What are some crazy things you've seen since being a nurse?

Published

Since becoming a nurse I feel so much more obserbant in everyday life. Lately I keep finding myself in situations where I'm like :eek: when it comes to how I am treated in the hospital or how patients are treated. I thought the crazy would end after leaving nursing school. Like walking past a pt room at clinical and seeing a student confuse the order of insulin with heparin. It was scary but it was caught. Just recently when having my blood drawn pre-op before my own surgery the nurse was trying to start an I.V. on me without any gloves or or anything. Then before she started she primed the I.V. line, hooked up everything to the pole, opened the sterile tubing part and sat it all on a chair then started the process of starting the I.V. in my arm. So I feel bad for given her a talk about sterile procedures and she gets mad and I get a new nurse to start the I.V.. So she is doing everything great but since she can't find a vein while the needle is in my arm she starts slamming my are where the needle is in the vein. I'm like, "hat are you doing". And she's like what does it hurt or something? I don't want to take the needle out of the arm or you will have to get stuck again. She tried to rationalize why it was okay for her to have to needle hanging out my skin while she drummed away on my arm. Of course that didn't work so she got an attitude and just went to the other arm. So I don't know if I am being over vigilant since i a a nurse now too. But it just seems standards are so lack lately. So I am just curious about any other new or experienced nurses coming across crazy errors or situations while working or in their everyday life.

Sorry if its hard to understand I am 4 days post-op and allnurses is helping me not be bored to death while I recover.

Specializes in Flu clinics, Med/Surg, Acute Care.

lol I love these posts. I have a quick question what do you think the issue is with not wearing gloves in obvious situations? Do you think its just forgotten or just not to make the patient feel weird. In school we had a question that said wwyd if you saw a cna given a bath to a patient without gloves on. I thought it was so unrealistic. But then again it may not be lol.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
lol I love these posts. I have a quick question what do you think the issue is with not wearing gloves in obvious situations? Do you think its just forgotten or just not to make the patient feel weird. In school we had a question that said wwyd if you saw a cna given a bath to a patient without gloves on. I thought it was so unrealistic. But then again it may not be lol.

I work in an ALF. We are out of gloves often (I keep a box with me, I don't know what everyone else does). One day, the administrator asked me to give some showers. Okay, no big deal. I asked where the gloves were. She said "Oh we're out but you don't need gloves to give showers."

I don't think so, Bucky.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Pediatrics.
Oh gawd, confession time, I cut the index finger tip off my gloves when I draw blood because otherwise those little wrinkles in the tips totally screw up my palapation of the vein.

I like that idea! Very cool.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, MICU, SICU.

Guess I'm a bad nurse... I rarely wear gloves when starting IVs. I cannot do it with gloves on, and believe me I've tried. I am not really adverse to getting blood on my hands, as long as I don't have an open cut or something. I would wear gloves when lancing a boil though, haha. Getting feces or pus on my skin is disgusting.. blood? eh, not so much.

However, I do not put sterile instruments on the bed/table/etc.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Flu clinics, Med/Surg, Acute Care.
Guess I'm a bad nurse... I rarely wear gloves when starting IVs. I cannot do it with gloves on, and believe me I've tried. I am not really adverse to getting blood on my hands, as long as I don't have an open cut or something. I would wear gloves when lancing a boil though, haha. Getting feces or pus on my skin is disgusting.. blood? eh, not so much.

However, I do not put sterile instruments on the bed/table/etc.

I don't believe starting the Iv without gloves on made her a bad nurse. The bad nurse part would be scrubbing my arm with alcoholic to "clean it" then tapping the same spot over and over with your un gloved hand while there is a needle in my arm that you are tapping on top of. That freaked me out. I think we can all make mistakes without being a bad nurse or doc.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.
I see that all the time, especially with phlebotomists.

My mom stabbed herself in the arm with a steak knife last week. Blood was shooting every where both at home and after she got to the hospital. There is blood everywhere and there's the nurse, doing all kinds of stuff with NO gloves on. Finally, my mother says "Shouldn't you be wearing gloves? I mean, you don't know if I have something."

The nurse actually says "Oh I didn't realize you were bleeding."

Eh?

This reminded me of the time I got bitten by one of my residents when I was a CNA. I was taking her dentures out and she suddenly decided she didn't want them out. Youch! I was bleeding all over the place and went to the ER to get a tetorifice shot because I couldn't remember if I'd had one recently or not. The nurse at the ER took the dressing off of my finger that the nurse had put there with bare hands and was about to clean it when I said, "Hey how do you know I don't have AIDS or Hepatitis or something?" He paused, turned a little pale, and said, "Well do you?" I said, "Not as far as I know, but still." He got an annoyed look on his face and put some gloves on and got back to work.

Well how DID he know I didn't have anything to spread around? Or how was I supposed to know whether or not he washed his hands since the last patient since I assumed he didn't wear gloves while taking care of them?

Ick.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
Oh gawd, confession time, I cut the index finger tip off my gloves when I draw blood because otherwise those little wrinkles in the tips totally screw up my palapation of the vein.

Yeah, 'fess up time...Me too. I have short fingers and the gloves are just too loose at the fingertips to feel a vein.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
I don't believe starting the Iv without gloves on made her a bad nurse. The bad nurse part would be scrubbing my arm with alcoholic to "clean it" then tapping the same spot over and over with your un gloved hand while there is a needle in my arm that you are tapping on top of. That freaked me out. I think we can all make mistakes without being a bad nurse or doc.

Please don't take this the wrong way, you gave me a good laugh with your unintended typo...I pictured a nurse picking up a drunk guy to clean your arm. Sorry but it just popped in my head and struck me as funny.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.

Several months ago I went to my PCP's office because I had pneumonia secondary to mono. I was one sick puppy. My resps were about 24, I had wheezing and rales and diminished lung sounds (I know this because I listened to myself, as did my RN husband). The MA wrote "resps 16, lungs CTA" in her charting. Nice. She didn't even freakin' LISTEN to my lung sounds!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Peds Medical Floor.
Several months ago I went to my PCP's office because I had pneumonia secondary to mono. I was one sick puppy. My resps were about 24, I had wheezing and rales and diminished lung sounds (I know this because I listened to myself, as did my RN husband). The MA wrote "resps 16, lungs CTA" in her charting. Nice. She didn't even freakin' LISTEN to my lung sounds!

Woah. Time for a new PCP.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Flu clinics, Med/Surg, Acute Care.
Please don't take this the wrong way, you gave me a good laugh with your unintended typo...I pictured a nurse picking up a drunk guy to clean your arm. Sorry but it just popped in my head and struck me as funny.

LMAO I had to give you a kudos for that. Confession: I'm on narcs from my surgery. So even though I'm trying to type all proper and make it not look like a 2 year old is having a go at my computer, ITS NOT WORKING!:lol2:

Thank you for pointing it out. I was feeling like crap today, and I needed a good laugh :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Flu clinics, Med/Surg, Acute Care.
Several months ago I went to my PCP's office because I had pneumonia secondary to mono. I was one sick puppy. My resps were about 24, I had wheezing and rales and diminished lung sounds (I know this because I listened to myself, as did my RN husband). The MA wrote "resps 16, lungs CTA" in her charting. Nice. She didn't even freakin' LISTEN to my lung sounds!

I hate when they just guess and make up stuff. One night before my operation my bp was running very low. The electronic cuffs couldnt get a reading. I had two other Rns take it manually before I went to the emergency room and they both got sacry low readings. When I am wheeled into triage at the ER. The triage nurse goes oh it must have went up..its 120/80 ;) lol sure it is. Too bad I ended up having to be admitted!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion