Nursing School Bloopers

Nurses Humor

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Anyone have any funny nursing school stories from their past?

I had to change an IV bag and went in with my instructor to do so. My instructor always made me nervous but I was determined to remain confident and do the task....it wasnt difficult. She proceeded to ask me what was in the bag and I told her normal saline. She told me "ok, go ahead" and stood back to watch. I proceeded to pull out the line to put it into the new bag, but didn't take it off the IV pole before doing so. I received a saline bath with the remaining fluid that was in the bag. My instructor ran to get a towel and we cleaned up the wet floor. She then asked me to step outside the room. I thought I was going to hear it. What I heard was her laughing and telling me that I had to laugh sometimes and "everyohne has a saline bath once and then it never happens again." I still don't believe her but its funny looking back now.

Just a little spelling error that had my health assessment instructor very worried; I meant "diuresis" but I wrote "diarrhesis."

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Specializes in Oncology, Cardiology, ER, L/D.
i had to give pt care wash pt up no promblem?well shes on heavy side and i lift under neath her breast she screamed ouch whats wrong i asked she said i slaped her in the face with her own breast :rotfl: :chuckle

:roll :roll Hysterical!!

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Specializes in Going to Peds!.

This semester the hospital I've done almost all of my clinicals at changed their IV tubing to include a needleless port system. My patient had an IV push medication. I draw it up. My instructor goes with me. I clean off the tubing port, insert the needle, and WHOOPS!! Here comes the IV fluid (and blood return) pouring out the port. I changed IV tubing that day. :rolleyes:

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Oh these stories are hilarious so I must add my own.

Our very first day in clinical (our first year of nursing school) we were told that the #code for a code blue was #3333. So, as we walked into our patients' rooms one of my fellow students discovered that her patient had expired. Well, she ran frantically out in the hall and screamed as loud as she could "3333, 3333, 3333". Of course there were about 5 nurses sitting at the nurses' station. They looked at this poor student with the most confused looks on their faces! It was hilarious. I was laughing so hard I could barely tell my fellow student that she was supposed to PICK UP THE PHONE AND DIAL #3333 not shout it down the hall. We laughed about that one for years after!!!:lol2:

that is like the time at my job (CVS) that one employee called a "code-green" over the loud speaker. apparently that is tequnically the way that you are supposed to call for change, not even then manager on duty knew that, he thought someone was shoplifting. it was quite funny.[

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Whenever I'm around the nurse's station, I listen for the magic words "Have a nursing student help you." I've learnt that this is a great way to try things that you might not get a chance to.

One day I heard this and jumped on the opprotunity before I even knew what was happening. We went into the room of a patient I had seen the day before. He had been breathing (barely) that day and I expected to have to help move him in the bed or something of that nature. Turns out he had died during the night and we had to put him in the shroud. The man was incredibly tall and in rigor, so it took us about ten minutes to get him into it. I then started zipping and the zipper fell off into my hand. We had to get the man out, get a new shroud and once again struggle to get the man in.

To top it all off, it was the first dead body I had ever seen.

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I received a saline bath with the remaining fluid that was in the bag. My instructor ran to get a towel and we cleaned up the wet floor. She then asked me to step outside the room. I thought I was going to hear it. What I heard was her laughing and telling me that I had to laugh sometimes and "everyohne has a saline bath once and then it never happens again." I still don't believe her but its funny looking back now.

That's better than a D5 bath! Years ago it was standard to hang D5W on chest pain pts. In the trauma room we had one bag of D5 and one bag of RL spiked and ready to go in a hurry. I was checking the spike date on the bag of D5 and somehow snagged the tubing on something and pulled it out. The bag was hanging just high enough that I couldn't get it down so I stood there with my thumb against the opening, yelling for help. There was a trickle of this stuff going down my arm into my scrub top. I spent the rest of the shift very sticky.

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Specializes in NICU.

Our uniform for clinical is all white. Well, our very first clinical day of our 1st semester we're all standing there waiting for the last few people to arrive and then one of the girls comes walking in with pink scrubs on. It was all we could do to keep a straight face. Our instructor was not too pleased with her. One day of the semester we were supposed to wear colored scrubs when we were doing an OR observation but it wasn't this day....the student got her dates mixed up. It was hillarious and is still talked about in clinical orientation first semester about what not to do. HAHA!

