empty, a gentleman was in the 3rd bed and a curtain was hiding the 4th bed with another gentleman in it. All I can remember is a voice yelling out: "I need some cream for my balls!" In my frantic search for this "cream" and wondering if it was humanly possible for me to finish my med. rounds in time, my mind became rushed. Well, I found the cream and went up to the man in bed number 3 where I thought this voice was coming from. He did not have an ID bracelet on and there was no picture of him shown on the MAR. Anyway, I asked: "What is your name?" He did not answer me, so I then asked: "Are you (name of the patient)?" He said: "Yes". I proceeded to place the cream on his privates and then put it away. As I walked out, I heard: "I need some cream for my balls!" The man that really needed the cream was in bed 4. I felt so bad and embarrassed. The man in bed 3 obviously was confused...or was he?

heh

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Instead of saying a premie was Alert and Active one time I said Alert and Oriented x3. So everyone laughed at me! :) It just came out of my mouth without even thinking about it...

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Specializes in telemetry, cardiopulmonary stepdown, LTC. Hospice.
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ok, I agree that we use morbid humor to cope. God knows our job really sucks sometimes and it takes more than alittle FUNNY to tolerate it. HOWEVER, we have to remember that we should respect the dead. That dead man could have been YOUR dad, or grandad, or even husband, and how would you have felt if you sensed or God forbid...heard the nurses giggling and laughing??????? No, I am NOT "one of those", but I do try to rmember what we are here to do, and that is to give the BEST most PROFESSIONAL care to out patients and their families....

This was all I meant as well. I, too, have a crazy sense of humor at times (how can one not when raising three daughters?), but I don't feel that how long I've "been in the trenches" should have a thing to do with this kind of thing. I've been the person in the hospital bed before, so I know what that feels like. How funny would you find it if you walked into a room and saw a nurse doing something like that to your dead relative? Or as the above poster said, what if the family had heard this supposed "humor" from outside the room? I'm sure a lot of strange things go on that are meant for nurses to cope with the extremes of their job, but for me this incident would cross the line and is just sad.

I hope I never become so "seasoned" a nurse that I forget what human decency towards the dead is. I'm not questioning the original nurse's ability to be a fine nurse-as I'm sure she is, I'm questioning what she felt was funny.And I don't think many of the comments made about me on here have been kind or fair. I simply said I missed the original post's hilarity, and I suddenly am label as "one of those." That's okay. I think I'd rather BE one of "those", then.

I won't post anymore concerning this, as I seem to have created a sort of "side thread" without meaning to. Next time I'll just roll my eyes and sigh when I read something like that, I guess.

Cara

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Oh, I have one! This baby had a cleft palate with this protrusion of tissue and it was very large and distracting. Well, this nurse that had taken care of him for a while came in one shift after it had been surgically removed and another nurse got a funny idea. She spit out her chewing gum and rounded it out. She brought it in a cup to show the other nurse "Hey, remember [baby] and his lip...well, [the doctor] wanted me to save the specimen." She showed her the pink/red gum in the cup and the other nurse completely flipped out. Then the prankster nurse proceeded to pop the "specimen" in her mouth. At which point the victim nurse was hysterical with horror. :)

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Oh, I have one! This baby had a cleft palate with this protrusion of tissue and it was very large and distracting. Well, this nurse that had taken care of him for a while came in one shift after it had been surgically removed and another nurse got a funny idea. She spit out her chewing gum and rounded it out. She brought it in a cup to show the other nurse "Hey, remember [baby] and his lip...well, [the doctor] wanted me to save the specimen." She showed her the pink/red gum in the cup and the other nurse completely flipped out. Then the prankster nurse proceeded to pop the "specimen" in her mouth. At which point the victim nurse was hysterical with horror. :)

BWAHAHA! :chuckle This is one of the reasons I'm becoming a nurse. I have a sick sense of humor, and no one in nursing looks at me funny when I crack very inappropriate jokes. :D

I do think that making fun of a dead man is a little over the top.....I personally don't see what's funny about it, either. I guess there's just a time and a place for gallows humor, and that wasn't it.

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I was working in scrubs (that tied) one day in the nursery and my scrub pants fell off. I caught them before they hit the floor, thank goodness noone was at the window, ha, ha.

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ok, I agree that we use morbid humor to cope. God knows our job really sucks sometimes and it takes more than alittle FUNNY to tolerate it. HOWEVER, we have to remember that we should respect the dead. That dead man could have been YOUR dad, or grandad, or even husband, and how would you have felt if you sensed or God forbid...heard the nurses giggling and laughing??????? No, I am NOT "one of those", but I do try to rmember what we are here to do, and that is to give the BEST most PROFESSIONAL care to out patients and their families....

I'm not one of "those" either but I have to admit that the story about using a dead man as a ventriloquist's dummy made me wince.

I live in a small town and work in a rural hospital. I know most of the people who come into our hospital. I know their families. I would never use "black humor" on a patient, dead or not.

When I first became a nurse one of the things I was afraid of was death. I learned an awesome lesson from a CNA. We did the post-mortum care of a man I knew who died of a long struggle with cancer. I found it to be a privilege to care for his body so his family could have some time to say goodbye. I consider it an honor. To use someone in the way the story went was very disrespectful.

Even in anatomy, our professor admonished us before we started that we were to treat our cadavers with respect and he would tolerate nothing less.

Black humor in the nurse's lounge - absolutely. But not practiced on a patient.

steph

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