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.)
"How to look incredibly stupid without even trying?" Easy. Be a nursing student at clinicals. That's me. Every dang clinical day. I feel like I enter some sort of fugue state on the drive in and am rendered ridiculously stupid and incompetent for the rest of the day. Ugh.
Specializes in Sleep medicine,Floor nursing, OR, Trauma.
Oh my god, yes please to this thread. Yes.
May I?
~~ Call a code and begin CPR on a sleeping patient. Continue with CPR (I'm talking compressions and everything, people) after code team arrives to find you with a very much alive, flailing, swearing patient. Get defensive and state you "thought the patient was seizing" as the reason you didn't stop. Get even more defensive when the code team laughs as the patient explains "That lil' thing just came out of no where and wrestled all up on me."
~~ Offer to draw up a med for an MD waiting to do a local procedure. Violently inject 5ml of air into a 1ml ampule and not understand why the med keeps bubbling out. Lather, rinse, repeat 4x before he tells you to "just stop what you're doing. Bring it here."
~~ Give the grand tour of the OR to a group of newbies. Walk face first slap bang into what is normally a motion triggered door because you were too busy running your mouth to see the two 8 1/2 by 11 bright, flourescent-ass, blazing pink "Out of Order" signs hanging on and near the motion device. End up with a black eye and a bunch of chuckling doctors thinking they're clever by constantly pointing out any and all "Out of Order" signage to you until the day you either die or quit. I can neither confirm nor deny this was me.
~~ When beckoned, draw close to the surgical field to watch a fascinating procedure. When the surgeon points out what he is looking at, casually reach over the sterile field with an un-sterile gloved hand and prod the item of interest while asking, "You mean that right there?" (Not me!)
~~ When your surgeon starts whinging about a boom-light being too far out of his reach, swing/karate chop the stubborn boom joint so the light wildly whips right into the side of his head. Casually ask if he "can reach it now?". (Ugh...me.)
~~ Come sprinting into a bloody level one with a 35ml syringe held aloft over your head like the damn olympic torch as if this, not the many blood products or the pending surgery to repair the bullet damage....no, this one syringe will be what spells the difference between survival and demise for this patient. Slip on blood clot, pitch croc in the process into a bottle of albumin which then explodes on contact with the floor, fall, crack head on base of an IV pole and become unresponsive. Now we have two patients and a hell of a mess to clean up. Thanks for that.
This is why we don't run, kiddies.
Oh yeah. That felt good.
Thanks for another great thread, Ruby Vee. My hero.
Tell everyone your friends and family are coming in tonight and you're taking them honky-tonking. Come to work the next day dragging butt and saying you "had a sinus headache and didn't get any sleep." Try to force the charge nurse to take your assignment so you can go home, when you know good and well that if you leave you will get fired because you've pulled this crap one too many times. Throw in your pregnancy and epilepsy for good measure, as if that will keep you from losing your job.
House sit for a co-worker and steal her jewelry and electronics and pawn them because you have a spending problem and not enough money. Get caught and have a felony theft and "false declaration in pawn" and not report it to the state BON when renewing your license and then get caught lying to the BON and lose your license. Stupid Nurse tricks!!!! I guess I was the stupid nurse for trusting her to housesit.
Spike blood, forget that roller clamps are open, liberally coat wall, floor & shoes with prbc's. And those were white shoes. Operative word being were. I plead the 5th.
Actually it should comfort you. We ALL have stories like this - only some of us are brave enough to admit them![/quote']
This.
You'll remember this while frantically getting a chart when a doctor is asking a question, especially when you have a great report to give them when you need something, and promptly pull the phone cord out, or after a brilliant enlightening session proving your competence in educating pts your expertise in colliding into doors, solidifying your penchant for comedy relief to your pts.
I had a co-nurse tell me that she used to be in the movie industry. Later my son is watching a cheech and chong movie, and OMG, is that her? Looks just like her... To embarrassed to ask.
Go into patient room, two cups, one normal saline to cleanse a wound and the second tap water for taking meds. Patient states " this water is really salty tasting" ........ nough said.... Thank goodness did not have potassium issues..
Specializes in Ambulatory Surgery, Ophthalmology, Tele.
LOVING these stories!
Before I was a nurse: Coworker goes home early "sick" and happens to be in the nail salon across the street when a little old lady drives into the front window of the nail salon. There were newspaper articles about it and.......we were across the street. To make it worse, she limped around clinic with a large leg brace on with the dramatic "poor me" face for a week or so. I am surprised she wasn't fired.
To make it worse, she limped around clinic with a large leg brace on with the dramatic "poor me" face for a week or so. I am surprised she wasn't fired.
Java_Wench
89 Posts
"How to look incredibly stupid without even trying?" Easy. Be a nursing student at clinicals. That's me. Every dang clinical day. I feel like I enter some sort of fugue state on the drive in and am rendered ridiculously stupid and incompetent for the rest of the day. Ugh.