Scariest things you've seen

Nurses General Nursing

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What is the scariest thing you have seen other nurses do? We have all seen some pretty ignorant, or uncaring things. Just curious. Someone should probably write a book.

Staffing!!!!

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We had a resident in the LTC where I work whose hearing aid was plugged with wax, so the nurse put it to her mouth and blew out the wax- totally nasty! now she is our infection control nurse- go figure!!!

:stone Thanks for the visual I got from that one. lol

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Bushie getting elected by the Supreme court

OMG that is so funny! :rotfl:

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to: its me .... i want you to know that you have completely ruined my life. I will never, never get the picture of that nurse blowing out the earwax...AUGH

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Hmmmm scariest thing? Well I don't work in ER, nor ICU or other places where some seriously dramatic things happen. Just OB--- but let me say this: It has astounded me, for 7 years continually, how much blood the human body holds (or appears to)....and can lose, in VERY quick time. That is the large and small of it....post partum hemorrhages. Need not say more right????

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I was precepting a nurse (new to acute care nursing but not nursing) and I aske d her what lab she needed to check before she gave the pt the KCL... She looked at me and said... "ummm I'm really not sure".. Hello, how about a potassium level..:idea:

I once had a patient with a potassium level of 5.0 who was admitted with CHF exacerbation and the resident doctor wanted to put him on 40mg IV Lasix and also wanted to order 40meq IV K now because "the lasix will probally bring his K level lower". I nicely suggested that before we give IV K we might just want to recheck that lab a couple hours after the Lasix since he is already starting out at 5.0.

One of the travel jobs that I worked at every day that I worked I found people had stamped the wrong names in peoples charts and were then therfore charting info on the wrong pt.

I once recieved a lab value report that had been printed up for + BC that the lab tech had stated that she had reported the levels to me, which I had never talked to her at all about any labs. When I asked her about this is stated "well I talked with the unit clerk and she said that she would tell you".. Hello, don't chart on a legal document that you specifically notified the RN when you infact did not....

I once saw a surgeon standing outside a patients room picking his nose then he proceeded to go in and see the patient WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS!

so on and so forth! YIKES!

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Listening to a taped report, the nurse said " Mr. Smiths' catheter fell out, and I couldn't find the right size anywhere in the hospital, so I cleaned it up real good with soap and water and put it back in". taped.

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At a nursing home where I used to be a CNA, I heard where a 11-7 nurse wanted to give potassium to a resident I.V. PUSH!!!

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Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.

"I once saw a surgeon standing outside a patients room picking his nose then he proceeded to go in and see the patient WITHOUT WASHING HIS HANDS!"

Eww, jRN4now, :eek: but kinda :roll too.

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when i was working as an aid. i heard a dialysis pt. call out for a urinal and the nurse said "why do you need a urinal ?you dont even make pee" over the call system.

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I was on clinicals one day at the hosptial and watched an aide put a women's dentures in her mouth without gloves and couldn't get the dentures in and was working them around in her mouth and if that wasn't gross enough as i stood there in total astonishment she walked out of the room to the next room and started feeding a patient and never washed her hands. I thought I was going to blow chunks right there and yes you guessed even though I was a student at the time I reported her to the nurse manager and she became quit pale.....................I was just shocked

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Specializes in Psychiatric.

I have 2 of them, both from last semester at a LTC facility...

1. Last semester, I was 4 weeks into my VERY first semester of nursing school, and I was giving my assigned patient a bedbath, and I had the curtains drawn around her bed. There were 3 other patients in the room, and the CNA assigned to those patients was bathing one of them. I heard her say through the curtain to me, "I'll be right back, okay?" I just said "Okay" and kept bathing my patient. After a few minutes, I had my patient cleaned up and put her siderails up so I could get her chair ready for her. I opened the curtain, and saw that the CNA had left the bedside with the rails DOWN, and the bed as high as it would go, and that poor woman lying there with NO curtains closed and naked as a jaybird!! I was so shocked, and even though she couldn't talk to me, I could see how humiliated she was...That CNA got in a LOT of trouble that day because her supervisor happened to come into the room at that moment and started asking me "what in the H*** was going on"! The CNA had never asked me 'Hey could you help me?" or anything...just said "I'll be right back." :uhoh3:

2. I saw another CNA at the same place going into a patient's room, and I had to ask her a question, so I knocked on the door, and she told me to come in. When I went in she was changing a patient's disposable underwear, and not a glove in sight!! The curtains were WIDE open! She finished the underwear, then went to turn a patient without washing her hands!! I said 'Ummm...you're gonna wash your hands, right?" She gave me a dirty look and said 'Oh yeah, I forgot.' I then said, "I have some spare gloves in my pocket...would you like some?" She said, 'You don't NEED gloves! These people aren't sick!" OMG!! :stone

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