Things Patients Have Taught Me NOT To Do

Nurses Humor

Updated:   Published

Nurses Month 2024 | Discounts & Freebies AORN Celebrates Nurses Month

what-are-things-patients-taught-you-not-to-do.jpg.119a9865abb94645f43c13239f934ba4.jpg

Never....NEVER...cut a potato in half and use it as a pessary! :eek:

Anybody got anything to add?

Specializes in Hospice, corrections, psychiatry, rehab, LTC.
Erin RN said:
P RN

Yep the rattler one got me..to add to the story..

After the baby rattler has bitten your friend and he throws it to you, DON'T Try to catch it!

I work in a prison in the desert southwest. We had two inmates who were keeping a baby sidewinder in their cell as a pet. We found this out when it bit one of them on the finger. Inmates in the unit said that these bright souls had fashioned a leash out of shoelaces and would walk the snake around on the tier.

2
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU.

Don't go outside and repeatedly hit your neighbors car with a baseball bat because you had a disagreement. He may come out with a hammer and beat you over the head with it in retaliation, causing multiple lacs, skull fractures and a nice brain bleed to top it off.

Don't call to check on your relative in the hospital when you are drunk as a skunk

Just because this particular ICU allows overnight visitors, that doesn't mean you can walk around the unit with no shoes on, go in the staff lounge or use the staff restroom (especially if you just left a c-diff room)

I understand that prison sucks, but you landed yourself there. Please don't pop your eyeball out of the socket and put stool in it's place to get out of the slammer and into the hospital. The resulting infection will be quite nasty

Don't bring your three year old daughter and other children to a "Christmas party" in a notoriously high crime neighborhood in a shady run down apartment complex that is known for drug deals. If a deal goes bad, someone may decide to unload a semi automatic into your car resulting in the child being shot ( she lived and recovered as far as I know, thank god)

Don't let your child ride in the car unrestrained. A 6 year old getting thrown from the car and suffering a pelvic fracture is not cool

2
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU.

What a fun thread 😂😂😂

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
star77 said:
Make up sponges are not "the sponge." Anything made by maybelline is probably NOT a contraceptive.

(Shakes head in dismay).

You mean (shakes head in dis(maybelline))

5
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Transitional Nursing.
gemmi999 said:
Do not decide that you hate your foley catheter and try to take it out yourself--By cutting the catheter about 1 inch from where it leaves your member.

The nurse will not be able to deflate the balloon, the urine will still keep coming out but there is no container to collect it in, and you will be transferred to a larger hospital because the MD at the small, community hospital couldn't figure out how to drain the foley balloon either.

Seriously, any suggestions?

Ever seen nurse jackie?

Deep breath, aannddddd PULL. It's like starting a lawnmower.

5
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

Never lie to your nurse. We're going to figure it out eventually if we haven't already.

5
Up Vote Up Vote ×

1. Don't remove your 24f foley (with a 50cc balloon still inflated....YIKES!) yourself. It will hurt. There will be blood, and painful surgery to repair your shredded urethra.

2. Don't chew up pills and inject them into your sore arm. It does not "get the medicine working faster".

3. Your nitroglycerin rectal cream for your anal fissure and sublingual nitro spray are not interchangeable. Similarly, your nitroglycerin ointment goes on your skin, not under your tongue "like your spray".

4. Don't try and pop that that "weird giant cyst" on your belly button yourself because it's not a cyst. That stuff coming out wasn't "infection", that was poop. You lanced your umbilical hernia. Congrats.

And my personal favourite, as told by a colleague of mine.

5. Putting insulin into juice doesn't "dissolve the sugar". I get that you don't like needles, but you can't just empty your Lantus pen into a Coke and call it "diet Coke". That's not how it works. Back to Diabetes Education Classes you go!

7
Up Vote Up Vote ×

Never take a nap outside, lying on the grass, without ear plugs. We see way too many bugs in ears from people napping and being invaded.

Never wax your nose hairs.

Stop putting things up your nose/in your ears; stop letting your friends do that to you. Had two teenagers within a week come in with Legos in their ears. The first one did it to the second one as payback.

2
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in CMSRN.
On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2011 at 8:30 PM, Not_A_Hat_Person said:

Make sure you read all labels even if it is just barrier cream, you may accidentally grab the colostomy adhesive and end up gluing your patients bottom to her bed sheet

Yep, There may come a time that you may use icy/hot roll on as antiperspirant right before start of shift. It will have the opposite effect.

6
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
7 hours ago, StrwbryblndRN said:

Yep, There may come a time that you may use icy/hot roll on as antiperspirant right before start of shift. It will have the opposite effect.

This reminds me of a situation where a patient had an order for orificeol cream. The pharmacy sent up analgesic rub. Lucky her nurse caught it.

4
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med/Surg, Women's Health, LTC.

Never think, that because you were a gymnast in HS, you can jump off the headboard and into a split, on your husbands erect member.

Fun fact- it was their honeymoon!

They both ended up in the hospital ?

6
Up Vote Up Vote ×

Don't put a piping hot Styrofoam cup of coffee between your legs at the drive-thru.

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment