What's the goofiest mistake you've made on the job? No, I don't mean the med errors or the medical mistakes you learned from. Those are important and often terrible experiences, of course, but this isn't about danger to patients or trauma.
I just really want to talk about the silly things we ALL do and can have the good grace to laugh about. It seems I find so many great stories in the nursing community because we often are under such stress, that we're so focused on those important details and avoiding the critical mistakes...so our brain tends to reserve less power on the things that don't matter as much.
Here's my confession. (And if any of my coworkers are on this forum, I'm outing myself gloriously, because we ALL had a good laugh over it...) My adolescent psych unit is in a small, private hospital, so though EMR has been promised to us, it's not quite here yet. A frustration of mine, to be sure...but that's another story. The kiddos were being super impulsive and just SO MUCH limit-testing going on, and I'm trying to get meds passed and RN assessments done and also manage patients and such. My awesome techs are working their butts off. The usual. One of my team asks if I can bring him "four soaps." That's a bit excessive, I think, but I also know, hey, sometimes teenagers want A LOT of body wash and our trial size containers aren't that big. Or maybe he's distributing them for hygiene time or something.
THIS IS WHERE I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE QUESTIONED SOMETHING.
Cheerfully, I grab four of the small body wash vials, and bring them to him, and he's like..."what?" Because he meant four SOAPs, as in SOAP notes, which we do on each patient q shift...and he was asking me to bring him the charts...
I did not know the older man at the bedside was the lover and partner of the young stud in the bed.I asked the older man if he was the father.Ok,not too bad if it happens once and I learn my lesson but it happened again several months later and it turned out it was the same couple!
OMG, I did the same thing! I now always ask: "and you are his/her...." and let them fill in the blank.
Super tired short staffed in a LTAC and one of my many peg tube patients I was hanging a new bag of feeding. The tubing wasn't working so while it was still upside down and the entire container of jevity went ALL over me. I was sticky and squished all the way down the hallway. The two CNA were laughing hysterically. I happened to live 4 buildings over and my husband who I was dating at the time had to wake up at 2 am and bring me a change of clothes..... at least he got a laugh out of it too.
During my nursing clinicals I was excited to get to assist a doctor debride a necrotic toe on a pt with DM II. The pt had no feeling and was on contact precautions. I gowned up with gloves and held his foot and lower leg as directed while the doctor scraped away tissue with a scalpel. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to silence my phone.
During the procedure my son, who is a Drill Sergeant and Army Combatives instructor, called me. I have specialty ring tones set up so I know who is calling. Doug's ring tone is "Break Stuff" by Limp Bizkit. Of course, I would have the explicit version. Both the doctor and patient looked at me as my pocket started singing and cursing. I apologized as I was turning red but realized there was nothing I could do but wait it out. Gloved, gowned, and holding a foot; there was nothing I could do to silence the ringer.
They laughed and then continued with the procedure. I thought I was through it when my phone gave a loud chime to let me know my son had left a message. Two faces turned to me and I said that means there is a message as my face went two shades deeper red. After that, I never forgot to silence my phone again.
Back when I was still working as a CNA, one of the RN's I worked with asked me to get a UA on a patient foley (were I worked Aides could do this but I think since I left that policy has changed proubly for the better )
So I went and did the whole clamp off thing and got enough urine to fill two of the syringe UA things they used labeled them and sent them to the lab.
As we were waiting some had happened to the patient...he was moving in bed and his foley came out altogether. Very strange did the patient mess with the foley?
Hour later lab called the med surf floor I worked on. We needed to get anouther UA someone jackass (me) sent two samples filled with saline.
I accadently empitied out the foley balloon trying to get pee. That's why the foley fell out and that is proubly why if they have not changed that policy about aides doing it they should there are some dumb aides out there :)
Back when I was still working as a CNA, one of the RN's I worked with asked me to get a UA on a patient foley (were I worked Aides could do this but I think since I left that policy has changed proubly for the better )
So I went and did the whole clamp off thing and got enough urine to fill two of the syringe UA things they used labeled them and sent them to the lab.
