Strange things that you saw when you were a student

gizzy76 · Apr 19, 2003

A resident in the LTC where I work has an indwelling catheter due to prostate cancer among other problems. He likes to pull his catheter out with the balloon inflated. I've only been there about 2 months now and it gets pulled out at least once a week. We have now resorted to a 30cc balloon hoping that it will stay put for awhile. The strangest thing about this all is that his member looks as though it is split in half and his urethra is like a highway it's so huge! I've never seen anything like it!

OH Yeah! I forgot too...another resident, a nice little ol' gal from England originally, has a glass eye. I've worked there as I said for 2 months and had no idea until right in the middle of dinner in the dining room she popped it out before I was about to give her her pills and put the dang thing in her mouth! I nearly hit the floor. Grossly enough, her eye had some thick goop around it too!

JustMe · Apr 19, 2003

The strangest thing I saw when I was a student 20+ yrs ago was when I was assigned to follow the EKG tech. We got a call to go to the morgue (the hospital was the place for autopsy for the county). The pathologist was getting ready to start the autopsy on a stiff (literally) but he wanted an EKG first!! Turns out the guy had a pacemaker and he wanted to make sure there was no heart response to the pacer!! Well, DUH! The guy was stiff!!!:stone

Surgical Hrt RN · Apr 19, 2003

When I was in nursing school I worked as a tech in the ICU. We had a patient that was admitted to us unresponsive from the ER. They had found her in an abaonded building. When we took off her gown and the sheets to do her bath, she had roaches crawling out of her lady parts! EWWWWWWWWWW

ShelleyERgirl, LPN · Apr 19, 2003

Originally posted by Surgical Hrt RN
When I was in nursing school I worked as a tech in the ICU. We had a patient that was admitted to us unresponsive from the ER. They had found her in an abaonded building. When we took off her gown and the sheets to do her bath, she had roaches crawling out of her lady parts! EWWWWWWWWWW

:eek: :eek:

That is nasty! EWWWWWW! What was her condition after all that? Did she recover? Oh man, I can't imagine being in that room with you guys. I think I 'd have to run screaming down the hallway:roll

thatldo · Apr 19, 2003

oh my gosh, you guys are killing me!!!

Yes I know the horror stories & thought I'd read them all from you seasoned nurses, but now I'm really quite concerned as I start clinicals next week, and although I can assist with castrating cows & horses, I'm not going to think that nothing is going to bother me. So....what do I do about my tender gag reflex?

Keep these stories coming, I'd like to think its preparing me!

:)

LilgirlRN, ADN, RN · Apr 19, 2003

Working in the ER in the south we regularly pull roaches out of people's ears. Some of them are surprisingly large, you wouldn't think that they could fit inside the canal. Roaches have those little barb like things on their legs and once they get in somewhere tight, the barbs prevent them from backing out. We used to keep Ethrane in the ER, it's kinda like ether. Put some on a cotton ball, put the cotton ball as far as you can get it in the ear canal and voila...anesthetized roach. Unfortunately sometimes they wake up ......EEEEEEEEK! I hate roaches!

cokie · Apr 20, 2003

great stories.. i had no idea.....

chemistry_chick · Apr 20, 2003

Originally posted by ShandyLynnRN
When I had my son, I had a male LPN student examine me, from epis to peri care, to breast exam...

The next semester I started nursing school and guess who was there in my RN class??? Talk about embarrassing!!!

Haha! Sounds like my luck!

ktwlpn, LPN · Apr 21, 2003

Originally posted by gwenith
There was one patient when I was training - he was a little intellectually handicapped. Had a scrotal hernia that he had never bothered to get repaired. It came down to his knees!!! Now the worst part was he used to drop his pants during visiting hours to use a bottle.

We had some explaining to do believe me! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----OK-now everybody--- SING WITH ME!!!!---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do your balls hang low?
Can you swing them to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot?
Can you tie 'em in a bow?
Do you ever get the feeling
When they hit against the ceiling
That you'll never be a sailor
If your balls hang low?

Brian, ASN, RN · Apr 21, 2003

Admin note: Just modified the title of the thread to make it more descriptive and user friendly to other users.

Changed from Strange??? to

Strange things that you saw when you were a student

carry on :)

susanmary · Apr 21, 2003

I unwrap the dressing she has on and turn to throw it away. I turned back just in time to see her little toe fall off. I[/b]

Don't you just HATE when that happens? Of course, you saved the patient the money of having her toe amped.

shelleybelle · Apr 21, 2003

my 2nd patient in clinical rotations was an elderly "male" with several different "parts". He was incontinent and comatose, so I had to bathe & change him.... I couldn't help but take a gander! He had a "normal" member, and below it was a lady partsl opening and then the testes - which had urinary holes in them. I was told when they tried to catheterize him on admission, that urine came out of 4 different places... It was WEIRD. I felt sooo sorry for him... he had no family, no friends - nobody except a couple who'd ministered to him in church. it was so sad

The other thing was a man in my homehealth rotation. He'd contracted staphy after having a cervical fusion done. We had to do dressing changes on him - when we removed the old dressing, you could actually SEE this man's spinal cord. It was scary being that close to such a vital part of the body... but good experience :)