Residents....

[mwlude]

This one is for all the RN's who have spent time in academic centers. Here is an opportunity to share your favorite resident stories, however funny or embarrassing they may be!

I'll start it off with 25mg of Benadryl diluted in a liter of LR "so the patient doesn't get it all at once"... cute..

[1fastRN]

...After suggesting we try dilaudid because morphine isn't cutting it for the patient's pain... "Does dilaudid come in IV form?"

...What!?

[ParalyticAgent]

I love working with residents. We all have to learn somewhere. When I was learning, I so appreciated the people who were patient and graceful when I had a million questions or needed guidance. I also want to set up a "nurse as ally" with new physicians rather than a "nurse as adversary."

[1fastRN]

I love working with residents. We all have to learn somewhere. When I was learning, I so appreciated the people who were patient and graceful when I had a million questions or needed guidance. I also want to set up a "nurse as ally" with new physicians rather than a "nurse as adversary."

I definitely second this! I also find most of the residents are humble and I feel like I can talk to them. It enables me to have a discussion about my patients plan of care and I feel we're able to work as a team.

[smile_through_it]

When there is a code blue in the hospital the residents respond. It always makes me giggle when they are flipping through their medical books and the experienced RNs are like 'um, what do you think about epi/amio/shocking?' And the resident is always like 'oh, yes let's do that now.' It makes them feel like they are actually running the code when really the nurses are keeping it together. Everyone needs to start somewhere.

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

Nursing school...OB rotation....mom was from Nigeria, one of the blackest black people I'd ever seen. Baby is born wailing...great APGAR...the resident screams at someone to get the code cart because the baby wasn't pinking up. I thought the real nurses were going to bust a gut laughing. That baby was never going to be pink!

[Sassy5d]

Nursing school...OB rotation....mom was from Nigeria one of the blackest black people I'd ever seen. Baby is born wailing...great APGAR...the resident screams at someone to get the code cart because the baby wasn't pinking up. I thought the real nurses were going to bust a gut laughing. That baby was never going to be pink![/quote']

That.was.best.story.i.ever.heard!

[ChristineN, BSN, RN]

I have only ever worked at hospitals with residents so every July I see some special cases

"Please place pick line"

Or the intern that wrote a whole page of orders, which I had started implementing, I went back to the chart to double check the one order, and couldn't find them. I questioned the intern...his answer "I changed my mind so I just shredded that page.". Um ok

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Pt's ICP is >40. RN notifies neurosurg resident on call--that's 3rd years where I work. MD says, "Okay. {pause} What do we do?" RN says "This is what we'll do..." Hey, at least she admitted when she didn't know something!

[itinerantPHNAK]

My favorite was when i was working on an Ortho Trauma floor in a teaching hospital. We had a pt that needed an IV, probably a difficult stick. We had 3 medical students volunteer to do it. So they go and pull out the ultra sound and go into the room. We let them go, do their thing, and go back and check on it a bit later to find that the IV was inserted the wrong direction, antecubital IV pointing towards the fingers.

The nurse went and took it out, and redid it herself, without the ultra sound. :)

[sapphire18]

Upon reporting to the resident during rounds that the pt had scleral edema he says "Oh really? How do you know if someone has scleral edema?"

Me: "Ummm..." (Wondering if he was joking. He wasn't.)

[CodeteamB]

Coding pt, skeleton staff on nights, everyone in the room, one nurse doing compressions, one bagging, one watching helplessly, I call the code and page the resident (only 1 junior on call). He calls back.

"What's the problem?"

"Patient is unresponsive and no respiratory effort, PEA on the monitor, now CPR in progress"

"Stop, just answer my questions. Does the patient have a pulse?"

"The P stands for pulseless"

Then the code team arrived with an R3 and there was great rejoicing in the land of surgical stepdown.