Funny doctor orders

[laurenicoleRN]

I worked at a teaching hospital for about a year. I really enjoyed closely interacting with the interns, residents and staff physicians. Many times hilarious orders were written by the newbies. One of my personal favorites was from an intern who only wrote "Vicodin" and that was it. No route, dosage, frequency, etc. Haha! We also had a doctor write "b4" in the chart. We assumed they meant "before." I guess they forgot that this wasn't text messaging. Lol! We also had an older doctor who would write things like, "please call help desk to get the printer fixed." Yes, in the chart. Good times. Please share any of your funny stories from charts!

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I had a MD order "pump calves" q2hr........? MOOOOOOO! for ROM of LE.

Another wrote "family pet to visit STAT!" it was a minature pony!

[KeyMaster]

"Patient to have vodka on the rocks"...."with lime wedge, to be provided by family along with knife".

-Patient just found out that she had terminal cancer, and since there were no hospital protocols on alcohol use while an inpatient, the MD just wrote an order for it :)

I once had a patient with active TB. The doc ordered "Beer at the bedside" AND an alcohol drip. His rationale was that he did NOT want the pt to sober up and go into DTs/coughing fits.

Also when I worked on a Resident-run floor in a teaching hospital, one new doc wrote an order for "Foley cath to LWS" OK, am I inserting a nasogastric foley or does the pt need a rapid bladder evacuation??

[mykrosphere]

i forgot to make a copy of the order but a pulmonologist wrote:

pt must have one portion of meat per meal.

must be canadian bacon and not back fat.

we are not trying to increase his fat intake as it makes him nauseous.

[shiccy]

I had a person at least ASK before ordering something ridiculous... A patient was to be NPO for an extended period of time and the fresh resident was looking at this persons MAR. She said, "I'm new to this, so please be kind, but I'm trying to change a person from PO metoprolol to IV. They're on 50mg PO QD ... should I split the dose into two or three?"

Needless to say it was in the morning on my fourth 12 hour shift, so I looked at her like her face was melting off and / or I recently converted over to the living dead and was contemplating her as a snack. I said, "That honestly doesn't sound right, but I'm totally confused (usually we're switching a person IV --> PO so while it threw up a red flag all my mind could do at this point was say, "DOES NOT COMPUTE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!") Needless to say we got it sorted out and she converted it correctly to 5 or 10mg Q4 IV w/ parameters

[WoosahRN, MSN, RN]

Our docs are pretty good about writing orders so I can't think of any written ones. We do however have to be careful when getting our telephone orders from our sleepy intensivists. We have an intensivist on 24 hrs and they do 12 or 24 hr shifts. I work nights and we draw labs at 0400 so we usually start calling the doc's in their sleep room around 0500 for updates and new orders.

One of our docs is notorious for being tough to wake up. There have been times when we hang up the phone and let him 'think about' what he just ordered. He will either call back and ask 'what did I just tell you?' or we will call back and start all over. We usually warn anyone new to use caution when you are one of the first people to wake him up.

One situation stands out. We had been trying to get blood out of a kid and just were not successful. Finally the nurse had to call the doc to tell him (if we have a lot of trouble they can try an art stick). We saw her talking to him. Then she just hung up the phone with a grin on her face. She said "I'm going to give him a minute and try to call back." His response when she told him she couldn't get blood?........."Can't you just get it from someone else?" Hahahaha! Well, shoot that just made my job a lot easier!

[WoosahRN, MSN, RN]

P.S. Great thread BTW. I am literally giggling at my computer!

[dwn551]

I was working in the ED one time when a physician who was finishing up a 24 hr (yes I said 24 hr) shift. He wrote "NTG 0.4 mg tab SQ" on chart number 1, on chart number 2, he wrote, "Td 0.5 SL". I walked over to him, and asked if he was sure he wated me to give a tetorifice SL and how was I to melt the NTG tab to give it SQ. He almost fell out of his chair laughing. On another occasion, he wrote "Abrasion to Buttrocks" using a voice activated dictation system, instaed of "Abrasion to Buttocks" for a pt from a motorcycle crash.

[nyrn5125]

order in chart for a "pregnancy test" for 91 y/o woman. and yes it was negative

consent for "leg fem pop perineal bypass". lnstead of peroneal

"don't call me for this pt" order

[nhosch]

I had a dr. put in an order for 2 tabs percocet to be given lady partslly...to my male pt....not that 2 percs lady partslly wasn't funny enough. When he came up to the floor and I pointed it out, he was so embarrassed and amused at the same time.

Nicole

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

wound care to lower extremities?? Maybe?

One of the funniest things I have seen was by a unit secretary. At one of my first clinical rotations, I was sitting around with my classmates and instructor doing our "day before" patient information gathering when one of my classmates asked the instructor what her patient had been admitted for. The diagnosis: seeopeade. Say it out loud. Serious. Once we finally figuered out what it was, we all busted up laughing. COPD!! I hope she was still in training.

This one cracked me up! Reminded me of an old nurse manager I had that charted more than once on our occasional cardiac admits "resident is post-cabbage." How can a nurse manager not know the difference between a common surgical procedure and a vegetable! Scary!

[Daly City RN]

I worked in a neuro-surgery unit in the 1990's when an intern whom we later found out is from England, training here in San Francisco wrote an order for "Send patient to the theater in a.m."

When asked for clarification he said "operating theater", aka: operating room.

One nurse said, "Hey, doc, we thought you wanted us to send the patient to see 'Les Miserable' tomorrow morning!"

[Anatomatrix]

Another wrote "family pet to visit STAT!" it was a minature pony!

Right up through the word STAT I was thinking, "So what? That isn't completely uncommon." Then I read the last sentence and blew iced tea through my nose.