It's been awhile since we had a stupid nurse tricks thread, so here goes: How to look Incredibly Stupid Without Really Trying:
Call in to work because it's snowed and it's "not worth your life to drive to work on those roads." Be in a bar down the street from the hospital when your best friend at work uses the "Find My Friends" app on her iPhone to check on when her replacement will get there in to relieve her. (Will you lose your job?)
You've got horrible abdominal pain, but you suck it up and come to work anyway. Yay, you! You collapse in your patient's room and are whisked off to the ER by your manager and an RT. You insist that you're infertile and couldn't possibly be pregnant as you're delivered of a full term baby girl. (OK, this one was a CNS and nursing student.)
Call in sick to work because you want to go to your manager's wedding and you didn't win the "get the weekend off" lottery. Catch the bouquet. (And lose your job.)
You're having palpitations, and you're a little lightheaded and slightly diaphoretic. Strangers at the mall are concerned and offer to call an ambulance. You decline, telling them you're fine. Then you think that you probably should go to the ER, but since you know from AN that you won't get a sandwich to eat, you sit down at Bertucci's and order a plate of ravioli. Then you drive yourself to the ER, park at the bottom of a hill and walk uphill to the entrance. You're surprised when the triage nurse takes you straight back. (Yes, that was me. I was fine.)
Tell everyone at work that you're young, you want to have fun, and you're going to a friend's Halloween party after work. Go to the party dressed as a sexy nurse, and be in lots of pictures. Post those pictures on Facebook. Now call in sick to work the next day at 06:50 for your 07:00 shift. You've friended everyone you work with on FaceBook. (And NOT lose your job. What are the odds?)
Steal money from your colleagues' bags in the breakroom. Get caught by a colleague with a black belt in tae kwon do. Be photographed with a 5 foot tall girl flipping you and then sitting on you until Security arrives. (Have your manliness questioned by everyone who sees the pictures.)
1st year of nursing moment: Agreed to take on an extra 4 hours after my 12 hour shift. Of course someone codes at hour 15. I'm hypoglycemic and full of adrenaline pumping this patient so hard. When it's time to transfer him to ICU, I offer to grab the emergency medicine kit for the trip. Doctors and RT wheel patient into elevator and it looks pretty crowded in there to me so I figure I'll be kind and grab the next one down. As the doors close, I stand on the opposite side, grinning and waving. Everyone in the elevator looks puzzled. The doors close. I realize I am about to take the next elevator, alone, carrying emergency meds for no one.[/quote']
I laughed out loud. Lol I saw the whole scene in my head!
Probably too many to count over the years, but the ones that stick in my mind the most are my personal version of the show "What Not to Wear".
Many years ago I worked in psych, of course wearing street clothes. One day, having somewhere to go after work I wore a skirt, which seemed rather conservative when I dressed. Unfortunately it was a wrap skirt.... You guessed it - I had to do a take down and when all the staff responded from other units there I was in a spread eagle stance restraining the struggling pt. Thank goodness I had opted for opaque tights that day.
In the second incidence I bought a pretty new scrub top, wore it to work on the OB unit. I should mention it was a snap front top. The laboring mom reached up, grabbed a handful of material, popping open every snap on the front of that top in front of the room full of staff and family all attending the delivery. Of course the family was videotaping!
I was on the code team and a code was called for a location right outside of the front doors. I hauled the code cart through the whole hospital to this location, didn't account for the "lip" on the door since it was outside. Pushed the code cart over the lip, code cart fell over after one of the wheels broke off, all of the drawers fell out, and the defib crashed to the floor. Then, because I'm awesome, I fell on top of the code cart and bruised my shins top to bottom. I had to carry all of the contents of the code cart back up to the ICU in a wheelchair while maintenance repaired the cart.
The kicker though - since this wasn't an inpatient patient, it was ED who was supposed to bring their crash cart, not me (from the ICU), I just had to respond to push meds. Oh, and the fact that approximately 15 people witnessed me crashing the cart and falling on top of it!
