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.)
Fall on valentine's day and go to the ER after twisting both ankles insisting the left one is just fine and only have them xray the right. Go home walk ( no really limp) around for five days. Go to work on day five, for a class and insist your fine even though you can barely put weight on your left leg at this time. (I could hardly walk in from the parking lot, but I did). Refuse all offers to go to the ER. Go home and your mother has to threaten you that if you don't go she will make you go. Drive yourself. Have said left leg xrayed to find out you have a fractured fibula and now can't work for the next 8 weeks. I could see the x ray from across the room and just knew. Also the NP that is treating you was in your study group in nursing school. What a way to feel like a total doofus.
I broke my fibula-how in the heck did you manage to go about for 5 days with? I even felt it when it broke.
As for feeling like a doofus my hat's off to you for going so long without it being cast.
I'm a just a student, but I came across this thread and read it, hoping I could learn from others' mistakes and not make them myself. So I have clinical the next day, I'm changing a bag of fluids, being super careful to keep the bottom end up, "knowing better" after reading a couple posts on here about spilling fluids everywhere. Yeah, then I pull the empty bag off the pole and hold it by the top, dumped fluids all over myself .. It was an isolation room so I was dumping it on my gown and didn't even notice until my nurse pointed it out ..So much for learning from others
I'm a just a student, but I came across this thread and read it, hoping I could learn from others' mistakes and not make them myself. So I have clinical the next day, I'm changing a bag of fluids, being super careful to keep the bottom end up, "knowing better" after reading a couple posts on here about spilling fluids everywhere. Yeah, then I pull the empty bag off the pole and hold it by the top, dumped fluids all over myself .. It was an isolation room so I was dumping it on my gown and didn't even notice until my nurse pointed it out ..So much for learning from others
Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.
Mental note to self: this is the second time this week you have greeted a patient visitor with "are you his mom?" when it is actually his wife or girlfriend-must not do that again.
This reminds me of an incident in nursing school during my L&D clinical. We had a checklist of things we needed to try to experience during the semester, and if the floor nurses knew they had something that we needed to do, they'd let us do it even if it wasn't one of our assigned patients/couplets.
One of the things I needed to do was give an injection to a newborn, and since it wasn't my assigned patient, I hadn't had any prior interactions with the family that shift and the nurse didn't clue us in to anything unusual about the family.
My clinical instructor and I walked into the room, I introduced myself as a nursing student here to do their newborn's injection, and I introduced my clinical instructor and explained that she would be supervising me during the injection.
At this point, my CI looks at all the various family members seated around the room and asks, "So, who's who here?" And the mom starts making introductions... "This is my daughter, this is my son, this is my husband, and this is the baby's biological father."
*gulp* You have never seen a nursing student give an injection and leave a room so quickly.... Turns out that the mom and her husband had been separated when the baby was conceived, then they got back together again, and then she realized she was pregnant from her "rebound guy", and they all decided to parent the child together as one big happy family.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I'm a just a student, but I came across this thread and read it, hoping I could learn from others' mistakes and not make them myself. So I have clinical the next day, I'm changing a bag of fluids, being super careful to keep the bottom end up, "knowing better" after reading a couple posts on here about spilling fluids everywhere. Yeah, then I pull the empty bag off the pole and hold it by the top, dumped fluids all over myself .. It was an isolation room so I was dumping it on my gown and didn't even notice until my nurse pointed it out ..So much for learning from others
Congratulations. You learned the real lesson which was laugh, then come here and post about it sso the rest of us can laugh, too!
How to look Incredibly Stupid Without Really Trying
Step 1: Allow a child who feels nauseated after lunch to read a clinic book.
Step 2: When child throws up on the book, reach towards her to comfort her and offer her a trashcan.
Step 3: When child throws up all over you, the outside of the trashcan, the cot she's sitting on, her legs, and the book (again), silently count to 10 so you don't call yourself a dumb*** in front of a 6 year old.
Step 4: Track vomit all over the rest of the floor and the bathroom as you attempt to get the child to a toilet and sink with a clean pair of pants and shoes. Accept that your clinic will smell of Voban for the foreseeable future. (I swear, there is no way to clean up every piece of Voban. It magically duplicates itself, so every time you think you've swept/mopped it all up, more appears.)
Step 5: Make a mental note to bring in a spare pare of Fomite Factory scrubs for the next time this happens.
At least I know the child is eating healthy, that was definitely a full apple I saw on my arm (and the floor).
I broke my fibula-how in the heck did you manage to go about for 5 days with? I even felt it when it broke.
As for feeling like a doofus my hat's off to you for going so long without it being cast.
Pure denial. I was convinced I didn't break my leg. I thought I tore a ligament. I didn't feel or hear anything when I fell. I think I was so shocked when I fell. It actually hurt less than the other ankle at one point. I knew I really did something by day 5 when I couldn't bear weight without incredible pain.
Hand irrigate a foley clogged with blood clots and end up spraying yourself and the room with blood. End up looking like Carrie after the prom and having to go take a shower in the middle if your shift. I swear it wasn't me....
My unit is trialing enclosing the nurses station in glass to help reduce noise. It's actually working, and it looks nice because there aren't obvious seams, besides a few sliding windows like in a doctors office. Well, I'm walking past and my charge nurse gets my attention and I obviously can't hear her, so I go to stick my head in the window. Well, the way the light was hitting the very clean glass made it look like it was open. It was not. I slammed the face full-on into the glass. I have never seen someone laugh so hard in my life! Luckily I didn't leave a nose print.
Here is a neat trick, say you have a patient come into your ED with a critically low h/h and get orders to start transfusing blood. You hang the first unit and call report to the floor. Now you are pretty busy so you figure you don't have to accompany the patient up if you just turn off the pump running the blood. So that's what you do! Btw depending on how long it takes for transport to get the patient up to the floor, that entire tubing will be worthless.. but hey that's a time saving tip isn't it!
..So much for learning from others 
!
TheGooch
775 Posts
I broke my fibula-how in the heck did you manage to go about for 5 days with? I even felt it when it broke.
As for feeling like a doofus my hat's off to you for going so long without it being cast.