"Stupid Nurse Tricks"

laurasc · Oct 19, 2003

I used to work on a very busy General Surgery floor where bowel preps were very common. One late evening one of the new nurses came up to me and asked what the doctor meant by "tap water enema to clear". I said something along the lines of use about a litre of warm tap water at a time until the bowels runs clear. She looked confused and asked "like to drink?" I said "ya, ya, tap water...warm tap water" and went about my work. It wasn't until much later that I found out that she made the poor patient drink over a litre of warm water and couldn't understand why his bowels weren't running clear. The surgery had to be postponed because of it. Boy, did I feel bad....I guess I should have known that she didn't know what an enema was.

My next incident happened to me when I was a student. I placed a breakfast tray on the bedside table and when I moved it, emptied more than half of a full urinal into the tray. I panicked and instead of taking the tray away, I grabbed the utensils (yes, soaking in the urine AND with my bare hand) and left. An aide came out with the tray yelling "who spilled urine in this poor man's tray?"

I admit it....I hid. :imbar

Laura

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 19, 2003

New lesson for today.

I'm happy to report I learned how to give a tap water to clear enema today.

Make said patient drink two litres of tap water and wait for the patient to poop!

OBNurseShelley · Oct 20, 2003

this is a classic on any L&D floor with really rotten nurses!

Picture it: Triage room, screaming patient, lots of ketchup and other goo, plastic baby, unsuspecting charge nurse!

it was histerical!

wayover20 · Oct 20, 2003

Picture it......we used to have to put on hospital scrubs when coming on duty, but we couldn't leave the hospital with them. One day on arriving to work, i had on a pair of pantyhose under some slacks. I decided to just take the hose off, pulling them off with the pants when I changed into the scrubs to start my shift. A few hours later, I was asked to go pick up food from outside so I quickly put my slacks back on, forgetting the hose inside the pantlegs on, and went to the eatery. I got off my car and went inside. I came back, parked near the ER entry and made a couple of trips carrying food back in. After I parked the car and came back, the staff was pointing and laughing hysterically at me. A leg of the pantyhose was sticking out of my pantleg and trailing behind me as I walked!!!

Zee_RN, BSN, RN · Oct 20, 2003

Originally posted by LPN2Be2004
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......

Did the same thing as a nursing student -- except it was D5W! Made a sticky mess of myself, the floor, the IV pump....and felt like an extreme idiot!! Am proud to report that I've never done it again. LOL!

santhony44, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 20, 2003

When I was an LPN student, a hip surgery patient had had her Foley pulled and couldn't pee. I tried the old "sound of running water" trick to help her out. Unfortunately, I forgot I left the water running and went to lunch. I came back to the floor and found the houskeeping staff using shop vacs to get the water out of the carpet in the hallway! Fortunately my instructor thought it was funny. I don't remember if the patient ever peed or not!

santhony44, MSN, RN, NP · Oct 20, 2003

And speaking of Nitro Paste (do they still use that stuff anymore?)- I worked in a LTC facility briefly as a GPN. We had an LPN there who had "come out of retirement" but who should've stayed retired. I was explaining to someone one day about washing the nitro paste off quickly when the LPN exclaimed "Oh, that's why I've been getting headaches!" It seems that when she changed a patch and got it on her hands, she thought it made a nifty hand cream and proceeded to rub it in to her hands...

fcallicoat · Oct 20, 2003

That thing about the nitro paste isn't funny.

We recently had a resident who we couldn't figure out what in the heck was going on with her vital signs. Several trips to the ER later we discovered her family had brought in her "special skin cream" that she was applying all over her face several times a day. Guess what it was ...lidocaine cream.

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 20, 2003

laurasc · Oct 21, 2003

Originally posted by wayover20
A leg of the pantyhose was sticking out of my pantleg and trailing behind me as I walked!!!

Aw Gee, I know how that feels. I wasn't at work when this happened to me, but was headed to a restaurant with my hubby. I was wearing those "stay up" stockings under a really nice pair of slacks when one of the "stay ups" let and and "went down". I looked down and saw that the stocking had not only fallen down to my ankle but had slid down past my shoe and my foot looked like something Bozo the Clown would wear! How embarassing....dressed to the teeth with a stocking flopping around in front of me. :imbar

Laura

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 21, 2003

Try having a thong fall out of the leg of your pants the first week on the job. Now i know where the phrase "crawl in a hole and die" came from.

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 21, 2003

Mine fell down more times than I care to mention, and always seemed to be at a restaurant, in church, (where I was also told by the minister's wife that the back of my dress was in my panties). :eek: etc, but always out in public for all to see. :imbar:rolleyes: