In 22 years of nursing in everything from acute post op ortho to home health, I've read some real doozies. One of the facilities where I worked, we had MD residents that, I swear, with God as my witness, must have secretly worked for Chaos. Charts coming from the ER with 6 residents writing contradicting orders, we'd have to get them together so they could decide on what flavor IV & so on. You get the point.
For me there were 2 orders that left me in stitches.
"HHH enema" Because I'm not one for vagueness, I felt compelled to call the MD. He got huffy & asked "just WHAT don't you understand??" My answer?
"How high is high, how hot is hot & just how much is a hell-of-a-lot?" I swear I could hear him scratching his head when he replied "good question."
But, my all time favorite came from a pulmonologist that was famous for his poor handwriting. I consulted ever nurse, RT & unit secretary in the hospital. He was a notoriously grumpy man, and I dreaded calling him for clarification, but it had to be done. The order read....
"Suspect impaction, seek & destroy."
I've seen things like "FTD" (fixin to die) & "PITA" (pain in the ass) usually in reference to family members.
Specializes in Psych, ER, Resp/Med, LTC, Education.
I had a VERY, VERY sticky patient one time---like the ones you literally prep before you in with everything set up allowing you to run in holding your breath and do everything without taking a breath! Amazing how fast you can run in, flush an IV and throw up a bag of ABX and get out all in one breath!! So this guy smells so bad I used the citrus peri-spray for his whole body since he refused to shower!! did that in one breath too!! LOL
Okay so the doc goes in--forwarned that this patient stinks really bad......he says yes, thanks...it'll be fine...comes running out asking where the face masks are then finishes and leaves writing an order before he leaves---- "Place room odorizer in patients room and bathroom please STAT!" seriously an ORDER for this!!! lol
Specializes in Obstetrics & Gynecology,Medical/Surgical.
I once saw an order that said, "please make patient a small birthday cake, today is his birthday".
Hmmmm - let me whip out my oven and chef's hat and get right on that, doc.
Wow. I'm just impressed that a physician even noticed it was the patient's birthday, let alone cared enough that the patient should be recognized for it!
Once during NS I had a post op patient with a penile implant that caused some major swelling. So the urologist wrote an order to "Apply ice to balls PRN". My instructor got such a kick out of it...everytime she saw me she'd ask was it time to apply ice?!
When i was a new nurse i couldn't believe my eyes when i saw an order for one can of beer with lunch and dinner. I was even more shocked when the pharmacy actually delivered it. (cheap beer, to boot!) Then one of the older nurses explained to me that one of the trauma docs has no problem letting a person who needs to have a daily beer or two do so. It's earier than dealing with dt's. Makes sense - i mean we offer smokers a nicotine patch...
I've only been a nurse for a year so I'm sure I'll see some crazier orders in the future, but so far the best was "Pt may have a beer or whiskey with dinner".
The best part was the look on people's faces when they would come in the nurse's station and see a really big bottle of Jim Bean!
I've seen this many times to prevent withdrawl. Apparently its easier than prescribing librium
When my dad was an intern, they still put FLK* in charts when they saw kids with clear syndromes of some sort but no firm dx. Fun explaining that one in court.
michael79
133 Posts
I saw a radiology report from an x-ray of the abd that read FOS. Enema till clear.
FOS = Full of S***