Murphy's Law of Nursing

[Pepper The Cat]

1. The admission they want to send you is always the opposite sex of your only available bed - resulting in bed moves.

2. A certain MD always takes at least 20 minutes to respond to your page - except for the time when you page him and then run to the bathroom - that time he calls back in 3 minutes.

3. The loud snorer is never roommates with the pt who is deaf. No, he is roommates with the light sleeper.

4. Families always want to talk to the discharge planner, social worker, specialist or manager on a Sunday afternoon when none of these people are working. and the get mad at YOU because they are not available.

5. Pts are either constipated requiring laxs, enemas etc, or have exploding diarrhea.

What are your Murphy's Laws?

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

You may have the best night - nice patients, "that word that must not be mentioned" - and then, right before shift change, all hell breaks loose.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

They admission they send to you needs dialysis, and all of your dialysis rooms are occupied, resulting in patients being moved....at 0300.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

The meanest patients never die, but bein nice and polite is a poor prognostic indicator.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

zofran said:

The pt will stop having BMs when a stool sample is ordered!

Or no longer cough up sputum when a sputum culture is ordered!

[GitanoRN, BSN, MSN, RN]

when you thought you were done at the end of your shift, that's when your pt. in 317-a, falls over the bed rails while you still have 13 min. to spare on the clock

[winnowill]

When you actually have something planned to do after work (Dr. appt) someone will fall at shift change.

[NO50FRANNY]

blondy2061h said:

The meanest patients never die, but bein nice and polite is a poor prognostic indicator.

I have mentioned this before, it's called the protective dickhead gene.

[Morainey, BSN, RN]

Talk about jinxes! During shift-to-shift report, "you should have a good night, they're a nice group."

The poster who mentioned bringing 2 IV kits in the room, getting it on the first try, but one setup and they'll miss... Story of my life!

One more: doing hourly rounds on night shift... seeing sleeping, peaceful patients... doing the wave test to see if they're awake or not... going in at 6AM to medicate them, and "no one came in all night! I need a pain pill/ice pack/fresh glass of water!"

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

if the offgoing shift goes on and on about how sweet the patient is, how the family couldn't be sweeter, they're all just wonderful people -- you know you're in for a long, long shift with a patient who resembles the northernmost end of a south-bound mule and the family from the bowels of hell.

[tyvin, BSN, RN]

Half hour to go on one of the most horrible shifts you've ever worked. You know that the one nurse who always calls in sick and gets away with it is on the schedule to relieve you. Suddenly the phone rings and as I put the receiver to my ear all I hear is "I'm callling in sick"... I can't quite believe it; it's that nurse calling in sick...it is! Seriously?

I sarcastically wish them well in the same breath hoping they...well, I'm a nurse so I won't say it.

[jelly221,RN]

blondy2061h said:

The day you think you're just barely healthy enough to go to work you'll have the most grueling, physically demanding assignment ever. The syringe full of blood will always hit the floor barrel down. The day you wear white you'll get puked on.

Which is why I ALWAYS wear red, brown, black, or dark blue

[beckster_01, BSN, RN]

You have had a decent day with a 4 patient assignment. In the past, two of them had medication-induced delirium during their hospital stay (NOT sundowner's). The charge nurse asks if this assignment is okay to give to the oncoming nurse, or if it needs to be split and you say that they have both been A&O all day. Sure enough, at 1800, both patients are actively climbing out of bed, screaming at people walking through the hall, pulling out their IV's, and/or sawing through IV tubing with a plastic knife (true story). At the same time, you enter into your new admission's room because she needs you to hold her hand while IV service starts an IV. Said new admit proceeds to scream BLOODY MURDER throughout the entire IV insertion, leading your other two confused patients to believe that we are trying to kill them. At this point the next shift has arrived and it is too late to change the assignment for the poor nurse coming in for the night shift, and I look like a jerk for handing off all of the crazies to one person.

A shorter one If a patient has >10 pills, they must take them painfully slow, one at a time, with at least a 6 ounce glass of water per pill. This inevitably leads to the complaint that they are far too full to finish their pills, and you must come back later to finish.