Kodak Moments - Just When You Think You've Seen it All

[Joe V]

No photos please. This is a HIPAA zone.

As nurses, we deal with all sorts of sights..... After awhile, there is little that surprises. But, occasionally we get some real surprises. What are some of the "Kodak moments" (memories) you have seen?

[HappyWife77, BSN, RN]

I'm sorry to say......I don't think anything could surprise me anymore. With more than 20 years of nursing I've seen almost everything, came in closer contact with more dysfunctional families than I ever wished to.

I've cried, laughed, cringed and rejoiced with every imaginable situation and looking forward to 20 more years of it!

[lmolinaRN, BSN, RN]

I like the post, I agree, sometimes we need to take the moment to think if it is apropiate or not what we want to do with our patients, many times there are things not convinient, so we have to hold our horses and think about the feelings of the patient as a human being. Luis Molina, RN, BSN. Miami

[amoLucia]

I think your carton nurse may be getting into HIPAA trouble if she doesn't watch out!

[Ruas61, BSN, RN]

CNA applying an incontinence pad with the stay in place strips to the patient skin and hair. He also picked up a woman's breast by the nipple to apply crème.

[HappyWife77, BSN, RN]

Ruas61 said:

CNA applying an incontinence pad with the stay in place strips to the patient skin and hair. He also picked up a woman's breast by the nipple to apply crème.

What the.......! Oh my that is so bad.

[chiandre]

An Obstetrical Resident about to do an exam without gloves!! Ewwwww!

The worst part is that it took two nurses and an attending MD to explain the implications.

Disgusting!

[RNNPICU, BSN, RN]

Well, the nurse in the cartoon could still take the pictures as long as nothing identifying the pt. Plus she could darken out the patients face thereby allowing it to be used as a great teaching tool. Now... a post on facebook, would definitely be frowned upon.

It is so true the things we see as nurses. The general public can't even imagine some of the things we see

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

I worked with a nurse a few years back that had a freak-out moment when our resident went into sudden respiratory distress. The freak out moment is understandable, but it consisted of her running around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for oxygen and it resulted in her placing a nasal cannula...on a trached resident. Thank goodness wiser heads stepped in and removed the mucous plug from her trach thereby averting what could have been a disaster.

[idialyze, BSN, RN]

My first Kodak moment was my very first day of clinicals and my very first patient. I took her temperature. She was dead.

It all went downhill after that, LOL!

[richardgecko]

OB nurse cleaning lochia off a 1 hr postpartum mom with no gloves on

Granted she was very old school and extremely knowlegeable (one of those nurses that you almost cower in fear of their all knowing and seen it all attitude) but still....cleaning baby juice with no gloves? No bueno

[icu/don]

Had one of these moments today when one of our primary nurses called me to her room to verify an increase in a Fentanyl drip. I slowly opened the door a crack to reach the keyboard, when I realized that I was getting mooned by her patient.

The primary nurse was scurrying around the room while three wound care nurses held her patient on his side with his whole backside exposed to my view. The fourth wound care nurse was busy attempting to prepare a HUGE peri-rectal/scrotal absess (caused by gas gangrene) for a new wound vac dressing. If I would not have known where the poor guy's wound was, I don't think I would have realized that I was getting mooned.

This was only rivaled by the sight about a week and a half ago of the same patient when there was a rectal tube going somewhere into that wound. Just prior to getting a sigmoid colostomy, I was assisting the primary nurse with a 1 liter Lactulose enema. Due to the fact that there was no longer any spincter the enema was not flowing down the rectal tube very well. After 300cc was instilled, I suggested that we call it good and clamp the rectal tube. Instead the gung ho nurse suggested that I squeeze the tube from the syringe to the body to help get it in. While I was pushing the lactulose down the tube the nurse had the bright idea to attempt putting another syringe of Lactulose in the tube. Needless to say, she pushed the syringe to hard coming disconnected and spraying Lactulose all over the room as well as into my face.

Better end my story right there.