As a new grad nurse went in to assess a post op patient. The patient was an elderly gentleman. An elderly woman and a middle aged woman were at the bedside. Comment about "oh you must be the daughter from out of town". Nope it was the wife and the girlfriend at the bedside. Daughter wasn't there yet. Patient said he wasn't divorcing and giving her 1/2 so I suppose this was their answer:nailbiting:
These are all awesome. Had a newbie at the Pyxis crushing pills. She happen to have the one pt with a trach that could take PO meds. When I asked what she was doing she stated she was crushing the pills so they would be easier going into the trach. And proceeded to tell me whole pills are to big to put into the trach and the pt would choke, all while giving me a look like I was dumb. That would have been very bad.
Had a patient 2 days post-op for leg surgery. Go and do my first assessment and patient states they cannot feel their toes. At all. Cap refill good, no swelling, can move toes. But can't feel them. I am worried and this could be a serious problem right? So I call the surgeon at home about it right away. He says, "Yeah, that's been going on for two days. Did you not read my notes?" No I had not read the notes, being that I had not sat down yet, and neither had the RN given me report about it. So the doc tells me he's aware, nothing's new, scolds me and tells me he's about to go to bed.
An hour later I get a message that the MD tried to call me back, but I was in another room and couldn't take the call. I call him back about 30 minutes later. The call drops for some reason right after he answers it and I identify myself. I call back again. I can tell I woke him up. He asks me what took so long for me to call him back, and then said "What's going on there tonight?"
Then the doc mumbles that he was just thinking more about the patient, and I can give them Valium PRN if they need it, and gives me the dose, route, etc and asks me to do a telephone order. I repeat back the order and he verifies that I got it right. I hang up feeling frazzled.
I forgot to mention I'm precepting so the new nurse is watching the whole thing and taking notes.
I felt pretty darned proud of the whole telephone repeat verify thing since we rarely use that at work. I felt I was setting a very good example for the new nurse I was trainig. Most docs are in house or enter them from their own home computer.
I go to enter the Valium order in the computer and I realize he never gave me a PRN indication and I never asked. Is it for pain, muscle cramps, or agitation (the patient was known to have anxiety and need ativan sometimes)? Or something else? Maybe it fixes numb toes and I just don't know that?? The computer won't let me finish the order entry without an indicator for the med.
I have to call him back again.
He yells really loud, "You called me back for this?? Really? I was asleep! It's for muscle spasm, okay? Are you new or something?" My preceptee hears the whole conversation. She's trying not to laugh. I want to just go and hide in the supply room for the rest of the night.
And it turns out the patient didn't have any muscle spasms all night.
These are all awesome. Had a newbie at the Pyxis crushing pills. She happen to have the one pt with a trach that could take PO meds. When I asked what she was doing she stated she was crushing the pills so they would be easier going into the trach. And proceeded to tell me whole pills are to big to put into the trach and the pt would choke, all while giving me a look like I was dumb. That would have been very bad.
She got a quick lesson on the esophagus and trachs and was watched closer the rest of the night. She truly thought the trach was for everything. It was her first time dealing with a trach. Poor thing. Needless to say after her orientation she was transferred to med surg. ICU was too much for her. She told us she didn't have the critical thinking skills and thick skin for us. Now we have a whole orientation sign off checklist for trachs. And the first thing in bold big black letters is do not put any meds down trach! I could only imagine how bad that could've turned out had I not been watching her every move.
Ok, so after reading this thread and a few others, which led me to the 'Mockery of nursing' thread (I pulled a marathon, read the whole darn thing in about a day and a half), I want to tell you how much I love you guys and gals. You manage to give me back a tiny little bit of faith in humanity.
Also, I would like to buy shares in the Fomite scrub company, as well as purchase a few sets. I feel my bippy would look fantastic in some of the colors mentioned!
Seriously though. Please don't change. You people are just plain awesome. Well, most of you anyways . If I wasn't already a nurse, visiting this site would definitely (defiantly?) be enough to make nursing my DREEAAAAAMMMMM! I suppose I'll have to be content with dreeeeaaaammmming of becoming a great, knowledgeable COB like some of you on here.
Ugh...can't believe I missed those awesome threads when I could actually still comment on them.
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. If I wasn't already a nurse, visiting this site would definitely (defiantly?) be enough to make nursing my DREEAAAAAMMMMM! I suppose I'll have to be content with dreeeeaaaammmming of becoming a great, knowledgeable COB like some of you on here.
pookyp, LPN
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