What have other nurses done that have freaked you out?

Nurses General Nursing

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What have other peers done intentional/unintentional to freak you out? Good or bad. Happy or sad.

On my FIRST day as an LVN, (LTC) a res was screaming in her room as I was walking out to leave. I went in to see what was going on. She was having an anxiety attack and severe pain (post stroke). I pulled the call light, and no one came. Uggg.

So I peeked out the door and saw my CNA walking down the hall, and told him to come sit with res. I went down to get her a Xanax and a pain pill, well relief nurse was in the restroom, and relief CNA (with call light still going off) was sitting behind nurses station reading a newspaper. I told CNA to tell the nurse to get a Xanax and pain pill for res. She said OK. I go to relieve my CNA. Said goodbye to him, and stayed with res. after 10 minutes, CNA COMES INTO ROOM WITH XANAX AND MORPHINE PILL. She is soooooo shocked to see me still there, she hands me the pills and RUNS to the relief nurse. I could NOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!!!!

(I did immediately call DON and tell what happened. Luckily, my CNA was still checking on another res, and saw the whole thing.--------they got a slap on the wrist! that was it!!!):madface: :madface: :madface: :madface:

Specializes in Case Management, Home Health, UM.
A nurse crushed Percocets, mixed with water, and gave it through a central line IV.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

OMG!!! :redlight:

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

a nurse run Heparin 25,000u/250ml in one hour (she thought it was an antibiotic):nono:

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

When I was working med-surge, on a post-surgical floor, a nurse who had floated from the medical floor and really wasn't an EXPERT on post severe abdominal surgery... well, let me back up. Her patient had had extensive abdominal surgery, and had a J tube for tube feeding, and a T tube. Now, I certainly understand her not knowing which was which especially considering that she wasn't used to post surgery patients, but she really should have asked someone before she ended up HOOKING the patient's tube feeding up to his T tube and sending Jevity into his common bile duct! Instead of his stomach/jejunum, where it was supposed to go. She didn't even bother to ask anyone which tube was which. She just called the floor (from home) a little bit after shift was over and told the nurse that had relieved her "ummm, I think I might have hooked that tube feeding into the wrong tube". Now, kudos to her for being willing to come clean about such a mistake, but geez. She could have asked any of us on the floor with her to help her.

Another incident happened just the other morning at the end of our night shift, on the psych unit that I currently work on. The program director of our unit and our "sister" unit... basically our BIG boss, the guy who is over our unit manager even... walked onto the unit out of nowhere and started yelling at our night staff about the fact that we have been having complaints that the night staff is too loud, and if it doesn't stop people are going to get fired, yadda yadda yadda. He just showed up out of nowhere; I mean we NEVER even see this guy since we leave so early in the morning. Now, the shocking part was that the other RN that works my unit at the time (see, I wasn't actually there; I heard about all of this later) went TOE TO TOE with the guy, RIGHT THERE at the nurse's station. Basically he'd yell, and then she'd yell right back, he'd yell, she'd yell, and so on. She was saying things to him like "Well, you need to come work with us at night and see what it is like". Okay, so at first I was VERY impressed that she stood up to him like she did, especially since it was SO very unprofessional of him to attack our night staff right there at the nurse's station, in front of day shift even, and in front of the patients. But, in hindsight I feel like she should have took the high road and simply said "Sir could we all have this conversation back in the conference room?". Since that is what the conference room is for!! Still, it was shocking to hear about someone so blatantly putting her job on the line like that for herself AND her staff. He could have fired her right there.

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Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.
A nurse crushed Percocets, mixed with water, and gave it through a central line IV.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

I sure do hear of this type of thing happening, quite a bit. Also, back to the tube feeding thing :)... nurses running tube feedings into central lines!

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Specializes in Government.

I worked night shift in pediatrics for over 10 years. We were always short staffed and the physical plant was huge so you ran miles all night. I worked with an older (60's) nurse who had come back to work after 35 years at home.

Her "technique" for keeping her assignment quiet was to tape their mouths shut! I'm not kidding, I'd find infants and toddlers with pink tape over their mouths, often keeping a pacifier in place. Yes, I talked to her/reported it to the management staff, etc. She was warned. She didn't do it anymore but always held it against me..."gee, what's your problem? It works!"...sigh.

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

Wow, I have a good but really sad one. I was a nurse extern on a peds floor when I was in nursing school. We had a very large and very busy NICU and we often would get some of their "graduates" on the floor to gain some weight and monitor them (this was 10 years ago) before they went home. One of my favorite babies, had miraculously survived, graduated from the NICU, was on our unit for a few weeks and went home on a pulse ox and apnea monitor (if I remember right, he had some residual BPD/RDS). He had 24 hour nursing at home. One morning, the night nurse reported off to the daytime nurse that the pulse ox probe must not be working b/c it kept going off during the night. When the daytime nurse went in the room, and turned the lights on to assess the patient (which the night nurse never did) the baby was blue with sats in the 70's. They called 911, got him admitted to the PICU on a vent and he died 3 days later. This baby had a good prognosis and ended up passing away b/c noone bothered to assess him and just assumed something was wrong with the monitor!!! ALWAYS assess your patient not just look at the monitor!

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Specializes in LTC,Med surg-Telemetry,alzheimers,home h.
A nurse crushed Percocets, mixed with water, and gave it through a central line IV.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Lol. What school did they attend?

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Specializes in cardiac med-surg.

yikes

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When I worked at the group home I was passing meds and heard a newer staff screaming for me from the bathroom. I go in and she's like "there's blood! She's bleeding and I don't know why!". Turns out she thought women with MR/DD didn't have periods:uhoh3:

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Specializes in ED, ICU, PSYCH, PP, CEN.

a couple of nights ago relieved an agency nurse who had left a lady with an ectopic pregnancy laying in bed with a bp of 80/40, hr 40 for an hour and didn't bother to tell anyone. when I went in to assess her after taking over care at 0300 I went and got the er doc and we had her on the way to surgery within 25 minutes. if he had been her nurse till 0700 she would be dead. how scarey.

95 percent of the agency nurses we use are excellent and I learn alot from them. unfortunately not in this case.

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These stories are TERRIFYING!! How did some of these people get their licenses?????????

I have a few... One new RN on our subacute floor had a new admit that was a post-surgical pt. He had lovenox ordered but it wasn't in from Pharmacy. I told her to get on the phone to pharmacy and get it ordered and sent out stat. He hadn't had the lovenox in 18 hrs. I assumed she had done it as she said she was on it. (HER pt. btw, not mine.) Next night I come in and again NO lovenox. She didn't bother to do anything! :confused: :eek:

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Another one that I've shared on here before .... we had this nurse that had lost her license in another state d/t diversion. She would show up for work and be fine at first but as the night wore on, she would become more and more messed up. She would be to the point of slurring her words, burning herself with cigarettes on her breaks, and her eyes rolling back in her head. She would also fall asleep in the middle of a sentence during a conversation. It was RIDUCULOUS!!!!!!!!!! She was FINALLY fired after 31 complaints. I refused to work with her after a while, and our DON at the time was ticked that I wouldn't work with her. GO FIGURE!!

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