"Stupid Nurse Tricks"

Liddle Noodnik · Oct 7, 2003

Originally posted by mistersleepy
We have all heard them. Tell me a stroy about something really stupid (funny) that a fellow nurse (or yourself) did.

This one was kinda sad actually. I was a relatively new nurse and working in an Intensive Care Unit. I had a woman with a chest tube attached to that funky bottle system (don't remember how many).

Anyway, the drainage bottle got full. I asked the charge nurse what I should do and she said "Empty it." So, I did!

Immediately the patient had severe chest pain and SOB and I realized almost as quickly that one should never empty the entire bottle; a water seal is required. So I fixed the problem, called the doc, and wrote an incident report. Patient had an x ray and was fine.

The charge nurse was NOT though. She was fired. I felt so HORRID! I should have known better too! But apparently there were other issues with her. To make it worse, I had to testify at her unemployment hearing!

Some things worked out for her, she and her hub had a baby while she was unemployed, but I still feel like a louse about it. I was disciplined too, I don't remember how, but it felt like we both should have been fired ...

tattooednursie, LVN · Oct 7, 2003

do you mean practical jokes? tee hee I got one that was played on me last week.

There is a room in my LTC that everyone thinks is really creepy. Its a room with a psych patient who screams and makes strange noises all the time. Another CNA asked me for my help rounding on this patient. It was a set up. another CNA was hiding under the bed. I was standing at one side of the bed getting ready to assist. She grabbed my ankle from under the bed. I Jumped like 3 feet in the air, screamed, and almost peed myself. I had no clue what happened. I was almost crying, and screaming "Something grabbed my leg!" Then the other gal crawled out from under the bed. The other CNA's were laughing their buts off at me. Then they thought it would be fun to take my pulse . . . 120.

I am anticipating more responses for ideas of revenge!

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 8, 2003

I saw a whopper stupid nurse trick a few years ago. The person was a new Nurse's Aide, whose elevator didn't quite go to the top floor.

After one of her residents was finished with the bedpan, she walked into the LARGE men's bathroom, walked right past the toilets, went to the window, opened it, and then proceeded to dump the bedpan out on the ground. :rolleyes:

The DON saw the whole thing while she was walking toward the entrance.

Whisper · Oct 9, 2003

Sieving sputum with gauze! One placement uses this all the time to 'break' in new students!

Liddle Noodnik · Oct 10, 2003

I know some staff are scared to death, or convinced already, that the ghosts of patients past remain on the units.

Some staff will scare such staff by ringing a call bell in the deceased patient's room.

I think it's dePLORable! Hee hee!

klhs · Oct 10, 2003

Had a new nurse fresh from school who came to me one nite during evening med pass...wanted to know how she was going to get Carafate 1 gm, K+ 20mEq, and a couple of other pills "to fit

in the peg tube" of a patient! The idea of dissolving, crushing, or checking to see if the meds were available in liquid never crossed her mind! lol... just glad she thought to ask BEFORE giving them!

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 10, 2003

Whisper, that thing about seiving sputum makes me feel like:p . When I was a kid, we had a kid on our bus who had allergies. Not knowing about, nor caring to know about, that kid would invariably sneeze shortly after he got on the bus. His name was Happy, and I bet he was everything but, because after he sneezed, he had two lines of green, gooky, globby snot streaming down the front of his face. UGH! To this day, that is the very worst thing for me to clean, let alone seive.

and Zoeboboey, I think what you guys did was hilarious. I'd probably do the same thing.

:roll

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 10, 2003

Ok here's a classic and i'm not even a nurse yet.

Changing an IV bag of normal saline. Two bags are hanging up. The one is running now. It has about 100 cc's left but it needed changed. So ol' swifty me just PULLS the spike out of the bag to spike the other bag, and i hose my face off with the remainder in the old bag.

DUUUUUUUUUH......

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 10, 2003

Wahoo, you is off to a great start!:rotfl:

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 10, 2003

Hey the cold solution worked better than the crappy breakroom coffee in waking me up.

Not to mention the charge nurse laughing till he about peed himself when i walk out of that room resembling a drowned rat.

But, alas, it could have been worse

FROGGYLEGS, LPN · Oct 10, 2003

In nursing school a class mate of mine was helping a confused lady to brush her teeth. She mistook a generic tube of denture adhesive for an almost identical looking tube of toothpaste and used the adhesive to clean her teeth with. My classmate finished up without noticing. Later, the lady started saying over and over "my mouth is sticky" and the mystery was eventually solved.