beachmom

We lost a confused man once from his hospital room one night. Had the police out searching, employees searching the parking lot and woods. Someone finally found him in one of the OR rooms, sleeping on the floor. No one could figure out how he got in ...

I've never drawn labs on someone getting TPN. Can you ask the lab for the proper protocol? The best plan would be to ask your employer to have you trained in PICC lines. It is important to do everything correct with them. Or since you are a new nurs...

A study was done once on handwashing. It found that the higher the education level of the subject, the less likely they were to wash their hands. In other words, janitors washed the most, MD's the least. I can believe it. My husband is a janitor, and...

Good job for recognizing the sepsis! I hope you are my nurse when I'm sick! One of the big things I don't like about my job is not knowing what happens to the pts after they leave me.

Don't drink six beers while cooking your meth. You might end up burning your house down, and you might have to be shipped to the big hospital with a burn center.

Before you narcan a person whose respirations are low, shake them and tell them to breathe. Often that's enough. (unless they are comatose, of course) We had a chronic pain med user who had a surgery and was in terrible pain. After trying everything...

3 days before delivery, dr. said baby was head down. The next day I was helping my mom clean, and she wouldn't let me do any heavy work, only pick up papers off the floor. This is hard for a pregnant woman, and afterwards everything felt different. I...

Those of you who have worked both L&D and Med-Surg in the hospital, which did you think was more stressful? I work in a small hospital on the pediatric/overflow adult med-surg floor. (1-2 kids, the rest overflow from other floors, usually medical...

Thanks to all of you for your input! The Ob-GYN forum has a great bunch of nurses. The L&D manager has just become our unit's manager also. I was thinking this would be a good time to ask to cross-train. If I don't like it, I would have more of...

Garlic oil works for earaches. My son had allergies so lots of nasal congestion and earaches. I would get the garlic pills with the garlic oil inside, squeeze the oil into the affected ear and toss the capsule. It worked every time. I tried it on my...

I never knew men could have "innies," and I'm not talking about belly buttons. Once I had to call a urology nurse to find the opening to insert a catheter in a man.

You could pay a babysitter while you go elsewhere to study. Or if you don't want so much time away from your kids, higher an older child to play with them in your home. I was about ten years old, and my first job was entertaining a neighbor's two ki...

I knew a quadriplegic man who had total feeling in his body but no movement at all. He said after his accident he was numb, but the feeling came back at some point.

We were the lucky recipients of orders from a doctor's first try with computerized records. On the H&P, "Chief complaint: as above" .......Above where? it's the top of the page. your'e computer is not here Meds: "Insulin, NPH, 25 ml. BID." ....25...

One nurse in the office where I worked had sheep. One abandoned it's baby. Instead of missing work, she brought the baby in so she could feed it every two hours. She kept it in the break room. Better than missing work! She later knitted a hat from th...

Man's call light goes off. Nurse answers and sees that he didn't ring his light on purpose, but he was "pleasuring himself" on the call light.

Before you sneak in a camera and tape recorder, be sure of your laws. We aren't allowed to photograph patients. I think it's a HIPPA thing. The patient has to sign a permission slip to be photographed. In my state, tape recording without permission m...

At the hospital where I had my last baby nine years ago, babies only spend a very short time in the nursery being checked out, etc., and then they room with mom the rest of the time. There are rarely babies in the nursery unless they are having probl...

A very creative family I know gave all their kids first names that started with A's, and middle names that started with D's. The kids all go by their middle names. These spellings may not be correct. Yes, 8 kids in the family. I think they're done no...

All our gastroenteritis peds get boluses and maintenence fluids. NPO until no vomiting for several hours. Then they start on clears and advance diet as tolerated. Occasionally the older ones get Zofran. So far, all my kids have cleared up within a da...

We test for it often when a person has diarrhea, but we rarely have positives here. I think certain resistent organisms are regional. We get lots of MRSA in our area, both hospital acquired and community acquired. It seems like if anyone has a cellul...

Worst - I was in the recovery room after a c-section. I guess the epidural anesthesia must have migrated upward because my tongue kept closing off my airway. I was afraid to sleep because I couldn't breathe. I was too out of it from the drugs to expl...

It's not just our profession. My husband worked at Wal-Mart and was sick (and contagious) with a doctor's excuse, and they counted his absence as "unexcused" so he had to use PTO not sick pay. My friend works at a tech support company, and she said i...

Why do we have to make embryos for the purpose of destroying them in research? It's just wrong. We can get stem cells from other sources. It's harder, but in my opinion, it's worth the effort.

We had a pt. with a super low sodium, on a water restriction, so we posted a sign "no free water." The pt's roommate had a visitor who was irate that we would "charge for water" and proceeded to share some water with the pt. on water restriction.