What have other nurses done that have freaked you out?

[texas_lvn]

What have other peers done intentional/unintentional to freak you out? Good or bad. Happy or sad.

On my FIRST day as an LVN, (LTC) a res was screaming in her room as I was walking out to leave. I went in to see what was going on. She was having an anxiety attack and severe pain (post stroke). I pulled the call light, and no one came. Uggg.

So I peeked out the door and saw my CNA walking down the hall, and told him to come sit with res. I went down to get her a Xanax and a pain pill, well relief nurse was in the restroom, and relief CNA (with call light still going off) was sitting behind nurses station reading a newspaper. I told CNA to tell the nurse to get a Xanax and pain pill for res. She said OK. I go to relieve my CNA. Said goodbye to him, and stayed with res. after 10 minutes, CNA COMES INTO ROOM WITH XANAX AND MORPHINE PILL. She is soooooo shocked to see me still there, she hands me the pills and RUNS to the relief nurse. I could NOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!!!!

(I did immediately call DON and tell what happened. Luckily, my CNA was still checking on another res, and saw the whole thing.--------they got a slap on the wrist! that was it!!!) :madface: :madface:

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

Makes me wonder what makes them keep these nurses at these jobs. I'm assuming it is because of the bedside nursing shortage.

[daisey_may]

I hope that someone got in trouble for this!!! Did you speak to a manager??? I would have been furious!!!:angryfire

My mom has a cerebral aneurysm and several years ago had a repair attempted by coiling. Afterwards she was taken to PACU and my dad and I saw her briefly before going to get something to eat; we were supposed to be able to take her home that evening. When we got back the nurse told me Mom had started vomiting blood. After talking to me the nurse disappeared. Literally. They were full and busy, I appreciate that, but somebody had told the staff I was a nurse (not me!) and they deserted me. I was holding my mom up, holding the basin for her to puke in, and suctioning out her mouth, all the while trying to reassure her that she was not going to die (I wasn't sure at the time) and trying to keep my dad calm. I kept asking passing staff for help and the nurse finally came back and said "You're a nurse, you can help," and disappeared again.

[LoriAlabamaRN]

At the first job I took after nursing school, I was an RN on the 11-7 shift at a physical rehab facility. One of the 3-11 RNs was OCD (literally, in fact she would cite her OCD as a "disability" and use the ADA to justify the special treatment she demanded.) She was actually a BSN but used to brag that it took her 11 years to get her degree. She thought it proved what determination she had. Anyway, she used to stay until 5am OR LATER (some mornings she would still be there when I left at 7:30am) because she claimed she had to read each patient's chart cover to cover for spelling errors before she could chart. She typically would only see each patient one time per shift (to give them their medicine). She refused to cut her fingernails, so they were two to three inches long, yellowed, and dirty-looking. We were allowed to wear either white or burgundy scrubs, she wore an old-fashioned button-up white nurse's dress every day, about two sizes too small so the buttons strained; opaque white stockings, and clunky white patent-leather shoes. Her hair was always in a mounded up beehive-like hairdo with a NURSE'S CAP perched on the front of it. Another weird compulsion- on many documents, nurses have to initial as documentation that they have done something- on MARs, on bandages they apply, etc. Well, this wacko would ONLY write out her full name, followed by "RN, BSN." And her name was LONG. For discretion purposes, I will call her Crazyjanedoe Crazylynn McLooneynurse. That is a fair approximation of the length of her name. Well, she would NEVER write her initials, only her entire name. Even on dressing changes. While the rest of us would, for example, do a dressing change and write "AB 1/23 1700" She would insist on writing "Crazyjanedoe Crazylynn McLooneynurse RN, BSN 1/23 100" on each new dressing. For example, if a patient had a total knee replacement, they would typically have one long incision (dressed with a long strip of gauze) and two or three tiny incisions from drains which we'd dress with one 2x2 over each. Well, this clown would put a long enough dressing over EACH so that she could write her full name and credentials on each dressing even though they were half an inch from eachother. Instead of using one 2x2 to dress a drain site, she would fold two 4x4s, tape them together lengthwise, and put it over the drain site with paper tape simply so she could write out her full name and credentials. Instead of a 2-inch long dressing over the drain site, hers would be about ten inches long. It wasn't just her obsessive-compulsive behavior that scared me, though. If she didn't know the answer to a question, she would simply make one up. For instance, we had one patient who was stage 4 lung and liver cancer and was deemed beyond treatment. He was scheduled to go into Hospice care once his hepatic surgery incision healed. Anyway, at this time Lunesta was a fairly new sleep aid. This man's doctor had prescribed it for him. His wife was very involved with his care, and asked McLooneynurse what Lunesta was for. Rather than telling them she did not know but she would look it up, she told the patient and his wife that Lunesta was a brand new cancer drug that worked miracles on many cancer patients. ***?!?!? Next thing you know, this patient's wife is hysterical, calling the doctor, demanding to know why she was told her that her husband had no chance of survival and they hadn't told her of this new miracle drug Lunesta!!!

