The last thing you want to hear when you get to work

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"Thank GOD you are here! This has been the night from the deepest depths of Dante's hell!"

"Oh you got rm 111? He hasn't stopped having diarrhea all night!"

"Can you take report early?"

"Ring...ring...ring...ring...ring...ring...ring...ring..." (phone or call bell or both at the same time!)

"There is a family member on the phone of the patient that was admitted 15 minutes ago that you are going to have today."

"Sorry but you have two admits coming."

"Sorry for the assignment."

"Don't kill me for the assignment!"

"You don't have a tech/CNA/PCT"

"Can you call the doc on this troponin of 2.37?"

"Your first of four units of blood will be ready in 15 minutes"

"Sorry about the insulin drip"

"We have a lot of precaution patients"

"The floor is so heavy!"

*Utter silence as everyone is too busy to even make eye contact when you walk on the floor*

"Code One/Blue!"

"You have room 112? She's a total PITA"

"We can't get a sitter for your patient"

"Joint Commission is here."

Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.

Talaxandra are you working for the "enemy"? The Alfred I hear that they flood at the word rain! RMH has the decency to wait for a burst sewage pipe!!!

Specializes in Medical.

Burst sewerage pipes? Ew!

The enemy? I hear the Alfred and RMH are like hands in gloves ;)

Specializes in Surgical, quality,management.

when the brand new whizz bang ED was about 6 months old the pipes couldn't cope with the extra pan washers!! LOL I am a colorectal & trauma nurse and the Alfred is defo the "ememy"!!

Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

"Mr. White's had a sitter for five days now, but he was so good today, I had the sitter D/C'd after dinner. He should be just fine over night."

"You're following Nurse Dumdum! Those patients must be good because she hasn't asked for help all day."

"Just to let you know, it's a pretty tough assignment, but we gave it to you because we needed a strong nurse to have it."

"Hey, wanna try to get a BP on room 10? No one's been able to, and he's going to be your patient anyway."

"You only have two patients at the moment. But don't worry, there's a direct admit coming, an ICU transfer and a C-Diff patient from the ER..."

Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.

"We are fully staffed today, so I thought it would be a wonderful learning experience for you to teach our visiting nursing students how to do colostomy care. The ostomy nurse was kind enough to fax over a list of all of our colostomy patients throughout the hospital. Most of the students don't speak fluent English, but the interpreter will be able to help when she is available. Thanks!"

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

They just intubated Bed 7, but they look funny and their belly keeps going up and down....

:eek:

Specializes in psychiatry,geropsych,LTC/SNF, hospice.

For a SNF:

You have 6 admissions due in anytime now. Two are fresh knees but their CPMs aren't here yet and PT's leaving so you'll have to set them up when they get here. Oh, and we couldn't find the settings in the intake info so you might have to call the hospitals to get it.

One's a lol THR with a hx of sundowning that was 1:1 in the hospital, but we couldn't get the staffing to do so here. I'm sure she'll be fine with 15 min checks. Oh, but two aides called out.

The brittle diabetic in rm 123 was just dx with infectious process xyz so she's even more unstable and is refusing to eat.

The 97 year old man with stage 4 lung cancer with bone mets is actively dying, but the family still wants him to be a full code. Oh, and they want to d/c his roxanol because they think it'll kill him (that one drives me bonkers :madface: roxanol is a beautiful thing when used properly).

Oh, and DPH is here and they want to talk to you.

Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

Run, just turn around and run.

I am sorry that I have to leave; 1. all the new orders from the previous DAY need put into the system 2. so and so parents need called about the change in surgery time(family lives out town and is on their way in TODAY and surgery time changed yesterday)3. these meds need returned NOW to pharmacy, also they need to be called to pickup...etc...didnt even get a good reason why some of these weren't done that night, dont care..I just did what I could do...oh and State was due in..LOL that is why I went PT in homecare...although hey, that had it's issues too!

Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

You need to do neuro observations on these patients - but there are no neuro ob torches - here is a large torch instead (true story - bought my own torch after that).

The lom (little old man) you've got with dementia keeps climbing over the bed rails, & there are no sitters for him. Keep an eye on hi, with ur 6 other equally confused patients. (Lom ended up climbing over his rails, pulled his catheter out, blood everywhere & probably broke a hip. Transferred to a larger hospital for ? surgery).

Surgeon: This patient I've just seen needs to be admitted TODAY & put him first on my surgical list - he has an urgent melanoma that requires attention.

Me: I just only now checked with the bed coordinator. There are no beds at all and we're unlikely to have any shortly. She's going to call me back if any are free.

Surgeon: But I NEED a bed!

Me: Who doesn't?

Surgeon: Well I suppose I could just set up an operating table in the car park, & tell the patient to go there - and do drive thru surgery!

(Later picture me running round the WHOLE 900+ bed hospital, desperately trying to get interns to discharge patients so I can get this patient a bed. And I succeeded but it took a lot of talking & begging! Not the first time I had to buy an intern a box of chocolates!)

First shift in a large, teaching hospital as a RN (& I wasn't too experienced): Here are your patients (gives handover). You have a new RN with you, and two RN students and you have to do teaching with them as well :(

Specializes in Intermediate care.

Last thing i want to hear when i show up for work?

"Jenni, you are up for an admission"

"THANK GOD your here"

i also know its a terrible sign when you get on your shift and there are pumps beeping, call lights on, phones ringing but no one answering and no one is in sight. meaning....they are all too busy to be doing/answering those things!

I work on a SNF and this is my fav. "You're the only RN so you're charge tonight. Oh, they're 5 PICC lines and 5 central lines that you have to flush and the pt is room 28 is getting 4 units of blood. His first unit is ready to be picked up from the blood bank right now. Good luck!"

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