Scariest things you've seen

donmomofnine · Jul 13, 2004

:uhoh21: Ii love seeing nursing assitants standing at the desk, writing, WITH GLOVES ON!:uhoh21:

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 13, 2004

I walked into my Balloon pumped patient's room to find a resident standing next to the bed with one hand in the patient's groin and in the other holding the intra-aortic balloon. The balloon was inflating and deflating, there was blood everywhere, the patient's wife was trying to figure out how to silence the art line alarm, and the resident was apologizing profusely, "I'm sorry about the mess, I'm sorry about the mess."

He then put his face down near the patient's groin and took his finger out of the dike, so to speak. Of course he got a face full of blood.

"I'm so sorry! I'll help you clean it up. I'm so sorry!"

Meanwhile, I'm turning off the balloon pump, turning off the art line alarm, throwing clean towels on top of the blood puddles and ushering the family out of the room.

The resident took his finger off the site again, got another faceful of blood and said, "Ohhhhh! That must have been in an ARTERY!"

Duh. It's a intra AORTIC balloon pump!

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Jul 13, 2004

It takes a little to explain this one. . .

The patient; Marie (not her real name of course) needed treatment for C-diff which was vancomycin PO. Problem was she couldn't swallow and the vancomycin pills couldn't be crushed or melted so the pharmacy would send the IV powder for mixture, we would mix it with sterile water and administer that to her PEG. Any minimally experienced nurse would know that's a recipe for trouble.

So, I'm sitting at the desk one early morning when a new RN comes up to the desk and asks "Why would Marie complain of a flushing feeling when I'm giving her her Vancomycin?". I look up and see her holding a 10cc syringe with a little trail of blood floating in it. My heart skipped a beat and I asked "You didn't just give that IV push did you?". The panicked look on her face answered my question as we rushed back to the room to assess Marie. The new nurse knew enough to stop PUSHING THE VANCOMYCIN when the patient complained to her and she appeared to be unharmed other than that flushing feeling she had temporarily (labs were fine, kidneys unharmed). Lots of good lessons learned that day, fortunately without any harm done.

PMHNP10 · Jul 13, 2004

I work with a nurse in a prison who, when she is making rounds, redirects the pt if he starts asking too many questions by yelling out "Shut up and go to sleep! You're in prison!" I gotta admit when I see her do this I can't help but laugh, because she is just as rude and crude with coworkers and other nonincarcerated people; so at least doesn't discriminate. It's one thing to be so abrasive, but when I read her charting, she often makes a note that she has reminded the inmate that he is in prison.

nurtch04 · Jul 13, 2004

I came back from a night off and one of my co-workers told me of a nurse (our nurse educator) that had blood and heparin infusing together in the same IV line. I ask her if she reported it to our incident reporting hot line and she had not. I was in charge so after reviewing the chart I called the hot line, which is supposed to be confidential.

A couple of days later the nurse manager called me into the office and chewed my butt for calling. She said that I had made the nurse sound incompetent (she was) and that if the tape went to court we would be held liable.

I could not belive my ears. The nurse has at least 15 years experience and stated the reason that she had done that was because "she didn't want to bother calling the doctor to get the heparin on hold and she couldn't get another IV line." The nurse manager accepted that to be "a good reason."

But you should have seen the NM face when I said well what was her reasoning for hanging blood without an order to do so, the blood was ordered to be given the next am in dialysis.

KarafromPhilly · Jul 13, 2004

I didn't personally observe this one, but heard about it in detail a few days later. One nurse on our unit was kind of famous for NOT asking questions and NOT accepting help of any kind. She was starting a heparin drip on a patient with a PE and set the pump at 120cc an hour--for a 250cc/25,000 unit IVPB. When she noticed that the bag was empty, she hung ANOTHER one, at the same rate! Needless to say the poor guy bled to death, and she no longer works with us, although she still holds a valid nursing license.

bam_bam · Jul 13, 2004

charting all day on a labor patient, this nurse with years of L&D experience charted baseline with accels but really it was a baseline with decels. Then took the patient off the monitor to ambulate for 45 min. Needless to say it wasn't very good outcome.

B

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Jul 13, 2004

I hope that there have been some lawsuits in some of these cases that did not have good outcomes.

With some of the stuff I've seen, I think that there really should be MORE medical malpractice suits than there are.

:chair:

Jay-Jay, RN · Jul 13, 2004

Lemme think...we don't have the chance to see a lot of this stuff in homecare, thank God!

Had a postop lumpectomy patient who was c/o not feeling well. Her axillary node dissection incision site was red and warm, and the drainage in her JP drain had suddenly gone cloudy, and the amount had increased dramatically. AND she was having N&V. Needless to say, I sent her off to ER, STAT.

THE STUPID IDIOTS kept her there most of the day, gave her some IV fluids and Gravol, AND SENT HER BACK HOME!

I saw her the following morning, wrote a very nasty note to the ER, along the lines of DONT YOU IDIOTS RECOGNIZE THE S&S OF A RAGING INFECTION WHEN YOU SEE THEM?? and sent her back.

They were somewhat embarrassed, and though the ER was insanely busy, a very kind doctor fastracked her, sneaked her into an empty room somewhere, and opened up the incision. The pus just came pouring out.

We were doing BID dresssing changes on it, and giving her IV abx for the next couple of weeks, and her chemo had to go on hold until the incision healed.

She was so grateful to the nurses for advocating for her (she was a former nurse herself) that she threw us a special luncheon when we discharged her.

I wish I could say this was the only time I've seen this happen in homecare, but it's not. Usually, the doctors are a bit faster to act, though.

Darlene K. · Jul 13, 2004

I didn't personally observe this one, but heard about it in detail a few days later. One nurse on our unit was kind of famous for NOT asking questions and NOT accepting help of any kind. She was starting a heparin drip on a patient with a PE and set the pump at 120cc an hour--for a 250cc/25,000 unit IVPB. When she noticed that the bag was empty, she hung ANOTHER one, at the same rate! Needless to say the poor guy bled to death, and she no longer works with us, although she still holds a valid nursing license.

Things like this, make it scary to be a patient.

husker-nurse, LPN, LVN · Jul 13, 2004

A patient goes to her physician's office, with complaints of N&V; was administered Phenergan for same. Staff enters exam room to find patient non-responsive. Patient is direct admitted to my floor per physician for Phenergan reaction on 3-11 shift. 3-11 Nurse reports incident to me, and patient is given over to my care. At about 0200, patient c/o nausea, and the same 3-11 nurse who had reported same incident to me had taken phone orders from physician for (you guessed it) PHENERGAN IV. I contacted the physican and reminded her why patient was admitted. Physician basically said "oh, my gosh" and the Phenergan was DC'd and replaced with Zofran. I was very glad I had at least gotten a good report, the patient was only 18 years old!

KacyLynnRN · Jul 14, 2004

I was taking care of a patient who the MD ordered 65 units of Humalog to be given with dinner...her blood sugar was 170-180's...I called the resident and questioned it and he told me to give it because it is what she normally got at home and then hung up...called him back and told him I was sorry, but I could not give her such a large dose of such a fast acting insulin, and if he wanted it given he would have to come up to the floor and give it himself...so...he comes up to the floor all pissed, calls her PCP and discovers it was supposed to be 65 units of Humalog 75/25....BIG freakin difference!!! Resident thanks me and says "you saved my life on this one!" I just shudder to think that there might have been nurses stupid enough to give it because "the doctor ordered it".... :uhoh3: