GETTING WRITTEN UP: What is the most ridiculous thing you have been written up for?

LilyVictor · Feb 24, 2004

You're not going to believe this one! When I was freshly out of nursing school, I was pulled to another unit where I knew absolutely nothing about the specialty. I was scared to death I would make a mistake. I must have looked serious or something. The head nurse told me to smile. I told her that I didn't have anything to smile about right now. She wrote me up for attitude! (My head nurse took one look at that, said a few choice words, and tore it up...It didn't go in my permanent record).:chuckle

LilgirlRN, ADN, RN · Feb 24, 2004

I was written up long ago for refusing to wear my cap. I told them that when they decided to make the guys wear one I would wear mine too, lol. :)

soltera · Feb 24, 2004

I got points taken off my eval for not wearing makeup.
An MD screamed at me on the phone and hung on me. I charted the incident and my UD tried to have me fired for it.

are you kidding? for not wearing makeup?? i never wear makeup, i'm a soap and water face kind of girl.i like my freckly face

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Feb 24, 2004

are you kidding? for not wearing makeup?? i never wear makeup, i'm a soap and water face kind of girl.i like my freckly face

I wish I were kidding but it is the G-d's honest truth.

gingerzoe · Feb 24, 2004

Years ago I worked in a small rural hospital. One of my coworkers was transferring to another department. After the work was done(I worked 3-11) we decided to order pizza. I called it in. When it arrived the switchboard operator announced over the pa system that my pizza was here. That announcement was made and the phone immediately started ringing. The nursing supervisor asked me what the director of nursing would think about a pizza truck being parked outside. (The year this happened was 1980). I have never been written up for any patient problems. :chuckle

RNKPCE · Feb 24, 2004

gingerzoe I think the switchboard operator should have been written up. Our management on very rare occasion actually pays for us to order pizza. Sometimes we have Chinese food delivered in. I guess back then that would have been weird.

PMHNP10 · Feb 24, 2004

:chuckle In LTC facility we had been having problems with the kitchen. The administrator, whose office was right off the dining room, told us if we had any questions to let him know. On this morning the oatmeal was so thick and gummy you couldn't get it off the spoon or mixed with milk, so showed him. He said "That is just like my Mother used to make." So I told the girls to serve it that "It is just like his mother used to make" I was written up for calling his mother a bad cook!!! :angryfire

This by far takes the cake. I hope the admin was joking and actually presented this with a smile (and not a sh!& eating one). I'm pretty certain that if I were in your shoes I would have been fired immediately for laughing hysterically in his face just as I did when I read this post. It seems homeboy needed to get a life.

I have fortunately never been written up for attitude, not being a team player, insubordination, etc, but I did once have a verbal counselling with my nurse manager. I was taking care of a 60 something y/o female who had broken a few of her favorite body parts after having gotten good a liquored up and deciding to go play in traffic. I was giving her night meds while the family was visiting, so the son asked me what the librium was for. I admittedly was uncomfortable with stating the obvious because grandkids were in the room, so I danced around the subject by saying it will help her relax, etc. The NM said the son complained because I "clammed up" while he was asking questions. Again, I can't deny that I did, but the thing that threw me for a loop was that the son came up to me a bit later and thanked me and said I answered a pretty difficult question well. While I'm listening to this, my mouth is gaping open, and I said "Would the son have preferred me to say 'well kiddies, granny is a lush and this will help her cope without her alkey-haul'?".

JulieDavis · Feb 24, 2004

I have a good one for everyone! I am a student. I wear a bright blue name badge with 3/4" letters that say "STUDENT" so that no one mistakes me for a licensed professional or asks me to do anything outside my scope of practice. During shadowing of a nurse in the ER, a pt was brought in by the local paramedics unresponsive, wet, dirty, SOB, and other related signs and symptoms. After several blood draws, a ct scan, chest xray, eeg, ekg and still no response, the ER doctor decided to admit him. After removing the rest of his clothes and putting him in a gown the ER doctor discovers the pt has something "wedged" in his rectum. After 10 minutes the ER doc decides to remove it. Upon completion the pt sat straight up on that gurney scaring the ER doc into the next state, at which time he shoves the gurney into me knocking me to the floor and pinned under the gurney. He fled the room leaving the head ER nurse laughing so hard she could not help me for a good 4 to 5 minutes. He wrote me up per say to my instructor for "having a panic attack during emergency procedure". I don't remember any panic until I was lip to bottle with the O2 container. Did I panic? Please help! I am so very confused!

Jen2 · Feb 25, 2004

I am still a nursing student, but currently work as a phlebotomist whlie I'm in school. Anyway about 2 years ago our hospital went to a computerized system, and on the day that this was to take place there was extra staff in the office, and the med techs had extra staff. However, there was only us two lonely phlebotomists. Well needless to say the computer system did not run smoothly and most of the the 5:00a.m. routine labs (we have two hours to draw these) did not print out until 10:00a.m. So at 10:00a.m. us two phlebs had 62 people to draw blood on. We had docs and nurses screaming STAT at us in the halls. I phoned my director, because I was getting beeper burns and told him that we needed help. He stated that there was no one else to help and to do our best.

So, needless to say we got wrote up for poor turn around time and jeopardizing timely patient care. Whatever! I never signed the report and have no idea if it's in my record or not. It's funny that the director thought it be so pertinent that there was extra staff there to answer phones and fax results, but not anyone to actually draw the blodd.

blinks · Jan 8, 2005

One night the Don of the LTC place where I worked handed over last month's MAR's and TX sheets and asked me to go through and find the "holes'' and fill them in. I filled out missing blood pressures, weights and accu-checks that I searched through Nurses Notes for and left the rest blank.
I can't believe I got busted for not forging paperwork.

I was once fired from a job as a CNA for filling in all the "holes" with my initials. The surveyors were coming and I thought I was doing the staff a favor. Terminated me for "falsifying documents".

CseMgr1, ASN, RN · Jan 8, 2005

Several years ago, when I was working in home health, I was written up for sending a patient to the ER at 12:30 AM, after his wife called me to report that his catheter was leaking. This elderly gentlemen, who had a prostate the size of a grapefruit, sprung leaks every three weeks. It had been well-documented throughout the course of his admit to our agency, that NONE of our nurses, including the other supervisor, had been successful in passing a catheter on this man...including a coude'. The only alternative they had was to send him to the ER, for placement. I did not have a coude' in my car, and knowing what I did know about this man's history, and utilizing my best professional judgment, I advised his wife to transport him to the ER. Well, as I discovered the next morning, that was the wrong thing to do. My manager, not even making eye contact with me, walked into my office, flung a written warning down onto my desk, turned around and walked out, muttering: "You need to take care of this". I picked up the form and read it in disbelief. It just so happened that the other supervisor, who was overseeing this man's care, and who had NEVER been able to place a catheter in him herself, had filed the complaint against me. I was not allowed to defend myself, so I quit. :angryfire

bluesky, BSN, RN · Jan 8, 2005

I was once written up during my senior preceptorship in ER by an internist who was extremely upset that I had to leave her completely stable febrile pt on a bedpan for count em 10 WHOLE minutes when another of my pt's SBP suddenly spiked to 220 and I had to mix a Nipride drip. My manager and I had the joy of sending that one to the trashola together_ we ripped it in half and I threw one half and she threw the other... otherwise, I haven't been written up yet but I've only been a nurse for 6 months so I'm sure it will happen soon. :lol2: