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 Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.
I will be the first to say that I didn't know much about anything but when this happened to me while working as a Tech on our Med-Surg. unit I just knew it was wrong.

I had taken the vital signs of a patient the BP was something like 74/40 anyway it was low, and the patient stated that they needed something for pain, so I went to find her nurse and let her know about the low BP and request for medicine. The nurse looks at me and says "Crap that's a low one, better give her a bolus to get her BP up so I can give her some pain med. so she will shut up and leave me alone."

Later I over heard her telling another nurse what she did. I stayed away from her the rest of the night!:twocents:

Hmmm... what she did might have actually been a safe course of action. The problems that I see are:

1) Her crappy attitude

2) Did she obtain orders from the MD to give the bolus? Did she alert the MD at all? OR, was it some sort of protocol to give a bolus in the incident of a low BP, particularly with this patient?

I mean, if she were able to get the patient's BP up to a safe level with the bolus, then it was probably okay to give pain medicine. However, her crappy attitude is unsafe, and if she didn't alert the MD, that's unsafe as well.

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Day shift nurse gives report saying she doesn't understand why newly inserted foley isn't draining. I said I'd take a look. Foley did not drain because it was inserted into rectum.

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Specializes in Emergency Room.

Oooh, the above foley story reminded me of another one.

Another department idiot works peds (one of my pet peeves - if you aren't remotely competent w kids, don't say you'll do peds). Kid comes in w a fever, so we're doing our normal routine (blood, urine, fluids, etc). He goes to lunch, mom of child hits call light. I go in, and the mini-cath (its a 5 Fr) in sticking out of the child and taped to her thigh, and mom is doing everything she can to keep the kid's hands away from it. ***? Mom says "Can we have some more juice. Bill said to have her drink because he's DEFINITELY in the urethra but she doesn't have any urine."

The idiot had placed the cath into the kid's lady parts (of course) and because he was NEVER WRONG left it in, and taped the collection container to the kid's leg.

The worst part? This wasn't an infant, it was a 2 1/2 year old. Can we say "scarred for life?"

I was off the floor for 15 minutes to grab my lunch and my then manager was watching my patients. When I returned she was standing at the nurse's station chatting with another nurse. I asked her if everybody was allright and she turned to me and said "Was your baby blue when you left?"

She's not my manager anymore...

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A nurse crushed Percocets, mixed with water, and gave it through a central line IV.:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

OMG!! What happened?!! That makes me sick just hearing about it.

When I was a new nurse, when I came upon my first 'code' I started actual mouth-to-mouth on the lady. The nurse that came in next freaked, and after that they put face masks in each room.

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Specializes in Government.
Another department idiot works peds (one of my pet peeves - if you aren't remotely competent w kids, don't say you'll do peds).

May I just say bravo! for this observation. I worked peds for over a decade and it seems to draw well meaning people who know *spit* about pediatric care. "Oh, I just love KIDS!" ain't enough.

The foley in the lady parts? "Sure" it was placed right? So seen that. *sigh*

Specializes in Internal Medicine Unit.

Have gotten a few chuckles...and a cringe...out of these!

A newly hired RN with many years experience was providing patient care one shift. Our PCAs will often place used thermometer covers in a tray on the dinamap cart (even after being told not to do this). The RN was using the covers from the tray instead of from the box attached to the side of the dinamap as she took vital signs.:barf01:

In our 3rd semester, a fellow student was going to put tylenol elixir in the buratrol (spelling?). She was failed right then and there.

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Foley did not drain because it was inserted into rectum.

I'll admit, there's been some difficult Foleys to do, and some Foleys wound up in the lady parts (and noticed immediately and corrected), and large and small urethras, but i don't think i could ever get an orifice confused for a urethra.

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Some freak out moments:

1. A nurse locked her demented patients in their rooms on night duty so she could get some sleep

2. A nurse gave a patient a dose of insulin (note: he was not a diabetic nor ordered insulin) because he was endstage cancer patient

3. A senior nurse asked how to prime an IV line because she didn't know how.....she then said is there anything else she should know? and was about to give a blood transfusion

These all happened at 1 facility. Different registered nurses all faced losing their licence over these issues and other freaky things they did. The worst part about it was I was a new staff member and a lot of the poor practices at this place freaked me out (needless to say I left this hospital).....but the biggest freak-out was that the many nurses that worked at this place were not freaked out, because poor practices were the norm!

dude, i was part of the biggest fiasco i've witnessed yet! a co-worker and myself were preparing to insert a foley. simple enough, i can actually say i have some skill here. the patient was a good-natured woman, non-verbal but with it, peg tube, trach, the works. she knew what we were doing, responded accordingly and was very cooperative. luckily. just in case, there were 2 nas at the ready, (nothing better to do?) i should say right now what we all know, inserting a foley isn't truly 'sterile' however, there is a line. i contaminated my first pair of gloves. 1st trash bag. i attempted to insert the cath into a skin fold. it promptly flopped on the bed, (due to my surprise?) the aide (bare handed, ) gave it back to me. more trash. explained to her not to touch it. here is where i mention everyones prefered techniques. we are all different. 5 minutes was spent re-arranging my prepared space for the procedure.we'll call my fellow nurse teri. teri gets out another kit. just the cath, as we already have the bag etc. the same helpful na tried to hand us things from the kit. more learning experience. we have quite the disagreement over teri placing and removing her hands and trying to change hands (basically wallering around the labias). she satisfactorally cleaned the area finally... and...it goes into the urethra!... hooray! urine spews up and everywhere! she cries bag bag bag! we 3 stand incredulous! staring at the urine fountain unable to comprehend that the bag needed to be connected to the cath. teri reaches for it and lets go of the cath which shoots, (not slides) from the urethra. trash bag #2. apologizing to the patient for the mishaps and for laughing, she herself laughed at us! try # 3 teri connects the bag. yes! we are ready, she found it once, no big deal. somehow the lady parts and urethra must have switched, for she went confidently right into that lady parts. she was so confidant that she had it , she told the na to inflate the balloon, so she did, try that is. ky spewed onto the bed. we had to go to a bigger trash sack at this point. pt still laughing at us. what a good sport! what the heck, 1 more time. i of course had to rearrange, got ready. checked all of the incidentals we had just flubbed up. here we go! it was good! like text book! 45 min from the start, missy miss had her cath, a good laugh and bath from all the mess we had made. consequently, the next am, we came in to find out the replaced the cath during the noc, she needed a bigger balloon, they found the whole thing in the bed next to her!

then there was the other foley incident, the only time(and i definately learned!) i did not eyeball my own written dr orders before implementing them. my preceptor on my last day of orientation, at the end of shift, took me and the kit down to the pts room. she was indeed to have a foley, and it went smoothly. sometime after we left, they read through the chart to discover she was allergic to the iodine we had just smeared all over her delicate parts! ( no adverse reactions btw. she was fine.)

Specializes in ICU.
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.

SCARY!

Completely unrelated. . . . When I was a student, a nurse asked me to help her reposition a patient. I found five or six pills in the bed with her under the sheet. I handed them to the RN who said, "huh, guess she didn't want them" and tossed them in the trash. She didn't even check what they were and went on like nothing had happened.

Specializes in Geriatrics.

A second-hand story. When I was in training,(many moons ago) our Peds instructors gave us many warnings before we went out on the floor.One of the examples she gave to go along with her dire warnings was this: Seems one of her students in the previous class had been assigned to temps one day.The instructor,on her rounds,found that all of the kids on the unit were lying on their tummy's,with the thermometers sticking out of their rectums. This was in the day of the glass thermometer!!

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