phone calls no outsider would believe

Specialties Emergency

Published

Got a call the other night, demanding to know if a man could still have an erection when he was dead, if it happened automatically.

I told him that was not something I was going to answer, he demanded to know why I didn't know, wasn't I a nurse??!! Go get another nurse!!

Told him again, this is not something I was going to discuss with him, so he told me he would be reporting me to both our local newspapers!

What's yours?

When I worked night shift..for quite sometime, a call would come in around 2AM..from a male voice asking.."Do you have panties on?"...Everyone who answered the call had a different reply...eg. "you need help..call the psych floor" etc. This caller had the numbers to the different units in the hospital, and most of the night shift nurses were familiar with the calls. However, one night he called to the ICU and asked "do you have panties on?"...the nurse, a Philippino nurse said wait and I will find out. She asked the other nurses do we have a patient named Panezon?...The other nurses craked up and of course the story spread throught the hospital...The caller was dubbed the pantyman. I think I recognized the voice as one of the doctors who had the habit of arriving at 6am in the morning. When the doc retired...so did the phone calls...:D

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Specializes in ICU,ER.
Did the cat make it?

First thing I thought of when I read your post.

I think it was determined the cat had a broken hip. (pelvic rock was still used in those days....:) )

It was the middle of the night but I called a local vet that was willing to go in....to HIS office, he wasn't consulting in the ER.:D

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Thank you all..Great break from studying and just another reason why I want to be in ER when I graduate.

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Specializes in M/S, OB, Ortho, ICU, Diabetes, QA/PI.

I've finally stopped laughing long enough to be able to post!

When I worked in OB, I had someone call and was masturbating to the answers that I was giving them about breast-feeding questions - the situation didn't actually get weird and suspicious until they asked if I had ever breast-fed a baby - I currently had a 4 month old that I was nursing and, unfortunately, I was sort of punchy (it was 3 am and I didn't tolerate nights that well) and answered yes - their breathing got harder and faster and I could hear lots of rustling and such (it was actually a woman) and I said I was going to hang up and they said "No, not yet, I'm not there yet..." - I blurted out "What the heck are you doing?" - they managed to answer between pants "What do you think?" - then, I hung up.......

Calls that late at night had to be patched through the ER since we didn't have a 24 hr switchboard operator (little rural 90-bed hospital) so I had to call ER and tell them the story so they could screen the calls - I made their night................

my least favourite calls were when people called OB and asked for a certain patient - when we said there was no one in our unit by that name, they would always say "Oh, I called her house and she isn't there and since she's due pretty soon, I just thought I'd see if she was there having her baby" - I worked with someone who used to ask if they were going to call the grocery store or K-Mart since those were also possible hiding spots......

also had a patient's (in)significant other call and tell us that they were coming in because she was contracting, blah, blah, blah, and she was dilated to 4 cm - she came in and really was in labour and was actually dilated to 4 cm - then, I remembered to ask the guy how they knew how much she was dilated - he held up 2 grimy fingers with nasty long and very dirty fingernails and announced (with great pride) "I checked her myself!" eeeeeewwwwwww........................................

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also had a patient's (in)significant other call and tell us that they were coming in because she was contracting, blah, blah, blah, and she was dilated to 4 cm - she came in and really was in labour and was actually dilated to 4 cm - then, I remembered to ask the guy how they knew how much she was dilated - he held up 2 grimy fingers with nasty long and very dirty fingernails and announced (with great pride) "I checked her myself!" eeeeeewwwwwww........................................

Oh gee, and idiot me is going to nursing school to learn how to check dilation.:smackingf

Not that this has anything to do with phone calls, but I *hate* when someone is pushing in labor, and the nurse has two gloved fingers at the introitus giving the woman the sense of where she needs to focus her pushing energies, and some stupid family idiot says, "Think of [name of father] having his fingers where the nurse is, and that you're so mad you want to push him out of there!" This may not translate into text very well, but I just cringe every time I hear that... and I've heard it more than 5 times. Can we leave the crass comments out of the LDR?? :trout:

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Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

On night shift, usually when we are busy, we'll get a phone call from the husband of one of the float LPN's looking for her. Once in a while, fine, but this happens a lot, and of course since she floats we don't know her floor assignment. Sometimes he'll call back a couple times more still looking for her, after he's been transferred to a couple different floors by phone. One of these days, and I would never actually do this I don't think, I want to say something about seeing her making out with a doc in a back room. Okay, bad taste, it's been a long day...

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the clinic phone rang and the ma working with me answered it.

"when you get your tubes tied, can they come untied?"

ma: "well, not usually. why do you ask?"

