Nursing School Bloopers

[Jabber964]

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.

[tiggerforhim]

Posted this on another forum: It's not actually my mistake as I didn't give the med, but anywhoo.... I was a nursing intern, in between junior and senior year of nursing school, and I was assigned this patient who didn't belong usually on the floor (vascular surgery). She was unresponsive from a massive bleed in her head and was a full code. She'd been on the floor a couple of days and I noticed she hadn't had a BM in a while. My nurse got the order for the little mini-enema they used on the head trauma floor for bowel care. We got it and looked at it. Hmmm. Snipped the tip off and she stuck the whole thing in there. Left the room and she decided to call the other floor to make sure it was administered right. Came running back with face pale to tell me we should have squeezed out the stuff inside....oh crap! Finally found it inside her and got it out. Learned a good lesson on making sure you know HOW to give the meds.

[Sybyl]

I was working in a nursing home where there was a small television room. One night, I go there to sit and chit chat with a resident. This woman had a cerebral vascular accident a few years before that left her paralysed and dysphasic. We often had to guess what she wanted since she expressed herself with one word sentences... So there I was, right next to her when she said : "2-7". 2-7??? I Knew there was a hockey game this particular night and I remembered that she loved hockey so I candidly answered: "Yes? You watched the game tonight? Did your team win?" She shaked her head and repeat the same numbers but louder: "2-7" .. At this moment I'm still confident so I answered: "Yes, yes. I know you like hockey. Sorry but I am not a sport fan but I can see that you seem a little bit frustrated that your team lost..." She stares blankly at me, silent for a moment then almost shout the numbers: "2 -7 !!!" to wich I answered:"...well, I don't know why you persist telling me the score of the game because I told you that I don't know a thing about hockey" And while I was telling that I was thinking to myself :mmm...is she becoming confused? Maybe she's deshydrated or something is realllllly wrong for her to keep telling me those damned numbers again and again.

It went like this for 15 minutes at least. Imagine the scene: Her mad as hell and shouting "2-7" and me completly lost and exhausted of explaining why I don't care about hockey.... until I suddenly realized that she wasn't giving me the score of the game... she was asking me to switch the tv to channel 27... We both had tears of joy in our eyes when I finally switched the TV channel!

NB1. I just saw that this post would fit better in the Funny Patient stories post but I'm not able to transfer it so...sorry :-)

NB2. Sorry if I make some mistakes...english isn't my first language

[Spirit of Humor]

My classmate was emptying her first foley bag, forgot to clamp it and got urine ALL over her white scrub pants. Even worse, it was the cherry red bloody sort of urine.

On my nursing home rotation, I was helping an elderly woman tuck her shirt in. We got done and she said "can you get my girls out of my pants please?" I, of course, thought she had gone crazy. Nope. I had tucked her BREASTS into her elastic waisted pants... Whoops.

This reminds me of the time I went in to inspect the nursing home resident my nursing student had given a.m. care to and then dressed her, before escorting to the breakfast room. I studied the elderly woman--now not even 5 ft tall due to her kyphosis. I asked the student, "What are those lumps on her thighs?"

The student whispered, "I couldn't find her bra, so I just tucked her breasts in."

She tucked them in, all right. All the way through her panties and down each pant leg!

I had to leave the room so I wouldn't fall over laughing.

[MQ Edna]

This reminds me of the time I went in to inspect the nursing home resident my nursing student had given a.m. care to and then dressed her, before escorting to the breakfast room. I studied the elderly woman--now not even 5 ft tall due to her kyphosis. I asked the student, "What are those lumps on her thighs?"

The student whispered, "I couldn't find her bra, so I just tucked her breasts in."

She tucked them in, all right. All the way through her panties and down each pant leg!

I had to leave the room so I wouldn't fall over laughing.

*falls over in chair*

[Morettia2, BSN, RN]

During my last semster of School I was assigned LTC for 6 weeks. I went into the pt's room to do a tube feeding and I saw that there was a stopcock. So I opened it and got the feeding and poored it into the large syringe for tubefeedings, it wasn't going in with gravity so we were allowed to use a plunger...I started to plunge and POW, tube feeding all over me, on my glasses, in my hair (and you know what happend when it gets in your hair it's like cement to get out) my clinical instructer and the nurse I was with...all we could do is laugh, and the nurse I was with said you think this is bad, I poped the tube last week and it was all over the walls. I didn't pop the tube but my clinical instructor said everyone has to have their first big squirt...I looked like a train wreck when I left that day.

Second, it was my 1st semester of school and I had to do my first NG suction, the pt. souneded like they were drowning, so I inserted the catheter into the nose and began to suction, I turned green and yelled I need a trashcan, yea needless to say the pt. felt better, but I ended up with my head in the trashcan and could have used some suctioning my self.

Third, I had just recieved report and was told the pt had been found playing with himself in the linen closet at about 6 am, I walked into the room to introduce my self, the pt was now in a gerry chair and the pt said to me "Hey nurse get me some f'n scissors so I can get out of this damn chair and get back to my business with the sheets" I turned, walked out of the room, down the hall to my clinical and before I could get one word out of my mouth I was laughing so hard that I almost wet my pants.

