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.

Specializes in Pediatrics, Nursing Education.

hellp number one and dic number two - yeah, i was one of the "lucky" ones to get to see both during my labor/delivery/post partum rotations. very scary

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But, let me guess, you came out of nursing school perfect and knowing everything already!!???... Not even a year of med/surg will teach you ANYTHING about L & D.

A new grad just out of orientation on a busy L&D floor was drawing up Terbutaline for administration to a patient in preterm labor.

I came around the corner of the med room to see her with a three cc syringe drawing up a full vial of terb. Terb is given with a tb syringe 0.25mg sq.

When I took a tb syringe off the shelf and pointed to the correct dosage she said uhuh, and proceeded to throw the vial away.

At that time I took a new vial and showed her the dosage and had her review the orders for terb. She said that is a lesson she won't forget.

I have a hard time with new grads in L&D because of their lack of knowledge and their lack of not knowing what they don't know! Nan

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Specializes in Women's health & post-partum.

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I had an instructor in nursing school who did that. She left us to become the DON in a small community hospital.....

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Specializes in Ambulatory Care/Telephone Triage.
But, let me guess, you came out of nursing school perfect and knowing everything already!!???... Not even a year of med/surg will teach you ANYTHING about L & D.

Point taken. We all make mistakes, but as a licensed RN, you are responsible for knowing about the medications you are administering. If you are not, you should ask, or look it up. Medication errors cause a lot of deaths in hospitals.

Just my two cents...

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Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.
Point taken. We all make mistakes, but as a licensed RN, you are responsible for knowing about the medications you are administering. If you are not, you should ask, or look it up. Medication errors cause a lot of deaths in hospitals.

Just my two cents...

If that is your 2 cents, what do we get for a quarter

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When I got there, I found the renal fellow on the bed doing one-person CPR while the attending sat in a chair in the corner, legs crossed, making notes on another patient. Now why couldn't that attending have called a code? Assisted with CPR? Wandered off to look for the code cart, the charge nurse, a surgical resident, or comforted the hysterical wife?

"It wasn't my patient," is what he said. I shouldn't have asked.

it makes me want to SPIT when i hear "it wasn't my patient". get these freaks out of healthcare. :angryfire :angryfire :angryfire

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A CNA responsible for getting vitals down one hall comes to the nursing station AFTER she is finished and says that she was unable to get vitals on Mrs. X. The primary nurse goes down to get vitals on the lady and discovers why the CNA couldn't get any readings--the patient has expired.

An RN related this story to me. It happened when she was an LPN. She was working with a fairly new BSN nurse who looked down on all nurses without a BSN and thought she knew everything. (That is scary in itself.) My friend's patient had a peg and a central line for fluids. There was a new order for Dilantin elixir and the BSN, who was charging, went to give it, thinking it was meant to be given IVP. My friend happened to be in the room, and when she realized what BSN was about to do, told her it was not meant to be given IV but via the peg. The BSN said something to the effect that she had more education and she knew what the heck she was doing and was going to proceed. :uhoh21: My friend had to literally grab this nurse's arm and tell her that she was not going to let her give this med IVP and that she had better go look it up in the drug book. BSN got all huffy and went to look it up in the PDR. Needless to say, it went down the peg.

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I gave report the the oncoming day shift that unit #2 of blood had just been hung on mr. x. After 12 hr shift- report was given that the blood (unit #2) was almost done infusing.

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Specializes in cardiac ICU.

New doc wanted to order 60mEq of KCl IV PUSH, so I gently explained to him that we can't do that. Odd thing was that this was the same guy who ordered a STAT EKG on a 19 year old sickle cell patient. She was septic and getting tachy. I asked him, uh, why did he want an EKG on this patient? He answered, "To see whether it's cardiogenic in origin." I guess he just really wanted to see SOMEthing cardiac, even if he had to cause it himself?

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Saw a new LPN pour liquid morphine into a med cup and then go to bring it to the patient. When I stopped her, she stated thats how she's always done it! She had been working on the unit for almost a month. When I showed her how to use a fitted top for the bottle and a syringe, she said"That seems like a big hassle." The patient was ok, and Wonder how accurate that count was?

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I gave report the the oncoming day shift that unit #2 of blood had just been hung on mr. x. After 12 hr shift- report was given that the blood (unit #2) was almost done infusing.

That's terrible! Was it just a slip in details during the report (meaning did they actually mean that the patient received an additional two units of blood seperate from what you had reported on on the earlier shift) or was that blood really hanging for 12 hours!?!

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That's terrible! Was it just a slip in details during the report (meaning did they actually mean that the patient received an additional two units of blood seperate from what you had reported on on the earlier shift) or was that blood really hanging for 12 hours!?!

It really was the same unit of blood. :o

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