"well, i've had my tubes tied and my husband and i were having sex last night and it felt like they came untied."

the ma got through the whole conversation without cracking up.

ok. let's be a kind here...

after my tubal, the first few times i was with my husband, i had a throbbing, aching in about the place where my tubes/ovaries are. i'm a nurse & i understand the procedure (snip out a portion & cauterize ends), but i could see where a layperson might wonder.

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i occasionally floated into a nicu several years ago. one of their babies had a very attentive dad; he was there every day.

until he asked a nurse about that hormone they gave the baby to make him grow fast.

excuse me?

well, it turns out his girlfriend of about 4 months told him that the baby was his. before it was born the doctors had given it a hormone to make it grow fast.

the nurse got a doctor to come and talk to "dad."

needless to say he didn't visit the baby after that.

i had a case once like this. the neo began to explain to the parents - like she does often - about abo incomptibility and jaundice. the dad got up quietly, but abruptly, and walked right out of the nursery.

the dad worked somewhere in the medical field (? lab). when he returned - pacing around, he claimed he was also type 'o', and thus this couldn't be his child. we calmed him down, and since there was a question of whether that was really his blood type or not, we encouraged him not to make any rash decisions until he could verify his blood type.

it was scary for us when he exploded, and sad for the family. i got the feeling that the dad was justified in his assumptions, because the mom was just too cool and too quiet when all this happened. if it had been me, and i was innocent, i'd have been trying to convince him at that point, or at least saying it wasn't true and encouraging him to get a test to prove it. she said nothing. and, looking back, she got a little uncomfortable when the doctor started talking blood types in front of the dad.

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i'm not in the er but, people do that to us all the time!

me:" hello . . .. ."

caller:"i just wanted to see if my mom's test results were back (or the like)?"

me: and you mom is. . . . . ?

~jen

we get similar calls in nursery all the time.

"could you come pick up brandon for the night"

"what's brandon's last name?"

"jones"

"maam... we don't have a baby jones... what last name was the mom admitted under?"

"smith"

"maam... the baby is admitted as 'boy smith'. in the future, when you call, you'll need to refer to your baby as 'boy smith' so we will know who you are taking about."

(what i wish i could say..."i have 6 babies to care for of the 18 total in the nursery, i do well to keep up with 'boy smith' - i cannot be on a first-name basis with all 18 babies!")

this problem also happens too often when friends & family members call to see if a certain baby is in the nursery. after the call has been bounced a couple of times back and forth between the nursery and nicu, we finally figure out that they are asking for the wrong last name. i have gotten to the point i just go ahead & ask up front, "is that mom's last name?" since married couples are the minority these days - at least at our hospital.

we also have fathers who get flat out angry when we write mom's maiden name on the crib card - some ranting to the point you can't get a word in edgewise to explain that whatever name mom is admitted under is the name the baby will go by for this admission only.

i finally have gotten to the point, when dealing with a dad that is being ridiculous about it, that i say,

"do you want your baby to be sent home with the wrong parents?"

"of course not!" he bellows - but now i have his attention :lol2:

"well then, the baby's name and mom's need to match so that we can keep them paired up, and not get any babies mixed up when we send them home... you will sign papers for the birth certificate before your baby goes home. you can choose the child's legal name then. this is just temporary."

they usually settle down at that point.

(what i wish i could say is "if you want the baby to have your name, then you should have married the mom!!!!!")

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When I worked night shift..for quite sometime, a call would come in around 2AM..from a male voice asking.."Do you have panties on?"...Everyone who answered the call had a different reply...eg. "you need help..call the psych floor" etc. This caller had the numbers to the different units in the hospital, and most of the night shift nurses were familiar with the calls. However, one night he called to the ICU and asked "do you have panties on?"...the nurse, a Philippino nurse said wait and I will find out. She asked the other nurses do we have a patient named Panezon?...The other nurses craked up and of course the story spread throught the hospital...The caller was dubbed the pantyman. I think I recognized the voice as one of the doctors who had the habit of arriving at 6am in the morning. When the doc retired...so did the phone calls...:D

OH MY!!!!!! :uhoh3:

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Specializes in home & public health, med-surg, hospice.
(what i wish i could say is "if you want the baby to have your name, then you should have married the mom!!!!!")

no kiddin'...:idea:

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Regarding the name match between Mom and Dad....not all married people have the same last name, nor is it a requirement after marriage. I dealt with it both as a NICU clerk in college, and as a Mom. Of course, the attitude of the father explains the whole situation.......and then the funny starts!!

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