4th I was on my Psych rotation at a "one flew over the cookoos nest" psych facility, my frist day there I was cornered by a rather LARGE (TALL) pt and tole me they were going to eat me and preceded to sing we all live in a yellow submarine...yea I Just stood there with my jaw wide open and had nothing to say, and I couldn't leave b/c I was LOCKED in...yea my clinical instructor was MIA too...SO i took cover at the VER VERY small, actually it was a desk for a nurses station, like that was going to save me...just thought I would share.....I am now an RN:uhoh3::trout:

[grinsngripe]

besides the first one is sterile , right? *L*

[nikki_nurse]

My first clinical experience was on a complex care ward. We had had some training on how to do bed baths and move patients around in bed. It was my partner and my first patient to perform a bed bath. We started it out okay, but then when we had to change the diaper, and that was when we started to mess up. We had trouble turning over the patient, in the first place, and then when we had to position the diaper, we positioned it too high. We kept on having to rotate the patient back and forth, trying to get it positioned correctly. We finally got the bed bath finished, thankfully, as we could tell that the patient was getting annoyed with us (he couldn't verbally communicate). And we slowly got better at positioning the diaper and we are experts on it.

Another time, we were giving this patient a bed bath and we had her her side, with the diaper and the lift sheet removed, so we could get clean one on. The patient (who is incontinent) starts to void at the moment. So we got to practice how to make an occupied bed.

This other time, my partner and I were flushing a G-tube. There was a new syringe, so we opened it, filled it with water, and tried to flush. We thought that the syringe was defective, as it was leaking water all over the place. Turns out that we forgot to take the cap off of the syringe. I will never forget to do that again.

I have also forgotten to cap off the feeding tube, so we had the fluid run too fast through it. Luckily I caught it before it made a big mess.

Thats all that I can remember. And that was only during one semester on a ward. I can't wait to see what is going to happen next semester.

[christina_v]

to Marie_LPN...not to get off of the subject..but that cat looks EXACTLY like my cat!

[Michellem0322]

I'm glad to see that I am not the only one to make bloopers.

First semester on the first time to pass meds, I went in with my instructor. I was so nervous and trying to do everything right with the 5 rights and 3 ID checks. Well as I was opening those little bubble wrapped pills my hand slipped and I spilled every one on the floor. My instructor laughed and rolled her eyes at me. Needless to say I was searching for pills all over the floor and then we started over at the pixis.

Second semester, just finished yeah!, I was in the OR observing when the surgeon asked me to hold the little tabby thing on his gown. I did but then accidently dropped it. Instead of just letting it fall I reached for it. Can you say broken sterility?:trout: I wanted the floor to swallow me right there and then.

I still have two semesters to go so I'm sure I will be able to add more later.

[Mnstn, BSN, RN]

I'm not in nursing school yet but I hope to be one day but in the mean time I work in a doctor's office as a front office staff member. I was assigned to take blood pressure and weight one day. Follow up visits only need BP and one of the other staff was watching me to my first BP on a patient. We have the automatic cuffs that all you have to do is press a button, no pumping or stethescope required. So I my patient was a elderly woman in a wheelchair with a hurt left arm, I believe. I went to take her BP on the side I was always told to do but found I couldn't and was instructed by the other staff to take it on the opposite arm. So as I went to put it on the other arm the machine flew out of my hands because I was shaking so badly. The batteries flew everywhere and the husband was cracking up and I wanted to crawl into a hole. I managed to pick all of the batteries up and fix the machine which proceeded to error on me twice before it would give a BP. I ran out of the room just about after I was done. It was nerve racking and the husband continued to tease me. Even as he was paying for the visit he made comment. All I could do was smile. Lets hope I get through nursing school someday with my nerves.

[blueheaven]

I was in nursing school and I was drawing up insulin for the first time and for some reason I keeled over backwards and passed out on my instructor.

[jl_nurse]

Oh boy, the memories!!! We were practicing code blues one day and I was the "IV/med nurse." We wereusing fake arms down by the legs just for practice, well I am so OCD, I was on the right side of the body,during the mock code, I lifted the arm and said " This is a left arm, I need a right."My favorite teacher smacked mein the head with the fake arm and said ," just try not to be so obsessive, pretend its a right and start the IV."It was priceless.

Hmmm. Another one, we were doing our first psych rotation. I was in the rotation with my 2 best friends well we were each assigned a patient, we have to talk with. There were two female houses and two male houses. I had a male patient. I forgot my nametag,so i stuck a piece of tape with my name on it on my shirt, we were wearing street clothes. I went into the male house and was sittingtalking, the aide looks at me and says "you have to leave, females are not allowed in the male house." I said , it is okay I am a student. So I went to another room and then was walking around the house with my patient, that same aide said " I thought I already told you, you are not allowed in here." I said, "and I told you I am a nursing student and you are interferring with my progress."Then she couldn't apologize enough.LOL. Those were my two favorites!!!