What is the funniest or most embarrassing nursing experience you've had

Nurses General Nursing

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My funniest was when I had a sun-downers/dementia pt on M/S walking the floor on night shift.

I said "come on, let's go to bed...and this senior pt ran back to bed, and said okay you can get on top" LOL

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

I once worked with a nurse who was on the chipper, perkier side of life happily chatting away with a patient that she was prepping for surgery the next day.

At the time it required a full betadine bath with shaving of the chest, groin and legs for a CABG they next day....somehow the conversation was about growing plants and gardens as the nurse replied......" Not me..... I kill everything I touch!" I choked on my coffee:eek:....the patient who was elderly and hard of hearing must have looked shocked!!!! for it was immediately followed by......"Oh no! It's OK Mr. SoandSo.....I was talking about plants not patients".....we all fell out of our chairs. :roflmao:

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

Tending an elderly British gentleman, soft-spoken and with a lovely accent. He had been nothing but a gentleman the entire shift, very quiet and calm. When I came in last thing before report to check the IV's, his daughter was at the bedside and we chatted away like old friends. She was on the side of the bed where the IV pole was, and just before leaving, I leaned slightly over the patient to look at the dates on the IV lines.

Quick as lightening, the patient threw up both hands (think Jazz hands), clamped each one on one of my breasts and shouted gleefully "Wicki Wicki"!! while twisting his hands right and left. I was so stunned by the suddenness of his movement that it was a couple of seconds before I managed to pry his clamping hands off my breasts. The stunned look on his daughter's face made any thought of being angry fly out of my mind. She couldn't apologize enough and it took everything I had to assure her that it was OK.

I never did learn what "Wicki Wicki" means!

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Specializes in Peds Urology,primary care, hem/onc.

I remember working on a peds hem/onc floor. One of our sweet, frequent fliers was in a room. I cannot remember (this was 15 years ago) if she was inpatient for chemo or was sick. I do remember how we loved her family. Around 3 am, the code blue button goes off in her room. Of course about 5 of us go storming into her room and see her dad there, with the light on (looking sheepish and holding his hands up) " We're ok! We're ok!". After about 10 seconds, and we caught our breath, the patient's dad just started cracking up. He told us he was trying to find the light switch and hit the code blue button by mistake. He initially was heading towards the door to open it and tell us it was an accident but he heard "what sounded like a herd of horses" coming at the door and he decided he would just let us storm in b/c he was afraid we would run him over. By that point, everyone on that hallway was awake...but at least our response time was quick! :)

One of my friends was an ICU nurse. We were sitting on the back porch at a party with about 20 people when she told this story.... She was taking care of a post open heart male patient. He was sedated and intubated. He was naked with a towel over the essentials and a sheet over him. She was giving bedside report to the next nurse, they pull down the sheet. She points to a very large, femoral permcath they put in and the oncoming nurses says "OMG that is huge!". They look up and see the patient smiling :). You know what HE thought they were describing! At the end of her telling the story, we are laughing so hard we are crying. We looked up, and we had cleared the entire deck of people (noone else there was medical). I think they were a little offended by the story LOL as they all went inside and left us out there alone! LOL!

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My mom once had a patient that accidentally pushed the call button. When the intercom came on in her room and the person at the desk said "Ms. so and so how can I help you?" she replied "Yes, Lord? Yes, Lord? I'm here. "

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this wasn't me, but I was witness to it - as a student we were in the room with a quadriplegic as the doc was debreiding and packing a wound. One of my classmates says - "wow sir I can't believe that doesn't hurt"...we had to leave the room and my classmate was as red as a beet!

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My funniest story comes from a very sweet but very undereducated family. I work in a peds hospital was admitting a patient with Kawasaki's. While explaining to the family and the patient about the IVIG's that the doctor had ordered and I was hanging the patients grandfather turned to me in all seriousness and said"can I ask you a question?" I told him sure, and he then asked "I just don't understand how he could have gotten this! He hasn't been around any Japanese people!!!"

