Student nurses do the darndest things

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Nurses Month 2024 | Discounts & Freebies AORN Celebrates Nurses Month

I remember when I was a student nurse,the instructor telling us about a student that she instructed to give a fleets enema to,when she went in to check on the progress of the patient,she noticed the fleets enema sticking out of the patients mouth!

Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
While I find all of these incidents funny, I also find them ummm sad and kinda appalling. When I was a student nurse, our instructors made sure we understood and were well prepaired for each procedure before we preformed it for the first time and also 9 times out of 10 we had already seen someone perform the proceedure. No "winging it" for us. Even though we might be nervous, we could rely on our recent "walk through" with our instructor to get through it and most times our instructor or another seasoned nurse was right there with us. I guess times have changed in nursing school in more ways than one. I'm glad I was never hung out to dry like that and not well prepaired for even the simplest of procedures. You might have considered it hand holding but by my last quarter, I felt confident enought to handle 3-4 patients care and know when I didn't know something and didn't feel uncomfortable to say, I haven't done this before, can you explain and accompany me while I preform this procedure.

No worries, this hasn't happened to me yet in Clinicals and I don't do anything new that I am unsure of without running it through with my nurse before hand or instructor or observing. I am someone that needs to see it once first usually. No matter how small it is, if I don't know what I am doing (within reason) I ask or watch and I am not punished for this in school, in fact, it's encouraged. I have had to go observe the aides do a few things in the hospital clinical because it was so much different then the nursing home, so when I got to the hospital I wasn't sure how to do some of the most basic skills, (like emptying a cath bag).

i am a student nurse. You know what, i was so unfortunately where my schedule for posting earlier than my clinical practice. That day, i weight a baby with his buttock sticking with **** on the weighing scale. Oh god, i just not prepare to do it... my clinical lecturer saw it and scolded me very loud in-front of every students and baby. oooh... it just so embarrassing. However, without that, i couldn't have learned.:nurse:

Your instructor could have taught you without that public humiliation. :heartbeat

A student nurse once changed a pad saturated with lochia---- WITHOUT GLOVES....:eek:

I think I just threw up a little.

That reminds me of my first experience having to give a suppository. The nurse handed it to me and I literally froze..I mean could not move. Eventually she took it off me in disgust and did it herself. Lucky I had no clue what I was in for in the years to come or I would have run a mile!

My first day at Hospital Clinicals I was to shadow the nurse and she had a suppository to give and had me do it. Man those things are HARD to open. She was like, make sure you go up to your knuckle and I just gave her this look and she laughed but was super nice and I did it. Then another nurse told her she had an injection to give and if I wanted to do it. I froze again and was like UHHHHH I have never given on on a human, maybe I should watch. She told me that I was for sure giving it then. I was SOOOO nervous and so thankful the pt had a lot of "cushion" for the injection. Now that I have been in my hospital clinicals for a while I embrace anything I can experience. I was there to seek out cath opportunities, injections, assisted in a thoracentesis and helped when 2 patients crashed. It can be scary jumping in :p

I am still a nursing student, and this just happened a few months ago...I had never given a suppository before. My instructor was watching me like a hawk and I was trying to check my 2 pt identifiers, get the suppository lubed up, explain to the patient what I was doing, and listen to everything my instructor was saying to me. I went for it, got it in, and then my instructor starts explaining something about the medication and then in the middle of her sentence she said "Oh honey, get your finger out of there".....yeah, because I was trying so hard to concentrate on my instructor, I forgot to remove my finger from my patient's butt after I inserted the suppository...:pntlft:

That is SOOOOOOOOO funny and gave me a much needed laugh.

Is there a single word that sounds nastier than "lochia"?

Curd! I LOATHE that word, so gross.

I don't have any stories from actual clinicals yet, but I had a couple stupid moments in lab. We were practicing IV's not inserting them but hanging the Primary, setting drip rates if you don't have a pump and doing the piggy back. So I went to go do it with my group and I was already in a funny mood, I had NO sleep the night before. So I am like, "why isn't mine dripping" so my friend tells me I still have the cap on the end. DOH' so I take the cap off and again it's still not dripping. I am like, what the heck?? My friend starts laughing and tells me I am stepping on the tube. Good grief!!! So then we have the returns and the instructor I had I really liked, she was so awesome. Anyway, same thing, I am like why isn't this dripping. Like saying it to myself and totally blanked on why it might be happening. She was SOOOOOO nice about it, she was playing it off like I have the option to take off the cap. Good thing is I have NO PROBLEM laughing at myself so I am not usually embarrassed when I do dumb things.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ER.
My IV bath was D5W in 1/2NS. Talk about sticky. :rolleyes:

Mine was Levaquin.... i had help from an overzealous aide on the floor that was helping me move a patient from ER gurney to hospital bed. Sticky and stinky!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC.
Mine was Levaquin.... i had help from an overzealous aide on the floor that was helping me move a patient from ER gurney to hospital bed. Sticky and stinky!

Oh, P.U!!! I've spilled a bit of IV oxicillin, etc. when priming bags; eww.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

So apparently I posted to soon. I fell tonight in a patients room in front of my co nurse, the patient and his visitor. It's a very good thing I can laugh at myself. He was very down and after they saw I was ok he smiled and I told him that I am such a good student nurse I will even risk my life to make him smile. My co nurse was more concerned (I did twist my ankle pretty good) but when I got up and brushed myself off, I said the only thing hurt was my ego! Seriously, it was so embarrassing.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

Last night, well I guess we are on a new day now(I really need to get to bed) but Friday night I was full of all kinds of stupid errors. It was my last clinical for this class and I made up for the previous 6 weeks. Let's see, first I charted vitals under the wrong patient. Thankfully I always check trends when I chart them and saw they were so off from his norm and realized what I did. Then I went to reconnect the IV WITH the cap still on the tubing :| Wondered why it wasn't wanting to fit into the buff cap :| Went to change out a Piggy Back and the previous one had been stopped when it was only half way done, anyway I spike the new bag and flip them both back over while liquid comes spewing out the bag, thankfully the nurse was talking to the patient and I was behind her and they didn't notice. I covertly cleaned it all up trying not to laugh and told her after.

