Wouldn't it have been great if they told us this stuff in nursing school?
NOTE: A LOT OF MINE WERE MEANT FOR LTC NURSES
The human body is capable of holding 200 cups of H2O/coffee in your bladder....literally.
We were always instructed "Your body needs sleep to heal, rest, ect...",yeah that's funny.
Practicing sterile procedures for EVERYTHING is a waste of time(except catheters).
Of the 40 pts I have, I know what all the side effects of their meds are(yeah, all 50 meds per pt!!!). Oh yeah, and I know the GENERIC-TRADE names too.
Remember calcuating drip rates for G-tubes??? I don't.
They won't tell you what a med-cocktail is in school.
Specializes in Extended Care, Med/Surg , Palliative,.
"How not to laugh when a resident says "I'm going home" and another resident in a wheelchair yells "You stupid a**, you're not going anywhere! You're stuck in this hole like the rest of us"(while 3 family members walk by)!"
OMG!!! I would have been killing myself with laughter...there is no way I could have suppressed it! That would have been priceless! Maybe a bit sad too.... I can relate, I work LTC sometimes too.
Here's a couple more after my night at work tonight:
How not to laugh when an escapee gets his/her wheelchair stuck in a muddy ditch across the street.
How not to laugh when a resident says "I'm going home" and another resident in a wheelchair yells "You stupid a**, you're not going anywhere! You're stuck in this hole like the rest of us"(while 3 family members walk by)!
Not to turn red when a patient who is pleasuring himself moans and says inappropriate things while his roomate is staring at him.
AND FINALLY MY FAVORITE:
They do not teach you what to do if a combative resident hits another resident in the head with her cane and says "That'll knock some sense in ya!".
ROTFL
How funny! I have heard near replicas of these in my LTC experience. I especially loved my little lady though who would sit in her w/c in the hallway and shout at the top of her lungs, "hurry up honey! I'm ******* all over myself!" She also had several other hum-dingers that were always LOUD and in the presence of other resident's family member. We always just shrug and explain it's just "part of the disease process..."
When I was a CNA at this facility a lady had brought the staff some cookies for taking care of her husband before he died. So she set them on the desk so everyone could enjoy and left. As soon as she left a nurse that was in the elevator with the lady told the staff not to eat the cookies because the lady had dropped the container in the elevator and her dog licked all over them and she just put them back in the container and brought them to us. No one ate those cookies except for one unfortunate nurse....gross ;o)
That a hospital hallway is the best place to fart.
That diarrhea is hereditary, it runs in your genes.
That if you find a man on the hospital floor and he is not unconscious,and you shock him, he will cuss.....a lot.
That it is fun to ask new grads about normal lab values, and then ask them what the normal alcohol level is.
That if you are trying to put a foley in a woman, and miss, leave it in place, then get new cath and try again, you can then tell where you do not want to put it.
If you are putting a foley in an 80 year old maid, try not to miss.
Never laugh or snicker when you are putting a catheter in a man And never ever say out loud "would you look at the size of this thing"
Treat your pct's with respect and help em out, they could save your butt.
Never put an ng tube in, allow it to come out the mouth, and then allow pt to grab both ends and pull.
the ng tube thing...OWW! i grabbed my nose when i read that:eek:
That a patient has to teach a caregiver how to give a bed bath,
That the new administrator is so she doesn't even know how to teach her new staff how to do the basics of patient care
That the staff will all quit due to the new administrator's self ownership of the staff, making them all feel like little children being told what to do when in fact they could teach her a few things
That everyone gets the diarrhea at once
That poop flies
That an instructor will tell her students that old poop from an ostomy bag smells like cabbage
Hey thanks for the laughs.. hahahaha! :yeah::lol2:
How to cope... when the competing hospital in your small city conducts a hostile takeover of your facility and maliciously disguises it as a "peaceful merger with a smooth transition".
How to cope... when said bullying hospital throws your workplace into mass chaos and changes everything, including cutting many nursing positions without leaving other options for these nurses to transfer to, creating a tense nursing environment where no one knows what will happen to their livelihood and who will bump who.
You will run into this at clinical and more. To be a nurse you need to be able to handle these situations by putting the patient first and doing what is best for them. Your discomfort and disqust is secondary . As a student I have seen more poop than you can imagine and in every crack and cevice on their body. When I am challanged I just try to think that if this was my mom- how would I want her cared for or cleaned?
And finally - for now - I've learned to drink that water/take that toilet break/devour that sandwich now, because there won't be time later
So true. During my VERY FIRST 2 days working as a nurse on AM shift, I didn't have time to drink or pee, much more eat. I told that to my senior nurses once, and they gave me odd looks.
I realized that no matter how busy my morning is, I should find the time to cater to my needs.
That a lol who has been mostly unresponsive through your shift can suddenly announce, while you are changing her brief, that you are killing her and she is going to call the health department.
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
That some meds can make you really wacky. For example: Cymbalta can give some people such an up that they yell for attention in inappropriate places like a doctor's office, and Decadron can some people so agressive they tell their own doctor off, and make him ask what medication they would like to be discharged on, and phone people, then lay the receiver down, or sing songs to or tell strange stories to the person on the other end.
she doesn't even know how to teach her new staff how to do the basics of patient care
:yeah:
:lol2:
:argue: 
:trout: :angryfire:flamesonb: :Crash: :smackingf:yldhdbng::hdvwl::angthts::scrm: :flmngmd: :spbox::wtosts::watherthunderstormc
Lori75
27 Posts
"How not to laugh when a resident says "I'm going home" and another resident in a wheelchair yells "You stupid a**, you're not going anywhere! You're stuck in this hole like the rest of us"(while 3 family members walk by)!"
OMG!!! I would have been killing myself with laughter...there is no way I could have suppressed it! That would have been priceless! Maybe a bit sad too.... I can relate, I work LTC sometimes too.