What ridiculous things have you seen happen in the workplace?

mcleanl · Jul 2, 2011

Years ago I went to get the TPN and lipids out of the pyxis for a patient. The TPN bag was ENOURMOUS....the biggest bag I had ever seen and the rate was something like a 250cc/hr. I am think WTH?????

It turns out the resident ordered it based on the patients actual weight (the patient was huge!) instead of his ideal body weight. I couldn't believe that pharmacy actaully made up the bag......and that they actually had a bag large enough.

Everyone around was laughing hysterically, the TPN bag looked like something out of cartoon....freakishly large!

ReWritten · Jul 2, 2011

I have just transferred to the ER, and on one of my first nights, we had a pt come in with an OD. EMS was called by his wife due to his decreased response and hard to wake up. When we asked where the wife was at this time, they replied "She said she was too tired to come and stayed at the hotel". Guess it was a good thing the pt didn't die!

My roommate, an ER nurse, showed me a sign-in sheet he had saved. The time written was around 5am. On the Reason for Visit line, a woman wrote she needed a wrist band to show her husband to avoid a fight for being out so late with her boyfriend. Needless to say, she didn't get a bracelet.

A doctor who wanted to make his patient a DNR, and had asked me if I had talked to him about it or if the patient had said anything about it. I reminded him that was his job if he really wanted to do that, and when I asked for parameters for a rapid response so I didn't have to keep calling him (the pt was asymptomatic), he replied, "Well, I guess if he stops breathing you'd have to code him..." talk about insensitive! This patient is A&Ox3, and yes, he's quite sick, but he wasn't anywhere near death.

Everyone at work knows our pharmacy is absolutely horrible. Even my manager stated quite seriously in a meeting, "Don't trust pharmacy to have things correct...". My coworker had a patient on Zosyn and pharmacy seriously timed the medicines q30 minutes on their MAR. Needless to say, we had a good laugh with that one. But at least our medicine inventory was well stocked for all that zosyn!

abbnurse · Jul 2, 2011

I promise, this is a TRUE STORY. I was once standing at the nurse's station speaking with a woman whose mother was being discharged to a long-term care facility. She (the daughter) was very sad about this and began crying as she was talking to me. She said "It's just heartbreaking, my mother never wanted to have to go to a nursing home." Another nurse who was standing nearby came over to us, held out her left hand and said "I know all about heartbreak. See this engagement ring? Well, my fiancee just broke up with me!! " The patient's daughter did not respond.....she was likely speechless, as I was! I was mortified. I just took the woman by the elbow and said, "Why don't we go somewhere more private to talk?" The other nurse was a new employee and I hadn't met her before this....she didn't last long. I later heard stories about her saying she would "cast the demons out" of a patient with Alzheimer's. Although I have seen and heard many outrageous things in my 20+ years of nursing, I have never forgotten that nurse and her broken engagement!

canesdukegirl, BSN, RN · Jul 2, 2011

Ridiculous, yes. Funny, not so much.

All of the staff in the OR are expected to take call. When one (rather crabby) nurse was called in to do an emergency lap appy, she claimed that she didn't know how to do the procedure and refused to come in. She just hung up the phone.

This nurse has been on staff for 10 years.

biker nurse · Jul 2, 2011

Doctor had to pronounce in hospital. Went in room kicked bed( didn't touch pt) and said yea, she's dead! :confused:

Another doctor was called to room for respiratory distress, Looked at pt said"she'll be dead by morning" When he came around in AM , I pointed to pt from hall and said" she's doing real well for a woman you looked at and told her she would be dead in morning"( nastly) 'I then reminded him what he did and told him it wasn't nice> ( I don't know how I didn't get fired I was a CNA) :mad:

I had to remind and teach many doctors how to prepair for a pt on isolation. (on CA unit, so most were reverse precautions) :uhoh3:

I could go on and on, Nothing like working in a university hospital with new residents!!

Tait, MSN, RN · Jul 2, 2011

Not too crazy but I had walked into work around 0630 to get ready for my shift. A patient walked up to me with his urine cup and asked me to take it. I was perhaps a little snarky, but I told him "You can just set it down there because I need to have gloves to touch that." He looked at me and said "You know urine is sterile right?" and stalked off with his nose in the air.

He proceeded to harass everyone for the next three hours until he finally got discharged.

beachmom · Jul 2, 2011

Had a young man, frequent flyer for pain control issues. He truly was in pain but always wanted more pain med than was ordered. One time he broke into the sharps container and was sucking all the syringes. :eek:

Irock · Jul 2, 2011

I was in the trauma room and we needed a rectal temp on a trauma patient, and I lubed up the probe & handed it to the Dr (resident) because I couldn't reach around her, and she said "Where do I put it?" The patient was already log-rolled onto his side, bootie exposed...what else did she need to know?

HazelLPN, LPN · Jul 2, 2011

Worked with an RN in the NICU once who must have gotten her license out of a cracker jack box. She was part of the contingent staff. They would normally only use her when completely desperate, and give her the easiest assignment possible....three feeder growers under the very close watch of the nurses around her and the charge nurse.

One day she ended up with two feeder growers and a chronic with a trach. I watched her squirt the saline down the trach and set the empty saline ampoule into the trach blocking off the baby's airway and then turn her back to put her gloves and face shield on. It was like watching it in slow motion.

Before I could get there, the charge nurse took the saline out of the trach and bagged the kid up. That was the last time she took a patient assignment in the NICU. Whenver they needed her, they used her as an extra pair and never let her have an assignment. Getting paid RN wages for NA level work...and this woman had her BSN. Last I heard she completed her MSN at the University of Phoenix and was hoping for a nurse manager's job. At least she won't be at the bedside anymore.

OhioCCRN, MSN, NP · Jul 2, 2011

Had a young man, frequent flyer for pain control issues. He truly was in pain but always wanted more pain med than was ordered. One time he broke into the sharps container and was sucking all the syringes.

ew! yuk! gasp! VISUAL

thehipcrip · Jul 3, 2011

One night in my local ED, a nurse started the process of emptying my bedside urine collection bag without putting on gloves or using hand sanitizer. As a FT Foley user at high risk for UTIs, I ask her to please use either the gloves or the Purell before handling my bag. Her response:

"You better have some hand lotion for me because that stuff dries out my hands too much."

I responded that she could simply put on some gloves if she didn't want to use the hand sanitizer, but because I was highly susceptible to infections, I insisted that anyone who emptied my bag do one or the other. I also told her that I did have some lotion in my backpack that I would be happy to let her use.

She became irate! She raised her voice and went off on a rant about how I had no idea how hard washing and sanitizing her hands multiple times a day was on her skin, and what was I so worried about anyway because she was far more likely to get diseases from me than I was from her, and on and on and on. Pointing out that what I asked of her was hospital policy, as evidenced by the poster over the sink, did nothing but make her angrier.

Fortunately, I was in a room directly across from the nurses' station and the charge nurse heard the commotion and came to investigate.

You'd better believe I filed a formal complaint against her.

Art_Vandelay · Jul 3, 2011

One night in my local ED, a nurse started the process of emptying my bedside urine collection bag without putting on gloves or using hand sanitizer. As a FT Foley user at high risk for UTIs, I ask her to please use either the gloves or the Purell before handling my bag. Her response:
"You better have some hand lotion for me because that stuff dries out my hands too much."

EWWWWWW. She was dealing with YOUR urine. Double Ewww.