Hardest patient as a student nurse?

LouisVRN, RN · Oct 16, 2011

Honestly it was a quad with a huge MRSA infected decub. I was 3 months pregnant at the time and helping the wound care nurse with the dressing change was the hardest thing I've done, just to keep from vomiting all over the place...it smelled awful.

silverbells_star · Oct 16, 2011

Mine was a vent patient that kept pulling out her tube and desatting. My instructor, stuck me in the room and said, I"ll be back to show you how a vent works and didn't come back for 3 hours. She had a g-tube, which I had never experienced, and of course got massive diarrhea. The nurse stopped by once and said oh thank goodness you're here, I don't have time to deal with her and left. When my instructor finally came back she kept questioning me on drugs, vents and g-tubes, etc, I was so flustered from dealing with the lady pulling out her tube every 5 minutes, I didn't know a single answer, I just kept saying, I don't know. I went home and sobbed, my one and only time crying from a clinical. It was way to hard of a patient for my experience level. I went back the next day determined to conqueror this, but our instructor pulled us from the floor to do something else, I was so disappointed.

talaxandra · Oct 16, 2011

My hands down worst patient was fine, it was the circumstances that made it so awful - I was floated to a surgical ward (after three medical rotations and still very junior) to special a young girl with an axialla DVT on a streptokinase infusion. I wasn't told what I had to look for, just to watch her, and I was so freaked and junior I couldn't even make conversation with her (which I hate, in retrospect - that poor girl must have been way more freaked out than I was).

If I left the room to get her a pan a passing RN would tell me off because she was being specialled; if I buzzed for help soeone would tell me that the pan room was just outside.

I came back with a pan mid-shift and discovered blood halfway up the line. I didn't know how to use the pump, let alone clear it, and in those days the lines wereconnected to the cannulae without a connector or tap. I left her room and went to the nurses' station to get a needle and syringe, and was confronted by the Charge Nurse, as I'd been told not to leave the patient.

Nothing happened, and admin soon standardised IV pumps hospital-wide (instead of having four different kinds, varying ward to ward) but the stress, powerlessness and lack of support have some back as I type this, over twenty years later.

ChristineN, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2011

I had a couple pts stand out to me in my nursing school days

In my ICU rotation there was the 50-something year old female with sickle cell crisis that had an MI and then went into multi-system organ failure. She was on gtts, vented, on a balloon pump. Died the next day.

The 23 year old boy who had just found out his leukemia had relapsed. Dealing with his depression and desire to have a normal life. I ended up forming a bond with him. He got a 2nd bone marrow transplant, died six month later.

That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Oct 16, 2011

During an internship. I was in the hospital for 24 hours. Emergent heart cath that led to CABG that led to IABP, that led to code, that led to cracking ribs for a wash out, that led to code, led to more chest tubes, then another code, and another. God it was an awful day/night but we were so busy that I didnt mind staying. I learned so much dealing with this person it was ridiculous.

This guy didnt leave the hospital for 3 months. We honestly thought he would not make it through the night. My GF at the time worked in rehab and I went to see her. He was there doing rehab trying to go back home. When I heard him talk for the first time, it blew me away. He recognized me, lord only knows how, and wanted to talk. Made me realize that what we do really can matter in the end.

beckyboo1, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2011

My first patient in pre-clinicals, which were 4 hour blocks for our first 2 weeks, was 95 or so years old, was blind, had a trach, a g tube, a fractured hip that had never healed and decubs on both hips that went to the bone. Add to that, his foley needed changing the first day I had him and he was strictured and I was unsuccessful at inserting the foley. I was sure the instructor was trying to get me to quit but I made it. Years later, I worked with this instructor in another capacity and she told me she "knew I could handle it." Yeah right LOL

bill4745, RN · Oct 16, 2011

A six month-old with a rare form of leukemia that had a few weeks to live. And I thought that things in my life were unfair. It was 30 years ago and I can still see her face.

bagladyrn, RN · Oct 16, 2011

Way back in the early 1980's I had clinicals at a pediatric long term hospital. At that time early in the AIDS crisis they had a special unit for HIV positive babies (who at that time were not likely to live past infancy). Between that and the children who were permanently damaged by child abuse, I knew that I did not have the strength to work in pediatrics.

NurseOnAMotorcycle, ASN, RN · Oct 16, 2011

My hardest pt was a 30-some year old mother dying of cancer with less than 2 weeks to live. Her sister refused to bring her 2 young sons to say goodbye.

I cried in the bathroom every 10 minutes or so.

beast master RN · Oct 16, 2011

wow great thread, iv got nothing like these just bm issues

ORoxyO · Oct 16, 2011

A man, about 50 years old. Came in with a broken femur which needed an ORIF. Simple enough, right? Turns out it broke due to the undiagnosed cancer that had mets all over his entire body. I stood there with his wife and children as he found out how bad it was, and cried with them for two days. We ended up setting up hospice for him and he was going home to live out his probably very short life. I'll never forget it. He thought he simply broke his leg....so sad.