As we were waiting some had happened to the patient...he was moving in bed and his foley came out altogether. Very strange did the patient mess with the foley?
Hour later lab called the med surg floor I worked on. We needed to get anouther UA some jackass (me) sent two samples filled with saline.
I accadently empitied out the foley balloon trying to get pee. That's why the foley fell out and that is proubly why if they have not changed that policy about aides doing it they should there are some dumb aides out there :)
When i was in clinical i was flushing a pt's line for the first time ever. My clinical instructor told me pull back the plunger on the saline flush to break the seal but i was nervous and pulled back too hard too fast, and then entire plunger came out- spilling saline on my instructor and the patient.
I did this the other day! So embarrassing. I'm scared to ever pull back on a saline flush ever again. Haha
3am, and I was emptying a hemovac drain. Trying to be EVER SO CAREFUL, but of course, it makes no difference with those frigging things. I attempted to GENTLY open it, but instead it exploded in my face. Nasty, clotty blood everywhere. I ran into the bathroom so fast and stuck my face in the sink and rinsed about 5-6 times. My patient assured me he didn't have any nasty diseases, but I prayed anyway!!
Had blood tests done the other month, 3 years later (for a medical exam). Bloods all negative.... thank the LORD.
But I hate those hemovacs!!
i had a similarly unpleasant experience at my first nursing job in LTC/SAR. A resident's urinary catheter was not draining well due to sediment and there was an order to flush it. I did not properly brace the Foley tube against the syringe, so the pressure blew the seal between them and sprayed urine and saline all over my face. I told my coworkers about it and one admitted he'd gotten urine sprayed in his MOUTH once and had gargled with Hibiclens after.
Another time in LTAC I was working with the wound care doc and when he clipped a sacral bone sample for culture (stage 4 pressure wound) it popped up right into my face. That one was just a single tiny piece, though!
I push to break the seal before touching the cap. Can even be done before unwrapping the syringe.
I haven't mastered a way to get rid of that pressure that works for me. Because I also tried to do something similar to what you stated except I fussed with the cap a little...so when I pushed forward the cap went flying off. Hahahaha I'll definitely try it next time without touching the cap or even unwrapping it
There ARE dumb questions... during an abdominal hyst, I was documenting the preop diagnosis and it included 'undesired fertility'. So I asked the surgeon "are we tying her tubes, too?" Silence. "Sure, just as soon as I get her uterus out."
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
When i was in clinical i was flushing a pt's line for the first time ever. My clinical instructor told me pull back the plunger on the saline flush to break the seal but i was nervous and pulled back too hard too fast, and then entire plunger came out- spilling saline on my instructor and the patient. I ran to get another flush (another lesson learned... always have more than one!) and had managed to regroup pretty spectacularly as I flushed it and all was well. My instructor moved onto the next student while i finished mopping up my mess and i was feeling pretty proud of not dying of embarrassment when the nice old lady answered a phone call in front of me and started talking about the "sweet young nurse who had just spilled water everywhere" while making eye contact with me and laughing. If the floor could have only swallowed me whole...
Back in the day when we mixed our own antibiotics, I did this with a vial of penicillin. Injected saline, reconstituted the powder and then injected air to draw it up. The stopper flew off the vial and I got a face full of penicillin. I'm allergic to PCN. Within seconds, I couldn't breathe and I had hives popping up all over my face and neck. My manager was a quick thinker -- she shoved me into a wheelchair and pushed me into the elevator and pushed the button for the ER, two floors down. I spent the rest of my shift in ER . . . as a patient. Not a fun time.
Caprica6
72 Posts
OMG, I did the same thing!
I now always ask: "and you are his/her...." and let them fill in the blank.
I wonder if it was the same couple...