Stupid Nurse Tricks (Or How To Look Incredibly Stupid)

[Ruby Vee]

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.)

[WanderLust07]

Doing my very first male catheterization on a real, live, human.

85ish y/o with bladder ca and retaining.

Set up sterile field, explain procedure, clean, pull back foreskin, in it goes. Connect foley to drainage bag and attempt to replace the foreskin. What? Why isn't it going? Continue pulling, pulling, poking and pulling. Face getting red and hot. Preceptor pulls, pulls. We both pull and push and ahh there it goes back over. Fine and dandy! Then the patient lets out a little laugh and says, "Dang, ladies, you made me feel like I'm 25 years old again!"

Laugh awkwardly and almost die. I still tell this story at work to the newbies :)

[daisy-mae]

Doing my very first male catheterization on a real live, human. 85ish y/o with bladder ca and retaining. Set up sterile field, explain procedure, clean, pull back foreskin, in it goes. Connect foley to drainage bag and attempt to replace the foreskin. What? Why isn't it going? Continue pulling, pulling, poking and pulling. Face getting red and hot. Preceptor pulls, pulls. We both pull and push and ahh there it goes back over. Fine and dandy! Then the patient lets out a little laugh and says, "Dang, ladies, you made me feel like I'm 25 years old again!" Laugh awkwardly and almost die. I still tell this story at work to the newbies :)[/quote']

Oops. Thanks for the laugh.

[Cuddleswithpuddles]

This is a funny thread, great stories. Here's a dialysis one: Had trouble getting needles in; still at pt's bedside, explaining this to doc by saying, "She's a tricky stick," meaning only that the needles were hard to get in. But the pt took it as an insult!

Could have been worse. The doctor could have said she was a sicky trick.

[PepperPine]

Teaching two 8 year olds about the human body systems. Watch a video about germs, no problem. Watch a video on the skeletal system, so the cartoon skeleton is walking down the street, and the 8 year old ask, "Did the germs eat him?"

Loooool

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

Yeah me too! I was in total shock. And was the clinical educator, nurse manager and other nurses. Not really sure what was going through her head. Or what wasn't. Her excuse was the tech school she went to didn't go over trachs in depth, poor excuse if you ask me. Basic knowledge should kick in. It's a breathing tube not a feeding tube. She had to redo orientation when she transferred. She asks if she can float to ICU and our manager has pretty much banned her from working on the unit. I only precepted her 1 day as I was covering for her regular preceptor. After that I took over care I had a hard time letting her do anything I was so scared

what did her regular preceptor have to say?

[Christy1019, ASN, RN]

Just did this this morning... Every tuesday morning the hospital administrators do a walk-through of the ED, so everything has to be clean, no drinks or cell phones visible... Well one of them approaches me and asks if there are any improvements or things we need. I jokingly MEANT to say a personal MASSEUSE would be nice, however, what came out was a personal MASSAGE. Eek!! He gave me a weird look and just walked away as my coworkers proceeded to crack up!

[morningland]

We had a nurse, who had something like 15 years exp at a busy Boston Hospital, hire in at our rural facility and just crashed and burned. Management was suspicious of her, so they checked her omnicell med pull records and she had something like 50 wrong pulls in a day. I mean, how does that even happen?

She was hopelessly behind on her meds; okay, it happens -- I have no judgement against her. But we came to find that she was stashing all her late meds in her bag. Not narcotics, mind you; antibiotics and BP meds! So she was trying to cover her mistakes by stealing meds from her patients.

That is what I call stupid, and wildly unethical

[MomRN0913]

Telling your coworker it's no problem to remove a femoral dialysis father during post Mortem care. Turn the patient to put the shroud underneath only to cover your coworker in blood from blood gushing from the femoral site .

oooopsie.

[Wave Watcher]

Patient with IV pump that keeps beeping over and over and over again (night shift). Try everything from priming the line, turn it off, turn it on, reset the pump, complain about how out of date our pumps are, try everything from priming the line, turn it off, turn it on, reset the pump, complain about how out of date our pumps are, try everything from priming the line, turn it off, turn it on, reset the pump, complain about how out of date our pumps are. FINALLY (because I wasn't going to stop until the beeping quit) called a well seasoned co-worker into the room and tell her EVERYTHING I just did, and how we need new pumps, and how we don't have time for this..........she grabs the plug to the pump and plugs it into the wall and walks out without a word. Dang dilly ole' thing was low on battery and needed charging. Great. Crown me the Victor! Hey, I got the pump to stop beeping. :-)

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

Patient with IV pump that keeps beeping over and over and over again (night shift).

Thankfully, I've never had a patient that beeped.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Thankfully, I've never had a patient that beeped.

I've had patients that beeped. Beeper in the pocket. (Pager -- anyone remember those?)

[ausrnurse]

Telling your coworker it's no problem to remove a femoral dialysis father during post Mortem care. Turn the patient to put the shroud underneath only to cover your coworker in blood from blood gushing from the femoral site .

oooopsie.

This one made me laugh out loud because...well, I did something similar a few weeks ago. We rarely have pts in ICU that we remove their lines post-mortem (coroners cases and all that), and before that I worked in outpatients, I didn't realise lines still bled so much without a blood pressure!