Nursing School Bloopers

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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.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Yep - you are so right. Another great one is (at least in the ER) we use pressure bags on our IVs sometimes so if you accidentally disconnect it - whew! - out it rushes!

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I had one of those tonight:) Me and my friend had drawn up normal saline in a 12cc syringe and had to add the medication to that syringe. My friend had drawn up the medication in a syringe and had thrown away the needle on the end of the syringe by accident. She said Oh no. I gotta put the medication in the syringe. I said, well why don't you just take out the rubber syringe part and add the medication to the top. She goes, No you can't do that. Show me. So I take the syringe with the saline in it and remove the rubber plunger part. Out splashed all the saline onto the med cart all over the MAR and EVERRYTHING!!!! She almost died laughing!!

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Do not unspike a an IV bag with 100 cc's left, spiked side down. DUH

Do not leave your uncapped red permanent marker on your desk, go to the bathroom, come back, and not look before you sit. Your white pants will be ruined, not to mention you might wind up walking around the room on and off for 4 hours with no one telling you about your "accident".

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Here are a couple of nursing school bloopers that I know of:

1. One of the girls in my nursing class went into a patients room and said," Hello Mr Jones you are my very first shot." He blanched and the nursing instructor whipped the syringe out of her hand and said,'No you're not!!"

The patient was much relieved.

2.My med surg instructor told a story of a nursing student who drew up a patients pre op IM and then walked into the resident's room and told him to open his mouth. She then proceeded to stream the contents of the syringe into his mouth before the instructor could do anything. They had to give the patient a ton of water to flush the medication out of his mouth and throat wrecking the NPO status.The student then needed to call the surgeon and explain what had happened and that he would have to cancel his surgery for the day. Needless to say he was not very happy.

3. My DON tells a story of when diploma student nurses were used as cheap labor and would essentially run the floor at night. They had a patient expire on their shift and were getting ready to take him to the morgue. He was already cooling down and strarting to get stiff when they wrestled with him to get his dentures in his mouth but they got them in and took them down to the morgue. Well wouldn't you know the next morning his roommate was looking for his dentures and just couldn't find them. They devised a story about how they were cleaning them and raced down to pull them from the deceased. If it was hard getting them in it was real hard getting them out!!!

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I have one that happened to me personally. I still get embarassed over this one :chuckle .

This happened in my first year of nursing school. I was taping report on one of my patient's at the end of my shift. This was a patient who was notorious for pulling his IV out and that day we had tried several things to keep this from happening. One of the things the primary nurse did was wrap his IV site with Coban. Well, as I'm telling this on the tape I couldn't remember the name of the wrap she used and the only thing that came to my mind was Keflex :rotfl:.

I'm sure the oncoming RN had a good laugh at that one.

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I had to give my first rectal suppository to this poor woman....acidentally put it in the wrong place....the patient didnt say anything but obviously she was WELL AWARE of my mistake. Then I had to tell my instuctor and she made me look tylenol up in the PDR to check for any unwanted effects.... I dont know how she kept a straight face. I was so clueless and worried about the "hole" thing...... :imbar :imbar Many years ago.....

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Specializes in surgical, emergency.

Great student nurse stories. It sure brings back memories!! :wink2:

I am rather new to the forum, but let me add a couple of tales.

The first one is on me.

I was passing meds for one of the first times on a med/surg unit. I guess I was soooo up tight about the 5 rights and all that I wasn't thinking. On the med sheet, it said "crush meds". So I did. (can you see where this is going)

I held out this spoon full of powder to this poor old man with the intent of literally shoving down his throat dry!!! He wasn't that senile. He looked at me, then at the spoon, then at me again, and blew the contents of the spoon (lasix and dig. among others) right into my face!!! No one said, "mix the crushed meds in apple sauce".

Second story, one of my class mates, I believe. The order read, take out half of the skin staples. She did. The top half!! After returning the pt from surgery for a dehis. it was explained to her.

And last. A SN was told to change the gown on her pt, who had an IV. Your have to know, this was before those new gowns with the snaps on the shoulders. Anyway, without any problem she worked the gown up and over all the tubing, then the bag and continued with the gown down the pole to the base. She was found sitting on the floor, trying to figure out how to get the gown over the base and wheels.

My daughter is now in her first quarter of nursing school. I hope she and others can enjoy and learn from our "incidents".

If not, I hope they share them so we all can get a good laugh!!

Mike

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Specializes in surgical, emergency.

Great student nurse stories. It sure brings back memories!! :wink2:

I am rather new to the forum, but let me add a couple of tales.

The first one is on me.

I was passing meds for one of the first times on a med/surg unit. I guess I was soooo up tight about the 5 rights and all that I wasn't thinking. On the med sheet, it said "crush meds". So I did. (can you see where this is going)

I held out this spoon full of powder to this poor old man with the intent of literally shoving down his throat dry!!! He wasn't that senile. He looked at me, then at the spoon, then at me again, and blew the contents of the spoon (lasix and dig. among others) right into my face!!! No one said, "mix the crushed meds in apple sauce".

Second story, one of my class mates, I believe. The order read, take out half of the skin staples. She did. The top half!! After returning the pt from surgery for a dehis. it was explained to her.

And last. A SN was told to change the gown on her pt, who had an IV. Your have to know, this was before those new gowns with the snaps on the shoulders. Anyway, without any problem she worked the gown up and over all the tubing, then the bag and continued with the gown down the pole to the base. She was found sitting on the floor, trying to figure out how to get the gown over the base and wheels.

My daughter is now in her first quarter of nursing school. I hope she and others can enjoy and learn from our "incidents".

If not, I hope they share them so we all can get a good laugh!!

Mike

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Worst ever:

The RN asked me to get a sample of a patient's stool. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the hat. There lay the specimen. So I took that wood thing (kinda looks like a coffee stirrer) and grabbed a little piece off. As I'm lifting it up ready to place it on the card, there flies the piece of turd right on the top of my shoe! I was laughing so hard I was crying. Yes, those shoes were trashed that night.

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Worst ever:

The RN asked me to get a sample of a patient's stool. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the hat. There lay the specimen. So I took that wood thing (kinda looks like a coffee stirrer) and grabbed a little piece off. As I'm lifting it up ready to place it on the card, there flies the piece of turd right on the top of my shoe! I was laughing so hard I was crying. Yes, those shoes were trashed that night.

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Specializes in NICU.
Worst ever:

The RN asked me to get a sample of a patient's stool. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the hat. There lay the specimen. So I took that wood thing (kinda looks like a coffee stirrer) and grabbed a little piece off. As I'm lifting it up ready to place it on the card, there flies the piece of turd right on the top of my shoe! I was laughing so hard I was crying. Yes, those shoes were trashed that night.

Okay, it must be because I work with babies, but this has happened to me several times and all I did was alcohol off my shoe forgot about it. Does that make me a disgusting person? LOL! Then again, I mentioned in another post a few days ago that I've had babies poop all over my hands and just said, "EW" and washed it off, whereas I've also had adult poop on me and almost threw up on the spot. Something about baby poop...it's somehow just not as disgusting, LOL.

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