humerous, yet a little scary story

[fhockeychick504]

I work on a shoulder and elbow surgery floor and occasionally we get plastic surgery patients who are staying overnight come to our floor. (although i'm not sure why...) Well last night was one of those times. General surgery was covering so if we had any problems we were to call them. A resident that none of my co-workers had met before came up to the floor to see the patient and to write insulin orders for her. While he was in the nurses station a code blue was called on a different floor. We heard the announcement and just went along with our business. Then the resident turns to us and says, "What's a code blue?"

We all looked at each other thinking "he's joking right? he has to be joking."

Oh, he was serious. So we told him what it was. He mumbled something about how that's something he'll have to go over with his senior resident and that he just knows it as a 'code'. We all just looked at him like "you're nuts buddy" and he left the floor.

Now it IS general knowledge that a code blue is a medical emergency, correct? You don't need to have any medical background to know that, right? All you need is to watch one hour of a medical drama to know what it means.

Just wanted to share that story.

[lifelearningrn, BSN, RN]

Some people are brilliant... but have absolutely no common sense!

[Hygiene Queen]

As far as I know, "code blue" is universal. Other codes may vary, but I've never heard a code blue called anything but a "code blue".

Maybe the resident was having a most unfortunate brain fart.

[dorisc1981]

People ask questions to of course clarify doubts. I don't see the harm. The harsh judgement it's too much I am sure there are things that if he will ask a nurse he might think really she doesn't know. Code blue varies. For some hospitals it's a security issue.

[j621d]

Are you sure he was a resident? Did anyone question who he was? This could be a possible breech in confidentiality. You never know...

[LevitateMe, RN]

Some people are brilliant... but have absolutely no common sense!

this is my theory *most of the time*:

the more education and information people (usually doctors) take in the less room they have up there for common sense! eventually it just starts dripping out.

[tri-rn]

Not all hospitals call it a code blue, terminology varies.

[Up2nogood RN, RN]

It does vary across the country. We JUST started calling it a code blue... We were 'code 99' for at least the past 12 years-since I've been here. And BTW I've never heard of code blue in my life (guess I don't watch enough tv).

[Orca, ADN, ASN, RN]

One hospital I worked in called CRT (cardiac resuscitation team) and the room number.

[Mulan]

As others have said, it's not called a code blue everywhere.

Not all people watch TV medical dramas.

[nohika]

Yeah, at the hospital I volunteer at it's Code 99 for a crashing pt, and Code Green for a crashing visitor/worker, hah. Don't now how many of those have happened.

[belgarion]

We use "Code 99" as well. The thinking is it doesn't upset the other patients and visitors since most of them don't know what it is. As said above, every school kid knows what "code blue" is.