Went to draw up toradol and thankfully I wear glasses as it squirted at my face when I pulled out the syringe. Our saline flushes tend to stick so the nurses say to pull back at first to "unstick" it. Well pulled back a little to far when it was really resisting on one and got water everywhere. This was all in ONE NIGHT. I was telling the nurse that I haven't had problems this whole time and now I am screwing up left and right. She was great though, told me if this is the extent of my screwups I will have a great nursing career and she has made all the same mistakes numerous times.

Last but not least, I really stuck my foot in my mouth. I am so used to having patients with a sense of humor. Well I had one patient that seemed a little more anal, but she was starting to open up more. She had a heparin shot due at 2200 and she said she didn't want a student doing her injection because it always hurts when the nurses do them. I explained to her that the heparin is a drug that burns when going in most times but that it was totally ok and I had no problem with letting the nurse do it. She had asked if I had done injections and I said lots! (ok maybe not lots but I am comfortable with sub Q, haven't done an IM yet though.) So anyway, 2200 comes around and she said I could go ahead and do her injection. After I was done I asked her how was it and she said good, she couldn't tell I was a newbie. So jokingly I replied, yeah not bad for my first human huh!!! I don't think she thought the joke was as funny as I did :| Man I am so grateful for my patients that like joke around too!

For example,

I had this wonderful elderly gentlemen that had been through SO MUCH, he was my first patient at the hospital and we found out we had a LOT in common. His son went to school my father in Deadwood South Dakota and stuff, just a lot of "it's small world" type of things and he knew a lot of my great family that I didn't know.

So anyway, my instructor came to watch an assessment. He promised he would behave and earlier when I was giving PO meds in front of her he said if I messed up he would hide the evidence. Just a great guy I could banter back and forth with and I usually always have a good repoir with my patients or try to.

So he tried to throw me off and when I went to listen to his lungs, he did this huge gasp and made this dreadful sound, my instructor kinda froze and I knew better and without missing a beat told him if he could keep it down so I could listen. he started laughing. I totally expected something like that from him LOL. So anyway, he was going to be getting his heparin injections so I came back in with the gigantic syringe they use to aspirate the NG tube and a huge needle in a packet and I said for his stunt earlier I was giving him his injection with that. He thankfully did find it funny!!!

Anyway, these to me are the best patients I can get!!!!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC.

Great story about the last patient, Mi Vida!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
I asked a student nurse to inflate a 2L pressure bag for me. He just kept pumping air into it and eventually it exploded. I felt very bad because it was my fault that I didn't tell him to check the bag indicator. :lol2: We had a good laugh about it afterwards.

Lol - Some of these are great.

I had a student nurse the other day....carried her coffee cup w/lid everywhere. Wouldn't put it down for anything, not even as she took history from the patient.

We (staff) were left thinking "what the hell has she been (not) taught?"

Just hangin' out, chillin' w/ the java & takin' notes, huh? :lol2: :smackingf

It's called ethics.

Much as I'm a coffee addict myself.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I once spilled a huge glass of Boost drink all over my scrubs. That was awesome. It was about 1 L of Boost too! My patient burst out laughing and I had to change

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.

You made my day.

I'm laughing so hard, I'm in tears!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

It was our last day of clinical on a particular unit.

As usual, we students brought in doughnuts for the floor nurses. We placed them in the nourishment room directly in front of the nurses' station.

A fellow student (who I shall call Smarty Pants) and I decided to grab a doughnut for ourselves, and so, we went into the nourishment room.

This room was very very small and Smarty Pants was standing along the wall, so that when the door was opened by the CNA, Smarty Pants found herself plastered between the wall and the back of the door.

I burst out laughing at her and I made some smart comments about her being stuck... including some sound effects like "splat!" and "ka-plooey!" none of which Smarty Pants replied to.

The CNA was looking at me oddly and left the room in a hurry.

I turned around to Smarty Pants who laughed, "Hygiene, I think the CNA thought you were laughing and talking to yourself. She didn't see me. She thought you were in here alone."

"Aw, heck, no!" I said, "There is NO WAY she could not have seen you."

As I said this, I looked out the narrow rectangular window on the door. I see the CNA at the nurses' station looking freaked out and all my other classmates, all the available floor nurses and my instructor looking back at ME with worried expressions...

And I realize... they are seeing ME talking and laughing through this window... but they don't see Smarty Pants who was still against the wall.

Calmly, I turn back to Smarty Pants, cock my head to one side and slowly say, "By golly, you big ***h*le, I do believe you are correct."

Smarty Pants is rolling on the floor cracking up now and I had to open that door and face all those people with some sort of dignity.

"I... am NOT talking to myself...".

Boy oh boy.

It was funny but I was also aghast that so many could seriously think I'd gone loo-loo like that.

I am still on a mission to get Smarty Pants back without getting kicked out of nursing school.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Neonatal.

I totally once offered to take a bilateral amputee for a walk :rotfl: the patient's daughter was pretty upset!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment