Analogies and metaphors

Nurses General Nursing

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brighella

91 Posts

Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care, Public Health.

When explaining how when Morphine sulfate liquid and ativan are used together they potentiate each other, I explain in 2 ways - I talk about how 1+1=3 (because they both work better). Then, particularly when the kids of my hospice patients are in the baby boomer cohort I will equate the meds to John Lennon and Paul McCartney. When taken as individuals, both are talented musicians. When combined, they became the Beatles. Highly effective!

elprup, BSN, RN

1,005 Posts

What's a "Bong"?

Classic. :)

Google it friend. You have lived a sheltered life!

dansamy

672 Posts

Specializes in Going to Peds!.

Classic. :)

Google it friend. You have lived a sheltered life!

I think your sarcasm detector is borked. ;-)

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Specializes in ED.
What's a "Bong"?

HA!! I am not knowing of this term...bong lol:roflmao: :whistling:

BrandonLPN, LPN

3,358 Posts

Patient's first instinct when faced with an incentive spirometer is to breathe hard into the spirometer.

I tell my patients to take a deep drag like you are smoking a cigarette. Most people get that. The IS kind of does look like a bong, now that I think about it.

I am so totally going to use "like taking a deep drag from a bong" as an analogy the next time I teach a pt to use an incentive spirometer.

Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

Concussion: Your brain is like an old switchboard with all the wires. When you get your head bonked, it knocks all the wires out and your body tries to replace them. It gets a few wrong and thats why you feel like crap.

psu_213, BSN, RN

3,878 Posts

Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
I am so totally going to use "like taking a deep drag from a bong" as an analogy the next time I teach a pt to use an incentive spirometer.

Yesteryday, I was teaching a 93 year old woman how to use an IS. My guess is that she would genuinely not know what I was talking about.

KelRN215, BSN, RN

1 Article; 7,349 Posts

Specializes in Pedi.
Yesteryday, I was teaching a 93 year old woman how to use an IS. My guess is that she would genuinely not know what I was talking about.

93 year olds were once young. Bongs have been around since the days of the Ming Dynasty. There are some old ladies out there who were once hippies/pot heads.

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
Pedi nurse here. Have had to participate in difficult conversations explaining to a child that he/she has cancer more times than I can count. Our Child Life Specialist used to equate having a tumor in one's brain to having a rock in one's shoe when explaining this to young children. It worked- they understood that they couldn't do what they wanted with a rock in their shoe so they needed to get it out so it made sense to them that the surgeon needed to go in and take out the rock that was in their heads.

I don't work with peds...but I think that is a great analogy! Child life specialists are amazing.

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