Most Embarrassing Moments!

beth66335, BSN, RN · Jul 16, 2007

I am going to start NS in the fall, so I don't have an embarrassing Nurse story yet, but I do have a CNA story from 2 years ago. The door handles on patient rooms at our hospital tip down on the outside of the door and I went to a room to do an hourly check on a ortho gentleman with a total knee. I had just bought a new scrub top( the kind that snap down the front). As I went into his room the handle went between 2 snaps and undid my whole top! Fortunately, #1 the patient was asleep, and #2 the bathroom was just inside the room. I ducked in the BR and fixed myself. Then I just started laughing! The patient woke up, thankfully he never knew why I was carrying on! :uhoh3: :jester:

2bRnKim · Jul 16, 2007

I will be in the nursing program this Aug. But I do have a story from when I was a medical assistant. I was giving an injection to a lady n a wheelchair that HAD to go into the hip according to my supervisor. I gave the lady the injection and for some reason I said "I hope that didn't hurt you". She replied "Honey. I haven't felt my legs for years. I didn't feel a thing". DUH!! She's in a wheelchair! Parylized!!! :lol2:

I never ask patients if the procedure hurt again.

Kim

spoiled_lil_sister · Jul 16, 2007

another "no legs" story for y'all:

earlier this year i worked as a tech on a telemetry unit. i worked graveyard, so it was our responsibility to bathe & weigh dialysis patients since inpatients went around 0600. the other pca had 5 or 6 patients to get ready, and since i only had 1, i agreed to help him out. he asked me to take rooms x, y, & z for him. i know, don't say it, but since it wasn't "my patient", i didn't have a kradex on any of these people, just their names on my vitals sheet. (a whole other thread, i know, but for the record i believe all patients should be taken care of by all available hcw, so please excuse me saying it wasn't my patient!) well, the name is last, first with a limited amount of charachters (doesn't denote gender on this page). let's see, i guess due to hipaa i'll use the last name smith but i will use the real patient's first name. my sheet said "smith, robert", so never having met this pt before, i walk into the room & am waiting for the lights to come on and say "good morning, mr. smith!" i was horrified to see a woman sitting in bed before me. she was laughing so hard at my ignorant butt (thank goodness) when she informed me that her name was roberta smith & that it was nice to meet me. i apologized & we laughed about it. i figured i would quit the chit-chat & change the subject, so i asked her to please stand up onto the scale for me. again, she was doubled-over laughing at me. didn't get it until she told me to throw the covers back & see for myself what she was laughing about. sure enough, one aka & one bka! i almost died i was so embarassed! she, again, laughed it off telling me that i'm the sorry one because i still have to shave my legs & she doesn't! i loved this lady - so strong for what she had endured in her life & can still joke about it. i'm so fortunate that she realized that i didn't know anything about her medical hx & that she had a sense of humor about it. she told me she was glad to have a new person take care of her since the others already knew about her condition & she "couldn't freak them out". she asked if i could please send her some fresh meat for the next shift.

needless to say, before i go into anyone's room, i always check their gender first since i beleive in calling patients (regardless of age) by mr. or ms. and if they are a hd pt, i now ask if they are able to stand for me since sometimes amputations aren't included in their hx. why, i'm not sure!

locolorenzo22, BSN, RN · Jul 17, 2007

Well, let's see, in a grand total of 2 semesters I have managed to acheive the following stories.....

1. First day of clinical, having NOOO patient care expierence, being told to do a complete assessment of patient, I pull diabetic LTC resident away from breakfast table, do assessment, then get instructor for meds and am berated for not feeding breakfast....which I understand now...I'm suprised my butt didn't get kicked out after one day....

2. In hospital med surg, going to finger stick a patient and not realizing that the color coded lancet is coded for the end the needle comes out on....I worked at the other hospital in town, and the colored end what what we pushed...at clinical, I ended up trying to stick patient 3 times, then stuck myself, used paper tape to wind around fingers, then finally got patient stuck.

3. Had a patient with a swollen groin area (M) who tried to convince me that this cream/gel needed to be applied by myself to his weeping bleeding sores and this is what all the nurses did.. :uhoh3: ...I promptly reminded him that once he was discharged he would have to care for sore himself, so why not see how he was able to do so, AND got it signed off as a teaching/learning project! LOL.

