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.)
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![/quote']
Oh wow! What did you say when you received the patient? I'm assuming you were on the receiving end..
Oh wow! What did you say when you received the patient? I'm assuming you were on the receiving end..
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Well, I greeted the patient, told them I was just going straighten things with their IV line. In my head I said a fairly large amount of profanity, and remembered why I hate receiving patients from the ED.
All new hires for the ED have to do a couple shadowing rotations in the Icu so they can see what we do and why we ask the things we ask during report. It does help in the beginning until they start to pick up bad habits.
As a CNA I was helping a co worker change a brief on a very obese patient. They had a BM. CNA on the other side of the bed decided to sweep the bed with his hand to rid the sheets of poop balls from patients BM.
HPpppk forehead?" Look in the mirror and had a poop ball plastered to my forehead like a melted m&m. *sigh*
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.[/quote']
Well thanks, just made me snort coffee out my nose.
In nursing school, I learned the hard way that the sprayer device attached to the toilet is not necessarily a great way to rinse out a bedpan full of loose stool. Whoosh!! Poop all over toilet seat, floor, walls, ceiling. Poop on me. I'll never do that again.
In nursing school I learned the hard way that the sprayer device attached to the toilet is not necessarily a great way to rinse out a bedpan full of loose stool. Whoosh!! Poop all over toilet seat, floor, walls, ceiling. Poop on me. I'll never do that again.[/quote']
Yup, only do that once. I use the faucet, but turn it on before putting bedpan/bsc bucket under it (will do same thing as the hose do-hickey). Then I back away as far as possible, close my mouth, sometimes even my eyes lol. Thanks to AN for those poop-in-mouth stories.
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.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Yup, only do that once. I use the faucet, but turn it on before putting bedpan/bsc bucket under it (will do same thing as the hose do-hickey). Then I back away as far as possible, close my mouth, sometimes even my eyes lol. Thanks to AN for those poop-in-mouth stories.
Smart people only do it once. Some of us take longer to learn the lesson . . . .
After learning the lesson in my first job, I tried it again in my second, thinking, I guess, that things would turn out differently this time. They didn't.
Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.
Back when I was still in x-ray, I worked with a rather cute radiologist. I was following him out of a fluoro room one night, not paying a bit of attention to what I was doing, and whacked my head on the monitor that hangs from the ceiling. I woke up in the ED. I had to admit that I was paying more attention to the really cute radiologist's butt then to where I was going. Really cute radiologist never let me live it down.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Back when I was still in x-ray, I worked with a rather cute radiologist. I was following him out of a fluoro room one night, not paying a bit of attention to what I was doing, and whacked my head on the monitor that hangs from the ceiling. I woke up in the ED. I had to admit that I was paying more attention to the really cute radiologist's butt then to where I was going. Really cute radiologist never let me live it down.
At least none of my stupid tricks has led to LOC or the ER!
Just happened: I was walking down the hall and suddenly lost my footing. Ankle turned, knee buckled, and splat! I'm sprawled on the floor. At least 3 people watched the entire thing go down. Turns out I stepped on a saline flush cap. I'm awesome!
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