Nursing Skills you've used outside of work

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Oct 27, 2011

I;ve used more than I would care to in the backcountry. I have not healed anyone but I delayed their untimely demise.

xtxrn, ASN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

I get family calls fairly often. Most have scoped out the internet and are convinced they have some remote parasitic infestation when they really need to look at the expiration date on the mayonnaise. I tell them that unless they call with an MD diagnosis, and questions about what they were told, STAY OFF THE INTERNET -

I don't mind answering questions, but I will NOT tell them to blow something off- if they were going to do that, I wouldn't want to know about it :up:

Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

Suture removal, wound care/dressing changes, and IV skills have helped me avoid a few Vet farm calls for my horses. I've always been able to give IM shots to horses, but it was not until I became a nurse I had the guts to try IV (horses are way easier to hit than humans!)

mamaxmaria · Oct 27, 2011

I'm not a nurse (not even yet in nursing SCHOOL, still have one more pre req) But I'm an ICU and a ER tech so my BF's family and even my neighbor still seem to think since i work in hospitals im automatically a nurse! I keep telling them I'm not a nurse yet but i don't think they get it lol

lol one of my BF's cousins got stung by a bee... their first reaction GO GET MARIA!!! lmao....

I came out yesterday morning and my neighbor was on her stoop... said her 1y/o baby accidentally touched the heater.. burned his little hand and asked me what to do...(it didnt look to bad but then again IM NOT YET A NURSE!) I told her take him to the ER just to be sure... she was a mess I told her they would just take a look at it give him some ointment for it and rap it up... but just go.. came back from class and thats exactly what they did.......

I will say though working in the hospital as really helped me with my A&P2 class this semester.... I had to show my class how to check a pulse, B/P, a quick overview of CPR, and how to do an EKG.... yeah my professor kept putting me on the spot......

Christy1019, ASN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

My cat went head on into the window after a squirrel and was a little dazed afterwards... I kept trying to do neuro checks but she wasn't too cooperative with assessing grips and refused to tell me what year it was! Lol.

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

Working as a psych nurse has been a definite advantage when it comes to arguments with my better half. I'm not sure if I'd classify this as a good or bad thing, though :/

MomRN0913 · Oct 27, 2011

Well, when my dad and his wife were visiting the wine country in CA (we live in NY/NJ) he called me during my sleep after a night shift telling me he was in Walgreens or something and he had the worst heartburn and asked what he should buy for it. Well, i was in a daze and i said "dad, I hope you're not having a heart attack" Mind you, my dad is 62, 59 at the time and one of the healthiest, as he spends 2 hours in the gym everyday, eats pretty good, doesn't smoke, gets told after every physical "you have the body of a 20 year old"

Well, I kick myself in the butt for discounting it and not telling him to get an Asprin. I told him to call me back if it doesn't go away. he did because it got too bad and I told him to go to a urgent care or ER STAT. Glad he did, because he was indeed having an MI! The docs didn't think so at first, they thought it was GI. He got immediate intervention with blockage in his LAD and RCA.

Stayed in the ICu for 2 nights, then continued his vacation.

Prior to that I had actually lived my dad a few months and his wifes cousin lived a few blocks down. Her 18 month old son would always fall or something and she would get paranoid that he had a concussion so I would have to run over there and do some neurochecks to make her feel better:)

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

i've taken out a lot of sutures, staples, and drains from bad-tempered cats at our house, instilled eye gtts and ointments, done heat packs, monitored wound healing, modified activity, and prevented further injury, lol.

i also had an old kitty who had a seizure and was postictal for about 36 hours, staggered around with some hemiplegia for a day or two, and then slowly recovered normal function. i told my sweet husband that if she did it again, to keep her warm and let her go, but i was out of town and he took her into the vet where she had 24 hours of icu and died of her intracranial hemorrhage after i called, learned she was posturing, and told them to stop treating her.

