Most Dreaded Procedures

[RN-PA]

I work Med/Surg and there are certain procedures that I dread performing and last night I had one that I dread: Inserting a foley catheter in an uncircumcised 81-year-old man. I have so much trouble with the foreskin getting impossibly slippery with the lubricant and I can't get a grip! The sterility of the procedure is impossible to maintain with the foreskin in the way... (I need a screaming smilie!) And of course, there's usually an enlarged prostate to contend with. Does anyone have any tips to help me with this in the future since I invariably am inserting foleys in uncircumcised 80 year olds?

What other procedures do you dread? NG tube insertion? Trach care/suctioning? Peritoneal Dialysis? Wound Care? Starting IV's? Giving injections? Inquiring minds want to know.

[prn nurse]

We never dump the contents of suction containers. Those things are made to cap off and toss. Several infectious disease docs have told us to always have a mask on when disconnecting them---prior to tossing. Pseudomonas and strep are dominant pathogens in them...!

[deespoohbear]

I hate irrigating and changing colostomies!! The smell about gags me everytime!!

Dread doing CPR on some little frail elderly person and hearing a feeling their ribs crack with each compression. Makes me cringe everytime.

I kind of like doing NG's and foleys! Guess I am strange. I seem to have a knack for them.

[RNforLongTime]

When I worked on the renal floor at my last hospital, we were the only RNs in the hospital that were permitted to do PD. So no matter where the pt was in the hospital, an RN from my floor had to go and to the exchange. Didn't matter if the pt was in ICU or whatever. Sometimes got to be a PITA especially when the floor was very busy which was all the time. There were a few times where we had three PD pt's in the hosp that weren't on our unit. They were ALL on q4hr exchanges!

I don't mind spit or poop or blood or giving IM's or starting IV's.

I will NOT draw blood from a pt. Never been trained. Actually had the nursing sup call up one night and ask if I could do the blood draw on a pt on TB precautions as no one working in the lab that night was fit tested with the particulate respirator masks. I said absolutely not! Are you gonna send up the phleb tech to do my BP's on my pts? I dont think so! She ended up sending an ER nurse up to draw the blood.

Grossest thing I've seen is the corneal retreival on a pt that had just died from metastatic breast ca. Her family donated her corneas, so I had to keep the body on the floor til the eye bank RN got there to remove them. When the vitreous humor came out, I thought I was gonna pass out!