Things Patients Have Taught Me NOT To Do

Pug RN · Jul 4, 2011

If you are in the emergency room for pneumonia, don't light up your crack pipe while wearing oxygen. It tends to blow off your eyebrows.

Pug RN · Jul 4, 2011

Oh, here is another one... Don't stick your member in a vacuum cleaner hose because your friends at school told you it was next best thing if you couldn't get a girl. It will buy you a trip to the emergency room and most likely an admission. Plus I'm sure it had to hurt like hell. And I'm a woman, so I don't even have a member and it just sounds like the ultimate discomfort.

Pug RN · Jul 4, 2011

Oh, here is another good one. Do not turn tricks in the Family Quarters while your baby is still in the NICU. And no, we do not believe you that your son has 16 uncles and they are all your brothers.

mesixfuture · Jul 4, 2011

Teenage boy presents to the ED, hasn't voided in 23 hours d/t erection d/t um..pleasuring himself with....oragel. Oragel? Yeah, I still can't figure out what the inspiration for that one was.

Chixie · Jul 4, 2011

Do not jump on your childs trampoline in the middle of the night after consuming vast quantities of alcohol and when you inevitably fall off and land on your head, please do not run to the hospital hating papers and give them a sob story about the evils of trampolines and try to get them banned (Also do not falsify your injuries, the staff nurses do read the paper ya know!)

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Jul 4, 2011

If you're going to privately pick a surrogate to carry your baby, you should probably make sure she is not ingesting any substances from which your new baby will have to withdraw.....sigh.

Zaphod, BSN, RN · Jul 6, 2011

Do not forget to divorce your ex because when you OD with your girlfriend-your wife will still be your proxy..

mommywithplenty · Jul 13, 2011

I'm just a student but I have learned as a mom:

Never let your older brother cut your hair with kitchen shears, he may miss and cut your ear in half. Never go to your local minor emerge as the Dr on call will make you think he's either a drunk or a natural clown, never touch the ear with your bare hands if you are a Dr. Don't open the sterile tray with your hands them proceed to pick up an instrument THEN decide to wear gloves handing the said instrument to the already stressed out mom. Don't continue to sew the child up using words he's never heard such as snookums, he may panic more. Don't question the mom when she asks for antibiotics , those kitchen sheers and your fingers are not clean!

Never allow your brother to jump off the bed onto you, never figure your kid is just overreacting and make her come to you then discover she can't walk on the leg. Never say to a mom carrying in a preschooler with a femur fracture that there is no beds available when behind your desk , which is used for triage there is one and you have yet to triage the child. Never ask for x rays of a child and expect the radiologist to be happy when you haven't yet medicated and properly position the child for X-rays, the radiologists may just get ******, refuse the x ray and call you names. Never use outdated traction treatment for 3 days causing uncontrollable spasms, put the poor kid on no food or drink as she is booked to go into surgery to get a body cast THEN tell the mom that if she codes they can't save her at that hospital but would need to be flown to a hospital 1/2 hour away as they have no life saving paediatric equipment they claim they would need. While she is hanging upside down don't refuse to come and stabilize her for transport to a children's hospital and then allow the outpatient transfer to do it, they are NOT trained to cut kids down and the nurses will flip out saying your so lazy and you never do your job@

Call poison control yourself as the hospital can take 3 hours to do so!

Most of all never use your local hospital when a much better one is 45 mins away......

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Oct 26, 2011

How true. That same thing happened to the Ambulance corps I belonged to also. We hated it too. It was an all volunteer organization as most are, and I had to get up at 5:30 AM on school days because I was a school bus driver. I lost lots of sleep. We also had a couple individuals who would call the ambulance to take them to the hospital for ridiculous things. One particular individual did it so often, we decided to take our time in getting there. That was the one time that individual cried wolf one too many times, because he really was sick, and I know this can happen. They don't realize the danger they can put themselves in. After all we are humans with needs and responsibilities too! I will now get off my.:spbox:

Poi Dog · Oct 28, 2011

When you run out of alcohol, do not, I repeat DO NOT, start chugging rubbing alcohol to get your fix. Bad things are sure to come your way if you go that route.

CrazierThanYou · Oct 28, 2011

Poi Dog said:

When you run out of alcohol, do not, I repeat DO NOT, start chugging rubbing alcohol to get your fix. Bad things are sure to come your way if you go that route.

Ack! My stomach hurts just reading about that! :eek:

talaxandra · Oct 28, 2011

One of our patients has just had an ICU holiday thanks to a fall in GCS to 3 - blood alcohol level of 0.5 (ten times the legal limit) and no smell of alcohol. At the moment the jury's out on whether it was vodka or hand sanitiser, and whether it was ingested or taken via PICC :rolleyes:

Sadly not the first time, but the last time a patient did this (same brand of sanitiser) six bottles his BAL was just over half this patient's. Good heavens!

ETA: I have no first hand knowledge of the patient in the article but was sent the link by a doctor friend involved in his care.