What have other nurses done that have freaked you out?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  • Specializes in Med/Surg, ER and ICU!!!.

You are reading page 5 of What have other nurses done that have freaked you out?

Specializes in ICU, PICC Nurse, Nursing Supervisor.

I got another....

When I was in nursing school and doing a rotation through tele, my teacher was a ICU nurse in the same hospital very well respected and knew her stuff.. One of the BSN student nurses walked up to my instructor and told her she could not find her teacher or the nurse, but how in the world was she going to give the patient his meds out of the ampule without cutting his lip......:banghead:

Specializes in Orthosurgery, Rehab, Homecare.
I saw a nurse sniff and then lick her finger and exclaim... "Yep, it's Jevity"... she touched goop that was around the stoma of a G-tube.... I damn near stroked out

:barf02:

~Jen

Specializes in Critical Care, Pediatrics, Geriatrics.

A family member of a pt came running to me saying her father couldn't breathe and needed to be suctioned (he was palliative care). When I walked in he was starting to lose color around his lips, gurgling as the family had said, and his lungs sounded awful. I ran to get the nurse who was counting narcotics and told her that he needed suctioning now. She just looked at me and said, 'Well, there are three nurses by the pt's door so get one of them to do it!" BTW, it was also 3:00 and she was getting off at 3:15, and had been sitting on her duff for the last 15min! I told her that there wasn't anyone outside that pt's door and that the pt was still her responsibility until she gave report to another nurse...so she got mad and went to suction the pt. BTW, the charge nurse was busy drawing her labs and hanging a potassium for her that she had waited until the last minute to request. I let the Charge nurse know what happened.

Specializes in CCU,ICU,ER retired.

Once I asked the "charge" nurse to watch my pt. while I get a tray from the cafetira. The pt I had was a fresh trauma mva that had crushed every bone in his face esp. the sinus area and he had an oral gastric tube because of the extensive damge. some how the oral tube came out and she put it nasogastric. I lost it when I found out she had left it hooked to high suction when placing it. I asked her if she checked it and she said no, sure enough she had pushed it into this kid's noggin. Heads were rollin' the next day. I did call the neuro guy when it happened. get this she tried to blame it on me but the Doctor told the big shots that it wasn't my deal and he named the nurse They still didn't fire her after this and 3-4 major disasters she had done, because she tild them if they fired her she would sue them for discrimination.(she weighed close to 500 lbs)

scaredofshots

78 Posts

Specializes in Med/Surg, ER.

I will be the first to say that I didn't know much about anything but when this happened to me while working as a Tech on our Med-Surg. unit I just knew it was wrong.

I had taken the vital signs of a patient the BP was something like 74/40 anyway it was low, and the patient stated that they needed something for pain, so I went to find her nurse and let her know about the low BP and request for medicine. The nurse looks at me and says "Crap that's a low one, better give her a bolus to get her BP up so I can give her some pain med. so she will shut up and leave me alone."

Later I over heard her telling another nurse what she did. I stayed away from her the rest of the night!:twocents:

littleroxy79

15 Posts

Specializes in telemetry, cardiac intermediate care,.

i am actually working with the RN tonight. this happened last year. we work on a telemetry/ step down unit. she was pulled to another tele floor. so we heard this from the other nurses working with her. one of her patients pumps was beeping so another nurse went to check on it. well, she went to the room to find out that the patient had cardizem hooked up, but it was on hold. the pump was set at 125 cc/hr. first, it's a 1:1 ratio and we mix it in a 100 cc bag. the highest we run it on the floor is 20 mg/hr. so the nurse was shocked and checked the patients vitals and stayed with them. the attending rn finally showed up and said, " i was just verifying the order." luckily she didn't have it running. the following week, she asked us how to mix the drug and almost did the same thing. we sent the charge nurse to check on her patient to see if the right rate was made. she's been a nurse for 30 some odd years.

another incident is when she took care of a fresh pacer. 5 am she tells the charge nurse that her patient was asking if anyone else was working. the charge rn went to the room and the patient had a HUGE hematoma the size of a softball on his left shoulder. he had said he had asked his nurse about it the night before at 9pm. she didn't tell anyone until 5am the next morning.

Specializes in Paeds, Gen surg, Coronary Care, ED.

3 incidences.

1) cas pool nurse working on rehab ward, pts sats down to 78%. wrote it down, and walked off

2) same nurse, attends to another patients dressing while the patient is on the tiolet.

3) in a arrest, the patient goes asystole, a very senior nurse starts cardiac compressions, then looks at the monitor at declares she's in VT.... it was just her compressions being reflected on the screen

Specializes in pure and simple psych.
I got another....

When I was in nursing school and doing a rotation through tele, my teacher was a ICU nurse in the same hospital very well respected and knew her stuff.. One of the BSN student nurses walked up to my instructor and told her she could not find her teacher or the nurse, but how in the world was she going to give the patient his meds out of the ampule without cutting his lip......:banghead:

Maybe with a teeny, tiny little straw. Yeah, that;s the ticket... a really little straw.:uhoh21:

LoriAlabamaRN

955 Posts

An LPN I worked with at my last job called me into a room where a LOL had just gotten up without calling, tried to walk to the bathroom and fallen. Her bed was soaked with urine, and thie LPN tells me "Look how soaked this bed is!" as she wipes her UNGLOVED hand across the soaking sheet, holds her dripping palm up to show me, and then... I swear to goodness... she WIPED her hand off on her scrub pants!!!

I almost passed out right then and there...

jmgrn65, RN

1,344 Posts

Specializes in cardiac/critical care/ informatics.
It greatly helps to place one's self in the shoes of the CNA, especially a LTC CNA. I work at a nursing home, and each one of my CNAs is assigned 12 to 15 patients each. They simply do not have the time to sit with one patient for an extended period of time when there are other call lights that need to be answered in an expedient manner.

In addition, most LTC facilities suffer from high employee turnover and attrition rates, so the DON usually won't bestow severe punishments upon lazy staff members. The DON is just happy that a warm body has arrived to fill the necessary shift. In addition, there's typically not enough quality time for most LTC nurses and aides to devote to non-emergencies such as panic attacks and screaming. Few, if any, procedures are done by the book in LTC. You'll learn as you spend more time in your new LVN role.

OK I see that point, But the CNA was given narcotics, that is not within thier scope of practice, and certainly not for the nurse to delegate. Deserve more punishment.

jmgrn65, RN

1,344 Posts

Specializes in cardiac/critical care/ informatics.

I have one that is a little more lighthearted, than the rest.

My NA and myself was assisted a patient in a semi private room, we were behind the curtain. We heard a fellow nurse giving the other patient meds, a pill fell on the floor and the nurse says "should we go by the 5 second rule or get another on" The patients family about went nuts. The patinet and family said please get another one. The nurse then replies " it might take me a while to get it"

DawnFL

17 Posts

This happened a LONG time ago (about 16 yrs). I was working as a CNA in a nursing home. While visiting the other hallway ( I did not work this hallway) around 3 am, one of the LPNs working decided it was time to do a round (we worked 11p -- 7 a) on her residents. She entered a room and found a resident on the floor in the bathroom, this res. had been dead so long that the urine on the floor had dried and he was going into rigor. They picked him up off the floor, placed him in bed, took his vitals (duh) and said "Pt found in bed dead at 2300." The DON showed up and told us we all were to say the same. I refused. The LPN didn't do her round at the beginning of the shift. She didn't have a CNA that night. It was not a busy floor, so that can not be used as an excuse. Needless to say, I left there shortly after that.

Dawn

+ Add a Comment