Have you been ever gotten sick from working as a nurse?

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I know this question may seem silly so I apologize in advance. I'm not referring to common colds, stomach viruses, etc. I know those can be common esspecially in the beggining since your immune system has not adjusted to deal with so many things at once. BUT have you been infected or close to being infected with something serious?:o

Specializes in PICU.
Years ago working as a nurse in a nursing home at Christmas time. Every local Girl Scout & Boy Scout troop in & out for service projects to our people.....bringing their cute little lice critters with them. Spent 3-11 shift Christmas Eve that year quelling residents & the staff. Still makes me shiver.

How did they share lice?

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Specializes in NICU, ER, OR.

yes i got so burned out and so depressed, that i got physically sick as well as mentally, and ending up losing that job.

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Specializes in LTC, Hospice, Case Management.

Hard to say - lots of hugging, bent over together doing craft projects, etc.

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Specializes in Gerontology.

I know of a nurse and an Rt who got SARS during the SARS epidemic in 2003.

Personally, i don't think I can say with 100% confidence that I have gotten sick from work.

I think I had H1n1 a few years ago, but who's to say where I got it from? Like I always say, you are more likely to get MRSA from a shopping cart at Walmart than at work.

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Pretty sure I got the norovirus from a sweet little ECF patient a few years back. That was ROUGH.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

As a CNA and prenursing student, I contracted scabies-2 times in a few months! Then as a nursing student, I got a stomach bug, as did most if the staff and students at my clinical site last January/February.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

My first winter in peds I got pertussis from a patient. Fortunately I didn't pass it on to my immunosuppressed son. And just this past holiday season I had a "mildish" case of H1N1 that I can only have picked up at work... hadn't left my home for 5 days prior to working Christmas Day then hit with fever, chills, sore throat, muscle aches, cough on the 26th. Neither my spouse nor my son had it first nor got it from me.

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Specializes in ICU / PCU / Telemetry / Oncology.

I got facial cellulitis once, which I attribute to working with a MRSA patient and not being careful about rubbing my face while gowned up within the room. Thankfully, oral abx cleared it up nicely. When I was a volunteer before nursing school, I contracted H1N1. Had no health insurance at the time so stayed home pretty much waiting to die. Thankfully again, I pulled through.

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Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.

I don't think I've ever caught a single thing from working in health care.

A cold maybe, but nothing I couldn't have caught in the check out at WalMart.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Back in 2005 I got MRSA cellulitis---once on my face, the other two times on my right leg. Then I got C. diff after being on Clindamycin for six weeks. And THEN my gallbladder conked out! (Can't blame that one on the hospital though.)

I also contracted a nice case of Norovirus last year after about half my residents and staff got it. Ever throw up on the Interstate? Happened to me. :yuck:

Otherwise, I'm almost indecently healthy---seldom get colds or flu. I get bronchitis once every year and a half or so, but that's it.

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Specializes in CCM, PHN.

My first year working as a PHN, my patient population was largely homeless people in a major urban center, during a well-publicized pertussis outbreak. Of course I contracted it. Really thought it was a bad cold until I coughed so hard I passed out. Went to an ER where they were just going to send me home with a Z-pack & codeine cough syrup.....then a innocent little resident asked what I did for a living....and it was like a needle going off a record. Call the men in black!!! LOL!

The culture was AWFUL, a long wire with a swab on the end, RIGHT UP my snout and into the old oro/nasopharynx. Gross! I was quarantined at home for 2 weeks and felt like I'd been run over by a locomotive. The cough was the least of it....the weakness, fatigue, and no appetite was the worst. The only good thing that came out of it was that I lost about 12 lbs. Haha! And yeah, my insurance covered everything and my employer was super cool about it.

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Specializes in ER.

Twice when I was a triage paramedic in an ER. Each time I took a sneeze to the face from a child without a mask on (I had taken it off because I was in the back). It was just a cold though.

The first time I didn't realize it till at the end of shift when I started having a headache. It went away after a day and I felt fine. Then I lost my voice for 3 weeks and started coughing. The entire time I had no voice I felt perfectly fine despite people telling me to sign in to be seen.

Then the second time I ended up with a headache, congestion, and a cough for a week.

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