i've diagnosed arterial occlusion with mesenteric artery thrombosis in kitties (twice, and that was heartbreaking), by looking at color, pulses, and temp, and recognizing c/o pain and diarrhea, and terminal acute mi vs huge pe by the bubbling pulmonary edema.

on a people note, i've done a lot of first aid including some community cpr (performing and instruction, lol), seizure evaluation and care pending ems arrival, and protecting from the elements in an outside injury. i have done loads of being the camp nurse at scouting events, including staffing the boy scout national jamboree three times.

and of course, there's always the childhood accidents.

i did have my 12-hour-old newborn in the basket next to me while i as trying to nap, heard him choking, and rolled over and suctioned out his airway with the little bulb syringe completely on autopilot before i was really awake. yay, airway preservation instinct.

i had a neighbor who was demented and intercepted him once, helped him find the bathroom, and sat him in a safe place at my house while i called 911 because i knew he was diabetic and his caretaker had gone away and left him alone, and our licenses say we will report abuse/ neglect of the elderly/vulnerable.

live long enough and you'll find ways to use your skills when you least expect it.

never never never act beyond your professional capacity with neighbors, friends, or family by giving medical advice. if something goes wrong (and it will someday) you can be held liable. if a prudent nurse would say, "put a bandaid on that skinned knee after you clean it off a bit," then fine. but if a prudent nurse would say, "call 911 for that chest pain/belly pain/sob/bee sting," then you'd better do that.

rnsrgr8t · Oct 27, 2011

I was home with my family after my grandmother passed away. My mother understandably was so upset and had a stressful week (as you can imagine). At 6:30 am the morning I was going to fly home, she wakes me up hysterical telling me she cannot catch her breath and that she has tachycardia (we are a medical family, I am an NP, she is a medical technologist and my dad an anesthesiologist). I thought she was having an anxiety attack from stress and helped her back into bed and tried to calm her down. I went to the bathroom to get her a wash cloth to wipe her face (and clean up the bathroom b/c she told me had gotten sick). I turned the lights on and there was blood, everwhere!!! My mom has a history of ulcers and I realized she was having an upper GI bleed. I went back and checked her pulse (weak, thready and 120), turned the lights on and she was white as a ghost. Called my Dad (who was on call at his hospital about 45 minutes away) who told me to bring her to his hospital (he did not want me or paramedics to bring her to our local, crappy hospital). So I packed her in the car, prayed a lot and got her to my Dad's hospital. He was waiting at the front entrance with a strecher and she got to go straight to the ICU (nice when you have connections). She did have a GI bleed that they cauterize and her HGB was 6 but luckily she did not have to be transfused. So scary when you are at home without your normal equipment (no BP cuff, pulse ox, monitor etc).

A couple of years ago, I was home for Christmas. Both of my grandparents were on albuterol b/c of bronchitis. All through Christmas dinner my parents and I listened to them both coughing with really tight coughs. When I brought them home that night, I went in and asked me to show me their inhalers. Turns out, noone in their doctors office showed them how to use them and when to use them. They had not used them all day! (thought they were supposed to just use BID like they were doing with their antibiotics). So I did MDI teaching for both of them and instructed on how/when to use it. My grandmother was so cute the next day, she was shocked that she had not coughed all night and felt so much better!

anurseatlast · Oct 27, 2011

Therapeutic communication comes in handy with my 26 yr old daughter but I have to not be too obvious or she says, "Cut it out Mom and talk like a real person." Hmmm. Must have tried it on her too often when I was in nursing school. It is kind of a joke between us. If she is being obnoxious, I say, "If you don't knock it off, I am going to start using therapeutic communication on you."

turnforthenurse, MSN, NP · Oct 27, 2011

Dressing changes and administering Lovenox and this was before I was even a nurse or even in nursing school!

Also did a GI assessment on the family dog lol...my FIL was wondering what a mass in the LLQ was and after an assessment I said it was probably because she had to poop...sure enough after she pooped it was gone :)