can you remember your best and worst moment as a nurse?

Nurses General Nursing

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I dont know about you , but I was asked in an interview to give what my best and worst moments as a nurse had been....I thought for a minute or two cause I really wanted to be honest, and my reply was as follows:

The worst was the night I had to tell a fellow nurse that I worked with that her dad had pasted. We called to let her know she needed to comein, I looked up the hall and saw her walking up she stopped dead in her tracks I started towards her she said he's gone it's he. All I could do was shake my head in response and put my arms around her, I felt her knees go out and it took everything in me to hold her up and get her to the room. As she stood there she just said I am going to be sick and ran to the bathroom. I followed her, I held her head from the toliet I sat with her on the floor crying and hugging,I did not say all the things a nurse says because she already knew it. She kept repeating why did I leave? We walked and we talked, and I told her that we share something now it just happen to be that on the same day 20 yrs earlier my granddad died. I found my best fried that night and came to understand something from my childhood. My dad was a firefighter and I never could grasp the whole brother hood thing always there for each other on or off duty...But now it made sense to me..You are always the closest with those who know what you go through on a daily basis, they understand you and you understand them you are truly sisters and brother's...So this was also the best moment so far in my career, it will take a lot to top it. How about you?

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Specializes in Trauma ICU, Surgical ICU, Medical ICU.

My worst moment lives on in my head and I don't think I'll ever forget it.

We had an 89yo F with advanced alzheimers and became septic. She looked awful, I have never seen labs as bad as hers. The lab even called me back and told me to do them over, they had to be wrong as no one could live with such labs. Her abg was 6.7 and I remember the O2 was around 18 on the highest vent settings possible. Her K was 2.6. Maxed on 3 pressors The family made the situation extremely difficult. They wanted EVERYTHING done and they didn't want to abide by any of the rules. There were over 20 of them and I literally had to crawl over them to do any work on the patient. When I arrived, they burst in the room and as the patient had arrived the night before from a nursing home, I explained the rules and they were NOT having that! They tried to tell me that the patient's sister was a doctor and deserves VIP access, she had a PHD in english lit or something. I got the manager and of course, she was no help and agreed with everything they said. She didn't even make them wear isolation gowns when the pt was MRSA and VRE positve! When a pressor would finish I had literally 2 seconds to get another one started before the MAPS would be below 40. No one would even move to allow me access to my IV pump! I tried to explain the rules if we had to code this patient and they didn't want to hear it. They would even get in the pt's face, open her eyelids and scream at her to wake up! She had the O2 of a freakin houseplant! I asked them not to do that but I just got dirty looks and they continued. I just did some extra super special documentation and tried to not let them drive me crazy.

I felt so sorry for this poor patient! Here she was baking with a pH of 6.8, family members screming at her, poking at her eyelids, and were planning on breaking her ribs in a few hours when she finally codes! She was also contracted into a little ball, weighed around 40 kilos, and her entire bottom was broken down. Nonetheless, she coded and you coud feel her ribs breaking with each compression. When she eventually passed, we pulled her cheeks OFF when we removed the tube tamer from the ET tube. She looked absolutely awful, a broken woman. One of the residents said he couldn't sleep for a week after doing that to this poor patient. I felt the same way. I even cried about it a few times on the way to work and that image of her with her cheeks off haunted my dreams. I swore if I ever saw that family out I would give them a good talking to. Thankfully I never saw them as I'd probably lose my job.

My best days are most days. Any day that I get to truly bring someone back from death makes the 'best day' list. There was one case, GI bleed, that the patient was not my patient but I ended up helping the other nurse. This guy had a crit of 7! We thought for sure he wouldn't make it to surgery. We even brought in his wife to say her last goodbyes. We both worked to pump the blood back into this guy, thinking it was another lost cause. However, he made it and was transferred to a new floor in less than a week! I will never forget the way his wife thanked us for saving him. He was truly a miracle man!

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Specializes in ICU.

perhaps my best and worse day was the same..........18y/o trauma, 6 chest tube, crushed pelvis, retroparitoneal bleed, his circulating blood was not his own many times over......rounds that day ....we have to take him to CT, he'll die if we do.....he'll die if we don't. as the nurse, young in those days, my vote was let him die here, not in CT.......of course i didn't verbalize it, just put the best game face i could on........took him to CT..........scared to death, his mom at the elevator doors praying the rosary.......she knew......i was never so scared in my life, usually you take a patient down with a resident but that day i went down with the head of critical care medicine and the lead trauma surgeon was in CT waiting for us.........we went, we made it back, the young man made it out alive and eventually, months later, actually went home with his wits about him.......it was a good good day......and one i will never forget :smokin:

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