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My own story: medsurg rotation and I had a pt with a 24-hour urine ordered. I just wasn't thinking.....for some reason I thought were measuring output for 24 hours, not actually collecting the urine. There was a strange-shaped container in the bathroom in a pan of ice, not labeled. I stared at it each time I dumped the urine in the toilet, wondering what it was for.

The day was almost over when I realized what I had done and what the container was for. With a sick feeling I went and found my instructor and told her what I'd done, and her response was a very quiet, "Oh sh*t."

The test had to be postponed till the next day and started over.

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Specializes in NICU.
My own story: medsurg rotation and I had a pt with a 24-hour urine ordered. I just wasn't thinking.....for some reason I thought were measuring output for 24 hours, not actually collecting the urine. There was a strange-shaped container in the bathroom in a pan of ice, not labeled. I stared at it each time I dumped the urine in the toilet, wondering what it was for.

The day was almost over when I realized what I had done and what the container was for. With a sick feeling I went and found my instructor and told her what I'd done, and her response was a very quiet, "Oh sh*t."

The test had to be postponed till the next day and started over.

When I was a CNA, I noticed the nurses would get very antsy towards the last few hours of a 24-hour collection--some went to great lengths with several notes written all over the bathroom, LOL.

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Specializes in Women's health & post-partum.
That's better than a D5 bath! Years ago it was standard to hang D5W on chest pain pts. In the trauma room we had one bag of D5 and one bag of RL spiked and ready to go in a hurry. I was checking the spike date on the bag of D5 and somehow snagged the tubing on something and pulled it out. The bag was hanging just high enough that I couldn't get it down so I stood there with my thumb against the opening, yelling for help. There was a trickle of this stuff going down my arm into my scrub top. I spent the rest of the shift very sticky.

Even more years ago all our IV solutions (except blood) came in glass bottles. I suspect that at least half of my class had the experience of dropping one and spending time chasing sticky glass around the floor trying to get it all cleaned up.:(

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.
That's better than a D5 bath! Years ago it was standard to hang D5W on chest pain pts. In the trauma room we had one bag of D5 and one bag of RL spiked and ready to go in a hurry. I was checking the spike date on the bag of D5 and somehow snagged the tubing on something and pulled it out. The bag was hanging just high enough that I couldn't get it down so I stood there with my thumb against the opening, yelling for help. There was a trickle of this stuff going down my arm into my scrub top. I spent the rest of the shift very sticky.

This happened to me as we were taking a pt from our ICU to the surgical ICU, except it was DOPAMINE. We were taking the pt out the door to the elevator and the tubing got caught on the door and pulled the spike out of the dopamine. We had dopamine all over the floor and another nurse ran back to get me another bag. I have been a RN for 6 years and that was the first time I had ever made that boo boo. I let out a very loud OH SH**! Pt did arrive to the other ICU without anyother incidents.

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Specializes in Med-Surg/Tele, ER.

I had to hang some Vanco for one of my assigned clients. My instructor hands me this bag, of a type I'd never seen before. This instructor also intimidated the hell out of me (I love her, but it's true!) and the staff nurse was also looking on. The bag was the type where you pull the plug out which is inside the bag, and then mix it up. For some reason, I yanked off the hook on the outside of the bag, which is used to hang the bag. (In my defense, I did so with a look of total confidence. :lol2:) The staff nurse and my instructor both looked at me like :smackingf, but the staff nurse was so nice he rushed over and quickly made a new hook out of tape while I held the bag looking very sheepish. My instructor started laughing and said "I don't know why I just looked-on while you did that." Heh. Sorries.

My very first day on the floor in clinical I spilled an entire cup of pills on the floor, after the staff RN had just meticulously taken all 15 of them out of the PIXIS. What's worse, I had no idea how I managed to spill them, I just spazzed-out for a minute and they went flying off the bedside table. I was mortified. Luckily she was really nice about it, but I'm sure she did a good bit of cursing when she got back into the med room.

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