I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I seem to have a knack for remembering pointless things.
I remember the names of restaurants that I've eaten at on vacations, the servers' names, and other useless information that I will never need to recall in my life again.
This also applies to my time in nursing school, which admittedly wasn't that long ago, but long enough that a lot of the non-vital "nice to know but not need to know" information that we learned has become a little hazy.
The one random nugget of seemingly useless information that I remember from nursing school is what a scleral buckle is and what it is used to treat. It was briefly mentioned in my second semester of nursing school and for some reason it stuck with me. I've never encountered someone that has had this procedure in clinical OR in my personal life and I really have no justification for remembering it, but I do.
Does anyone else care to share a random nugget of information they learned in nursing school that they still remember, but never actually came in handy to know?
When we were taught how to make beds, it was drilled into our brains not to shake out the clean sheets. We had to lay the sheets on the bed & unfold them systematically.
Old habits do, indeed, die hard. To this day when I take clean sheets out of the dryer I fold them very precisely so that when I make the bed I just have to lay them on the mattress, unfold them, smooth them out, & tuck them in. My husband just stands there & shakes his head when he watches me!
Same here and I learned how to make a bed like a nurse in 2012 during my first semester!
Actually, I saw the ophthalmologist today for my every 6 month check & have to go to the retina specialist tomorrow because there's the beginning of a tear in my right retina. The fun never ends!
I'll never forget the first time our instructor told us "Nancy Reagan, RN" to remember the order for mixing insulin...and more than half the (young) class looked around like, "Who the heck is that?!" (this was in 2012) One of the girls said, I'm gonna remember Nicole Ritchie, RN instead.
another one, same instructor, she always said tthat we had to remember to "tuck and fluff" our patients,and for the longest time none of us knew what she meant. Finally someone asked what she meant, and she was shocked that we had no idea. She meant it as shorthand for us to remember that along with all the tasks and *stuff* we have to do, that there's a sick person in the bed who just needs some TLC. I think of it whenever I'm doing something extra nice for a pt.
Oh...and atropine: Dries up your licker, speeds up your ticker. I'm in hospice now, so I'm certainly not using it to speed any hearts, but I am using it quite often for drying secretions!
Oh...and atropine: Dries up your licker, speeds up your ticker. I'm in hospice now, so I'm certainly not using it to speed any hearts, but I am using it quite often for drying secretions!
Atropine is my favorite drug-10 minutes after you give it, no more gurgling, patient is comfortable, family isn't horrified anymore.
Seriously, I think I like it better than Morphine lol
Not clinically related, but on my first day of LPN school in 1976, the director of the school (a founding member of the Crusty Old Bat Society - she signed the charter in the blood of former students) dismissed the two male students from the room, closed the door and told us:
"Do NOT wear your uniforms anywhere but straight home to change after clincals. Men are turned on by white stockings and caps and you will get raped."
Not clinically related, but on my first day of LPN school in 1976, the director of the school (a founding member of the Crusty Old Bat Society - she signed the charter in the blood of former students) dismissed the two male students from the room, closed the door and told us:
"Do NOT wear your uniforms anywhere but straight home to change after clincals. Men are turned on by white stockings and caps and you will get raped."
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
My nursing professor told us this story about how his mom would cook liver & he didn't like it. So he would say "liver, yeah right". So now I always remember the liver is on the right side.
My teachers always stressed being organized. When you go to do a dressing change, assume nothing you need is already in the room and just take everything with you. Gloves, scissors, etc., etc. Making 2 or more trips was seen as a waste of time and energy.
Sterile means sterile, clean means clean.
Want to remark about pt who said he didn't feel right, yet had normal VS and mental status. An aide once asked me to look at a man who fit that criteria but said he just wasn't feeling quite right. I checked him over, found normal VS, normal LOC, all parts able to move, but he had a brightness to his face that I'd never seen on anyone before. I called the intern to check him out, which he did, and just told me to keep an eye on him. Within a few minutes, the man arrested. We coded him, got him to ICU, I think he did OK.
I've seen that brightness only once since then - on the face of a friend whose father had just died.
I'm not a nurse (currently applying to nursing school), but I remember way back in freshman biology, my professor's favorite little tidbit was feces being brown because of dead red blood cells from the liver. (Forgive me if this is incorrect. It has been many years since both that class and Physio for me.)
I had another professor who taught Developmental Psych and was a clinical psych by training. She liked to make excessive references to The House of God. Her favorite was, "They can always hurt you more."
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ever since I learned how to make a bed like a nurse it's the only way I'll make my own bed. it just stays so nice and neat! (most of the time)