What kind of shift report was that?

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Specializes in Medical Oncology, Alzheimer/dementia.

What is the funniest/worst/quickest (any adjective) shift report you've received? I was just thinking about one I got a few years ago when I worked in the nursing home that covered all three of the above. Went something like this...

As the PM nurse tossed me the med room keys, "Everybody's okay. Joe Shmoe died. I counted the narcs with the supervisor. I gotta run. Are you good?"

Because this was a nursing home with the same 28 dementia residents that I worked with day in and day out, I knew not much changed, so I was okay with that report. Would never accept something like that now, though.

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Yep, I've gotten reports like that. Really scary considering it's on ICU patients. The worst for me however, is from someone who is scatterbrained and jumps around in no logical fashion. At the end, I'm left thinking, "Okay, so why is this patient here?!?"

If I do get a nonsense report, I just nod and tune them out pretty quickly as it's easier to read the report sheet/kardex/H&P and get a much clearer idea of what's going on.

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The funniest thing I was ever told in report (from a male nurse, mind you):

"I deep-throat suctioned the patient"

I was stunned for a minute :roflmao:

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"Everyone was asleep when I got here, and slept all night. Otherwise, you worked days yesterday, so you know what's going on. Have a good day, Bye."

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Dialysis, Hospice.

I've gotten report before from a nurse who waited until five minutes before I got there to make calls to several physicians regarding changes in her patients. It went something like this:

"Mr. Smith has some new hematuria, I just paged urology, he should be calling back any minute. Mrs. Jones wants her diet advanced, I just paged Dr. Black, he should be calling back any minute. Mr. White said he's not getting all of his home meds, so I paged Dr. Brown, he should be calling back any minute. Anyway, gotta run, have a good night!" :eek: And out the door she ran, just as the phones started ringing...:arghh:

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

"Nothing new; have a good day. Bye!"

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Dialysis, Hospice.
"Nothing new; have a good day. Bye!"

You know, even when I worked in LTC and had the same patients day after day, I still didn't feel okay about getting a report like this. "Nothing new" indicates that absolutely NOTHING whatsoever has changed in any of the patients' status that day, and that is really almost impossible, even if the events were small, such as, "Marie refused her po meds again today, and her blood sugars are starting to reflect that she hasn't been taking her Metformin", or "Bob slept through the entire day shift, in spite of us trying to get him up. I know he does this sometimes, but it seems to be getting more and more frequent lately."

I guess what I'm trying to say is that small things that don't seem report worthy and therefore get swept under the rug can blossom into bigger problems. How many of you have had something like a fall happened and only then been told by the other staff, "Well, he had been acting a little more disoriented lately, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal, because we could always reorient him." Fine, but the increased disorientation was a change that needed to be passed on to the next shift, KWIM?

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Specializes in Emergency.

There are only 4 open rooms and they're all yours.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
There are only 4 open rooms and they're all yours.

Now that would be a scary report! Ulp!

Four potential admissions, because, don't hold your breath, they won't be open for long and you won the jackpot for the day!

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Specializes in Emergency.
Now that would be a scary report! Ulp!

Four potential admissions, because, don't hold your breath, they won't be open for long and you won the jackpot for the day!

It's in the er & happens often.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
It's in the er & happens often.

Oh, yeah, well, the ER; guess that would be expected, then. I was more or less thinking of a med-surg floor at shift change when the recovery room would start their dump-out.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

"33 bed 1. SOJ-same old Joe". "33 bed 2 ..."

Report before and after Joe was normal-fine report; Joe was a verrrrry stable long-timer on our hospital floor just waiting to be discharged back to a nsg home. "SOJ-same old Joe" said it all.

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