overheard at the bedside

Published

kind of like the "overheard in the subway/at the office/in NYC" blogs :p If you heard anything funny at work, share it here!

today i was making small talk with a patient and noticed a framed picture on her table of her and her husband in front of the Trevi fountain in Rome.

me: you've been to Italy? How nice!

patient: ugh, it was dirty. The whole city is filthy. Italy is just dirty, and the people are all pushy and rude, no manners. Don't ever ask an Italian to take your picture; they'll steal your camera and run away laughing at you.

a minute later,

patient: so where are you from? i mean, originally?

me: Italy

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

Ah man! lol

Similar has happened to me involving my "race" which is not popular where I live. I just smile :)

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Specializes in ICU, Renal.

When patients come to our unit (in-hospital dialysis), we have to put a sign on their bed if they are on isolation. A patient once asked me what the sign said. After I told him he replied, "It should say 'Alms for the poor'."

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Was talking to a mom about the care of her recently circumcised baby. The baby had some other procedure done and they circed him at the same time. Grandma (who is a retired RN) pipes in that she's so glad the baby was circumcised, and that so many new moms are not doing that these days. And that's the reason why we have so many homosexuals now, because they are not being circumcised. I had a hard time keeping a straight face while trying to continue teaching about the care of the baby.

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Specializes in CVICU.

This one is classic. One time a few years ago as I was bending over to emptly a pateient's foley into a graduate, I accidently had a loud fart sneak out. I mean it was a loud one. Without missing a beat the lady who was the patient in the bed said, "God, I wish I could do that.".

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Specializes in Med/surg, Quality & Risk.
Was talking to a mom about the care of her recently circumcised baby. The baby had some other procedure done and they circed him at the same time. Grandma (who is a retired RN) pipes in that she's so glad the baby was circumcised, and that so many new moms are not doing that these days. And that's the reason why we have so many homosexuals now, because they are not being circumcised. I had a hard time keeping a straight face while trying to continue teaching about the care of the baby.

:eek: I'd have had to walk out. That kind of ignorance just makes me :wacky:

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My 80+ year old ex lingerie salesman who wanted to know why all his nurses had to have A cups...

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This one is classic. One time a few years ago as I was bending over to emptly a pateient's foley into a graduate I accidently had a loud fart sneak out. I mean it was a loud one. Without missing a beat the lady who was the patient in the bed said, "God, I wish I could do that.".[/quote']

I had farted in a patient room where the patient was sleeping but apparently awake enough to yell 'damn you smell worse than I do'

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My client called me after I got home around midnight to ask for the fourth or fifth time what I told her in report. She didn't notice that I answered the phone, and I overheard her saying something nasty about me to the other person in the room. I hung up. When she called about five more times, I didn't answer at all. Insult me and you think I'm supposed to be at your beck and call, after I just drove over an hour to get home? No wonder the employers insist that we don't give out our phone numbers.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

Patient on ECCMO, VAD, dialysis and ventilator. He's been circling the drain for days, and finally expired after a long, horrible code. Patient's wife comes into the room, flings herself over the body and declares that she's just going to stay there until he "wakes up" because she KNOWS the Lord is going to save him. That one took HOURS to resolve.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

In a busy ICU, I'm given two patients. One is A & O, ambulating, ready to transfer to the floor but waiting for a bed. The other just came from the floor after a code and is unstable in every way. Both, by the way, are the same race. Patient A, the A&O one, is on a fluid restriction but is constantly demanding water anyway. I gave her ice, explaining why. She spends the next half hour or so yelling from behind the closed curtain that she needs more ice. I try explaining nicely that I'm busy and she can't have more ice until 6:00 anyway, but she's rattling that cup with the ice in it and yelling at me anyway. Family comes to visit (without stopping at the front desk, of course, so they walk right through a closed curtain and past me putting a Foley into patient B.) I don't have time to say anything to them because patient B picks that moment to have a seizure.

When things settle out, the charge nurse is standing in the doorway with Patient A's family, who want to talk to me. I smile pleasantly, prepared to answer questions about how well she is doing. Instead, I am barraged with accusations and insults culminating with "I'm sick of you, you fat White B***h!" (I'd never met them before.) "You're just ignoring Sissy 'cause she be Black."

"Yeah," "Sissy" screams from behind me. "I be Black!" And then, "How did that happen?"

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I was working post partum and helping a new mom with breast feeding. She said "I want to make sure the baby gets as much Clostridium as possible, since it's so good for him."

Um, I think you meant Colostrum.

She was a nurse.

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