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.)

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Thought that I, at 95 pounds, could let the 400 pound patient (that had crawled out of bed over the rails and was about to fall) slide slowly down my leg and gently to the floor just like I had been taught in school. Wrong. Fortunately her loud, demented, maniacal laughter got the attention of some of the staff who came into the room and saw my feet sticking out from under her. I nearly suffocated!!!

Were you wearing ruby slippers and striped socks?

[OCNRN63, RN]

I think I posted this before on another thread, but I was working one night in the ED, and as I walked into the med room, as spider dropped down, as if on a bunjee cord, right in front of my face. I hate spiders, and I screamed.

The ED doc, who was sleeping in the doctor's lounge, came running, thinking something horrible had happened. He found me standing there, shaking, and when he said "What happened?" I simply said, "Spider!" He said, "Is that it? Where is it? I'll let it outside." I said, "I stomped it!"

In a huff, he said, "You shouldn't have killed it! I would have taken it outside!"

[Catzilla]

~~ 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.

~~CheesePotato~~

This. Why do I do this, like always?!

I'll blame the adrenaline.

[Catzilla]

Actually, it should comfort you. We ALL have stories like this - only some of us are brave enough to admit them!

Plus, by reading these posts, maybe you'll avoid these same mistakes.

You'll just make your own, unique flub! ;0)

[Catzilla]

This is not how you draw up a med.

Attach needle to syringe, uncap needle, swiftly stab needle into finger.

(I wasn't even holding the med vial..)

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

While in clinicals, forgot to pop the air bubble in the flush syringe, pushed really hard, Solution hit the room and then rained down on the patient.

Talking with patients in the hall and somehow fall smack on my butt, still not sure how that one happened.

Went to sit down in the nurses station to chart, chair on wheels, chair moved, me on floor laughing, pt on phone trying not to laugh.

[rn-2-b-n-09]

In the midst of intubating a pt in the ICU, a nurse assisting with pushing drugs and trying to quickly push the air bubble out of a saline syringe, managed to squirt saline directly in the RT's face! Yep, that was me and I still laugh about it til this day (probably the only intubation that pretty much everyone was laughing during).

[anon456, BSN, RN]

Ummm see a viral news story online and tell everyone at work about the tragedy you saw online. Get home from work and re-read the news story and learn it's fake and a joke..... Think about how you told everyone a terrible tragic story that isn't even true....... Yes this was me tonight.

Are you talking about when Celine Dion "died?" Because someone went around on my unit that day announcing that, but by about midnight we were all able to see that the rumor was not true. LOL!

[IrishErin]

Went to sit down in the nurses station to chart, chair on wheels, chair moved, me on floor laughing, pt on phone trying not to laugh.

I have done this too many times to count on our stools. Especially when we had this really comfy ergonomic stool that you kneel on-super comfy to sit on, not so practical when needing to stand up quickly. :|

[anon456, BSN, RN]

When I was a new grad a fellow trainee was feeling faint when she was in a baby's room (no parents). She had just enough time to push the staff assist button before fainting in a recliner.

[Catzilla]

Flushing the rectal tube of a patient with cdif. Didn't screw syringe on fully. Spray all over the face, mouth, eyes.

[nursefrances, BSN, RN]

Flushing the rectal tube of a patient with cdif. Didn't screw syringe on fully. Spray all over the face, mouth, eyes.