More to come over the next year, I'm sure.

CRNA2BKY · Jul 17, 2007

I'm in the middle of my ABSN program, so I don't have a lot of embarrassing stories...YET. In my career that I just left, I was an airline pilot. Here was one of my more embarrassing moments as a pilot. On one particular trip, I had landed in Cincinnati several times, and was use to saying "Welcome to Cincinnati."

Well, on this one leg, I flew to Chicago, and after I landed, I told the passengers, "Welcome to Cincinnati". Well, about 1/2 the passengers just had to stick their heads up in the cockpit and remind me that we were in Chicago, not Cincinnati. A few even had remarks such as, "I hope you know where you're going", or "I don't think I want to fly with a pilot that doesn't know where he is."

Needless to say, it was pretty embarrassing.

Sabby_NC · Jul 17, 2007

Ok my most embarassing moment and this IS the truth.

I was in a step down unit working with my dearest friend.

We had a patient by the name of Romeo (honest) he was a rather good looking Italian. Oops I digress LOL

We were giving him his hygiene and I innocently looked at him and asked him if he would like a shave.

I never thought this would be such a bad thing to ask him but I offered a hand job ( NOT ELECTRIC SHAVER) due to the electrical monitoring equipment.

Anyway the PT in the next cubical heard me while giving her patient some chest physio. She says to her patient. 'That did not sound so good eh?'

Cate looked at me, I looked at her. We BOTH look at Romeo who is laughing his head off.

Cate runs into the store room I run into the utilities room and there we stay laughing until we were crying. OMGosh I will never ever forget that one!

Another one (again in all of my innocence) I walk into a room with 4 male patients. Pull the curtain around the guy I am going to give the injection too.

I had this saying ( I DON'T anymore LOL) as I began to give the injection - ' JUST A LITTLE PRICK"

You can imagine the interesting comments from the other side of the curtains eh?

'Oiii what is going on behind those curtains?'

'A little prick eh?'

and so on... I had to finish off giving the injection, pull the curtains and try to get out of the room without going beet red!!!

Arrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh me and my foibles hahahahaha:lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

BoonersmomRN · Jul 17, 2007

Hands down for me it was my 3rd day in 1rst semester at LTC.

I had lost some weight and needed new uniforms but was holding out for my paycheck. I had just finished getting my patient up for the day, washed, etc and was wheeling him out to the dayroom when WHOOSH my pants fall right off. I mean down to my ankles. There were 2 lady patients in the hallway behind me who started to laugh and I was mortified. I was able to pull them right back up in record time but i gotta tell you......I was 10 shades of purple.

Went out that night and charged new uniform pants...haha

CRNA2BKY · Jul 18, 2007

Hands down for me it was my 3rd day in 1rst semester at LTC.
I had lost some weight and needed new uniforms but was holding out for my paycheck. I had just finished getting my patient up for the day, washed, etc and was wheeling him out to the dayroom when WHOOSH my pants fall right off. I mean down to my ankles. There were 2 lady patients in the hallway behind me who started to laugh and I was mortified. I was able to pull them right back up in record time but i gotta tell you......I was 10 shades of purple.
Went out that night and charged new uniform pants...haha

Now that is funny! :lol2: :lol2:

kstec, LPN · Jul 18, 2007

My most embarissing (sp) was when a resident at the nursing home had a coccyx decub and was also losing weight. I went into do a dressing change on her dressing on her coccyx and there was this stringy stuff by her butt. There is this product that we use that looks like string plastic to pack decubs. Well I didn't know about this stuff because I had yet to use it. So upon removing the dressing and seeing this stuff I thought to myself "Well I just figured out why she's losing weight, she's got intestinal worms". So I go up to the nurses station with this and actually got confirmation that this might me worms. Well as I went to go look at the treatment book to find out what her treatment was, I looked for this medication and I'll be darned it looked identical except for other stuff was moistened by the decub. I felt like a total dork, she had no worms at all. I wish I could remember the name of the packing, but I still to this day get picked on about it.