I just started my clinical rotations within the last two months. I know there's a student section but I wanted to get working nurses opinions. What is the worst procedure or patient care activity that you have to perform?
I can do blood, smells, poop, even puke after it is out but I really don't like the sound of vomiting. I recently watched NG tube placement. It was pretty bad. I hope they aren't all that nasty and I hope that's one of the worst things I have to do to a patient.
Please tell me what is the worst thing you have to do at your position and if you have any suggestions for me I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you!
Worst part: codes on patients who should be (and want to be) DNRs. Seriously, the worst thing I've ever done was chest compressions on a fragile tiny lady in her 90s--it was crunchy.
Best part: Wound dressings! I love it! Pulling out old packing and then repacking with clean stuff is my favorite. I'd be a wound nurse except I don't like stoma care. I know I'm a freak, but hey, I know people who love NT suctioning.
Dirty dentures and anything to do with eyes. I once had someone who had requested that her corneas be donated after her death. The transplant nurse came in and asked for assistance. I went in to help as it was my patient, but I took one look as she was taking her tools out and said "NOPE not me, not now, not ever". I traded it for a trach care. I can't even watch someone put in their contact lenses. Shiver-me-timbers, that's gross. Eyeballs give me anxiety attacks. Maybe because I don't have the experience, but you need to watch and do while learning and I haven't been able do that.
Give me the blood, the vomit, the poop, the stinky dressings, the trachs, the bedsores six inches deep, but please, can someone else take out the dentures stuck full of macerated food and slimy, rotting whatevers?
I think it might actually be the food thing more than the fake teeth thing. Dirty dinner plates at work do almost the same thing to me--Yack!!---But you do what you have to do. And I love nursing.
:banghead:Families. I used to enjoy most of them, but now I have so much to do I want to run and hide when I see one coming. It is a shame, because I used to feel I had a knack for them, even the difficult ones. Now if I could, I'd work 11-7 to get away from them, but this old gal can't work those hours anymore. Can take anything 'yucky', totally immune at this point. But families... Can't even stand answering the phone anymore! Want to scream at them I have 5 million things to do including take care of your loved one! Leave me alone!
Give me the blood, the vomit, the poop, the stinky dressings, the trachs, the bedsores six inches deep, but please, can someone else take out the dentures stuck full of macerated food and slimy, rotting whatevers?
I have to agree on that, not my favourite task!!
A friend of mine can't handle skeletal traction, the pins going through bones that she can see totally freaks her.........
Worst part: codes on patients who should be (and want to be) DNRs. Seriously, the worst thing I've ever done was chest compressions on a fragile tiny lady in her 90s--it was crunchy.
Best part: Wound dressings! I love it! Pulling out old packing and then repacking with clean stuff is my favorite. I'd be a wound nurse except I don't like stoma care. I know I'm a freak, but hey, I know people who love NT suctioning.
Same here to both the above! Stoma care doesn't bother me but trach care...I used to "trade off" with another nurse for one patient, he was a "groper" & during trach care as he got more excited he would breathe heavier (go figure!) & let's just say the trach was no place you wanted to be near at that time!
Same here to both the above! Stoma care doesn't bother me but trach care...I used to "trade off" with another nurse for one patient, he was a "groper" & during trach care as he got more excited he would breathe heavier (go figure!) & let's just say the trach was no place you wanted to be near at that time!
Ewwwww! Okay, gropers are the worst part of nursing. I hate that we have to put up with stuff that on the outside we could have people arrested for.
BlueEyedRN
171 Posts
Worst part: codes on patients who should be (and want to be) DNRs. Seriously, the worst thing I've ever done was chest compressions on a fragile tiny lady in her 90s--it was crunchy.
Best part: Wound dressings! I love it! Pulling out old packing and then repacking with clean stuff is my favorite. I'd be a wound nurse except I don't like stoma care. I know I'm a freak, but hey, I know people who love NT suctioning.