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.)

[TU RN, DNP, CRNA]

MD orders that it's okay to use Dialysis catheter for levophed during a rapid response. Unfamiliar with an uncapped line and a little excited to be involved in the RR, the new nurse removed the flush syringe before reclamping the line. Out came a few CCs of blood. Back on went the clamp. (No harm done ultimately, and the pressor worked like a charm, but yeah this was me helping a coworker's patient during the RRT)

[RunBabyRN]

While teaching a group of new students, trip over your own shoes and face plant in the hallway 20 feet from the ER and end up inside with a nice goose egg on your chin for weeks. Have this happen in front of said students. (My clinical instructor, who was MORTIFIED)

[OCNRN63, RN]

~~ 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.

Does it make me a bad person that I not only laughed at this, but wished I had been there as well?

[bebbercorn]

Passed out first time I hung blood. Yep.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Being annoyed about a unit-wide problem, muttering to yourself about said problem and other work -related annoyances while removing meds from the Pyxis, then exclaiming, "Take this job and shove it!" While slamming the last Pyxis draw closed, only to turn around and see the manager standing there.

Yes, me.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Oh, one more. Not so much how stupid I looked, but a moment in which an unprofessional comment rolls off the tongue.

Order for Foley placement on A/O x 4, heavier female patient. All set up, positioned, urethra visualized, swabbed, it disappears and fingers slip. Ask CNA assisting to go get a handful of swab packets from the supply room because I've already run out. She returns quickly, open labia again, swab, it disappears and fingers slip again. Finally realize that the patient is clenching right after I swab in anticipation of insertion. Therapeutic communication used. Repeat x 2. Then, the comment slips out.

"You need to stop clenching your butt cheeks. The hole goes into hiding!"

To which the patient replied, "With how much you're digging around down there, you could make your own hole!"

[motherof3sons]

Sticking ones self in the lip with a clean needle thinking that the cap was still and was going to remove it with my teeth.........ummm taking out over bed lights with othro trapeze.

I am sure there are many, many more!

[cardiacfreak, ADN]

Call in FMLA and then post a picture on facebook of you and your child.

[cardiacfreak, ADN]

Once and only once I injected air into a mucomyst vial.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

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.

~~CheesePotato~~

I have a brand new computer which now has been baptized in iced tea, thanks to this post!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

While teaching a group of new students, trip over your own shoes and face plant in the hallway 20 feet from the ER and end up inside with a nice goose egg on your chin for weeks. Have this happen in front of said students. (My clinical instructor, who was MORTIFIED)

Dang it! I could have saved myself some work and read this post and the ones prior to it BEFORE I cleaned my computer screen after Cheese Potatoes post!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Sticking ones self in the lip with a clean needle thinking that the cap was still and was going to remove it with my teeth.........ummm taking out over bed lights with othro trapeze.

I am sure there are many, many more!

First time I saw an electric bed (and I know this dates me) I was having so much fun making it go up and down that I took out the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. My clinical instructor was not impressed!