Bless his heart he really thought it was a illness contacted from people of Asian descent because of it's name!! It took all I could not to laugh right there but I explained about the name and how you get it to him, and he was very grateful. But boy did we all have a good laugh at the nurses station when I left the room!

It was a great reminder that not everything the doctor explains to our family and patients sinks in!

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.
Okay, going in for the most embarrassing. I was responding to a code blue and as I was running my scrub pants came untied, yes you guessed it, with the house orderly and resident MD behind me. My pants fell down and I got tripped and went down with them. The orderly stopped dead in his tracks laughing, but the resident MD didn't miss a beat and kept going to the code.

I don't ever wear scrub pants that tie anymore.

I was at work and my scrub pants fell down too. I was walking down the hall and I didn't feel them fall until it was too late. They were down to the floor. I pulled them up and kept going. A male nurse was behind me. The next day I worked of course it had spread around the unit that my pants fell down. I overheard two male coworkers talking while I was in the supply room. They asked the guy who was there when my pants fell if I wore thongs or granny panties. I shocked them when I opened the door and told them I didn't wear thongs.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Telemetry/ICU Stepdown.

The most embarrassing part of nursing is going to a job interview but it's not funny and at the end of the conversation with the recruiter I'm not laughing...

:(

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

I remembered another dumb embarrassing thing I said as a student nurse.

During our psych rotation, we were assigned to both the med/surg VA hospital and the neuro/psych VA hospital, in rotation. I was assigned to the neuro/psych hospital first. A most impressive naval officer wearing a visitor's tag, stopped me and while I had absolutely no idea who he was, I could tell that he was someone very important.

He asked, "Excuse me, young lady. Could you direct me the head?"

My answer? "The head of which department, Sir?"

Absolute. complete. total. silence. Then he just roared with laughter. Everyone around me was in shock. It was Admiral ___, a 4 star.

He had arrived to visit his injured son and a team had been watching for him. He came through a different door by mistake, and whom did he get as a greeter?

Me.

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In nursing school I was caring for an elderly gentleman and noticed in his room that he had proudly hung up his sports illustrated swimsuit calendar on the wall. I went to take his vital signs and he promptly asked me while pointing at the calendar "does your butt look like hers?" I had to quickly retreat :lol2:

We also had an elderly lady lock one of our male nursing students in the room with her and start yelling "Honey, it has been a LONG time since I have been with a man!" After many minutes of laughter before we rescued him, he proceeded to tell us that she apparently had noticed him when our group arrived for clinical, because she changed into her pink lace nightgown :)

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
Tending an elderly British gentleman, soft-spoken and with a lovely accent. He had been nothing but a gentleman the entire shift, very quiet and calm. When I came in last thing before report to check the IV's, his daughter was at the bedside and we chatted away like old friends. She was on the side of the bed where the IV pole was, and just before leaving, I leaned slightly over the patient to look at the dates on the IV lines.

Quick as lightening, the patient threw up both hands (think Jazz hands), clamped each one on one of my breasts and shouted gleefully "Wicki Wicki"!! while twisting his hands right and left. I was so stunned by the suddenness of his movement that it was a couple of seconds before I managed to pry his clamping hands off my breasts. The stunned look on his daughter's face made any thought of being angry fly out of my mind. She couldn't apologize enough and it took everything I had to assure her that it was OK.

I never did learn what "Wicki Wicki" means!

Eww Eww Eww

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I was at work and my scrub pants fell down too. I was walking down the hall and I didn't feel them fall until it was too late. They were down to the floor. I pulled them up and kept going. A male nurse was behind me. The next day I worked of course it had spread around the unit that my pants fell down. I overheard two male coworkers talking while I was in the supply room. They asked the guy who was there when my pants fell if I wore thongs or granny panties. I shocked them when I opened the door and told them I didn't wear thongs.

Haven't you learned how to walk like a duck when you sense your scrub pants coming loose?

We usually get a little warning before a full drop-trou event. If you do the duck walk, you can usually waddle into the nearest corner to cinch the ties.

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