Administration tried several times to get rid of her, but each time this lady claimed immunity under the ADA act and insisted that we were required by law to make certain allowances for her "disability." Apparently about six months after I quit, they found a way to fire her because she put in an application at the nursing home I worked at last. I flat out told the DON that if they hired her, I would quit immediately. She didn't get the job... thank goodness. I will never work with her again.

[lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN]

Crazyjanedoe Crazylynn McLooneynurse.

That is freakin' hilarious. What a nutbag!

[TazziRN, RN]

I hope that someone got in trouble for this!!! Did you speak to a manager??? I would have been furious!!!:angryfire

Oh, believe me, I was livid!!! After my mom got home (she had had a Mallory-Wiess tear that would not clot because of all the anti-coags she was given pre- and during procedure) I called the hospital and got in touch with pt relations. I told them that I never mind helping out when it's my family, but to leave me alone like that was wrong.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Well, this clown would put a long enough dressing over EACH so that she could write her full name and credentials on each dressing even though they were half an inch from eachother. Instead of using one 2x2 to dress a drain site, she would fold two 4x4s, tape them together lengthwise, and put it over the drain site with paper tape simply so she could write out her full name and credentials.

Sounds like the ego fairy dumped a bag of egodust over that one. Full name AND their college degree on the dressing????

[RGN1]

Some years back when I worked in a busy out patient unit there was a nurse who thought that it took too much of her time to sterilise the proctoscopes & sigmoidoscopes after her clinic so she just did the cleaning part of the process then ran the hottest water from the tap over them saying that was enough!!

That was back in the days when we had metal stuff which we cleaned & sterilised ourselves at the end of the clinic.

Still makes me cringe even now when I think of all those patients that had exams without properly sterilised equipment when she'd done the previous clinic. YUK!!!!

Needless to say, if I was on duty I just picked them up after she'd done & put them in the steriliser but not many dared to challenge her assumptions in this way & I was not popular with her all the years I worked there. She made trouble for me whenever she could. However, that's another story!!

[Quickbeam, BSN, RN]

so she could write out her full name and credentials. Instead of a 2-inch long dressing over the drain site, hers would be about ten inches long.

OMG...so wrong yet I'm laughing up a lung.

BTW, you can absolutely fire someone with an ADA recognized disability. I've done it. If the person is NOT capable of doing the essential functions of the job with reasonable accommodation, they can be canned just like anyone else. The paperwork can be monstrous but it can be done. You just need a very motivated and determined manager.

[adrienurse, LPN]

more sad stories here. I'm not trying to pick on aides but I don't usually get to work with anybody but them so I don't have a lot of nurse stories.

I walk on a unit during my coffee break (it was the night shift) because I had so sign something and I find the place COMPLETELY dark. It was an alzheimer unit and the cna present was trying to get some sleep at the desk (she was the only one there because the nurse was on her break).

I was working with a casual aide (this was the same one with a bucket) and she was leaving the unit on her break, I said okay and didn't look up from what I was busy with to see where she was heading. Time passes and I'm waiting and waiting for her to come back because I needed help. Finally I got the supervisor to go look in the usual places. Didn't find her. They paged her. Nada. Finally I found her curled up in the linen closet where she had made herself a nice place to have a nap between shelves.

I have so many inproper restraint stories. I floated on an other unit. I was in the middle of a med pass and one of the aides came to tell me that so and so would not stay in her wheel chair. I asked him to stay with her for a moment and I'd be there to see what the problem was. When I did get to her, I found her tied to the wheelchair with a bedsheet and him nowhere to be found.

[adrienurse, LPN]

Just remembered another

I had a resident on my LTC unit whose husband was in a wheelchair because of a stroke (but who still lived independantly in the community). He was visiting her in the evening around 8 pm. All of a sudden I hearing protests and a scuffle down the hall. Agency HCA was trying to undress him to "get him ready for bed".

[ladyinred667]

WOOT WOOT!

Glad to see it took at least 3 days for someone to come in here and blast us for this. I for one have learned a lot for other people's mistakes, and my own. Yes, we have all made our own mistakes, but the topic of this thread is "mistakes OTHER people have made" that you can't believe. Have you ever worked with someone who supposedly graduated from nsg school, and just cannot believe the crap they just did?

And PS - most of the mistakes listed above weren't just mistakes, they were potentially fatal/harmful mistakes (Percocet through a central line? Giving meds other people draw up?)

Honestly, this happens every time there is a post like this where nurses are blowing off steam, etc. We should probably just ignore the trolls and not engage them any further.

[k9's mom]

In reference to the nurse with OCD...man what a wacko/pyscho!!! Scary-how some people get thru Nursing school and are actually practicing in the medical profession!