When they're SO sure they're right...

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You've all seen them (sometimes on AN)- a person who believes with all their heart that a practice is correct while you and the rest of the civilized world know they're wrong.

What's the weirdest, most outlandish clinical or technical misconception that you've seen a co-worker espouse?

I've had a general surgeon also insist that nobody makes urine while sleeping.

That's because THEY don't clean it up. So to them, they don't. Am I right?

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Granted I work 3-11 so don't do many routine head CTs (excluding 6 hrs post, or post-EVD placement scans), but what I remember of our portable CT scanner is it almost seems more trouble than it's worth. My lines seemed to be more difficult to control than with a lateral bed-to-scanner transfer, you have to tape off the hallway so nobody else gets irradiated, and Neurosurgery is unhappy with the pictures so lots of times orders another CT downstairs.

Yeah it sounded a little too good to be true :/ and if neuro doesn't like it then forget about!

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When I was is nursing school there was a girl in our class, she couldn't say difference between vitamin K and potassium K+. Hope she learned since then.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Ask for patient on a dopamine infusion to start a beta blocker to suppress atrial fibrillation.

Umm, what do you think a beta blocker blocks?

ok, smarty pants. ;)

How much beta could a beta block block if dopamine could block beta?

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Generally urine is actually sterile, but it's also true that if you're sending it for culture then it's because there's sufficient suspicion it's not. We're allowed to tube urine because generally it's sterile, we've pointed out that the sludgy stuff we're sending likely isn't to no avail.

Are you not allowed to tube other cultures like blood or sputum either? I've never heard of this rule anywhere that I've worked.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
Generally urine is actually sterile, but it's also true that if you're sending it for culture then it's because there's sufficient suspicion it's not. We're allowed to tube urine because generally it's sterile, we've pointed out that the sludgy stuff we're sending likely isn't to no avail.

"Urine Is Not Sterile" (Journal of Clinical Microbiology)

"'Sterile Urine' and the Presence of Bacteria" (European Urology)

"The urinary microbiota" (Current Opinion in Obstetrics & Gynecology)

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Childhood trauma IS linked to schizophrenia. Do some research. Your outrageous person was right, and not in error with that statement.

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I agree. The profession of nursing is a calling, not a random choice. Life circumstance might make you the compassionate one who is drawn to nursing, in which case you are indeed made compassionate not by academic study.

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Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.
I agree. The profession of nursing is a calling, not a random choice. Life circumstance might make you the compassionate one who is drawn to nursing, in which case you are indeed made compassionate not by academic study.

I"m not a nun, i'm a nurse. Nursing might be a calling for some but one does not need to be called to be a good nurse.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
I agree. The profession of nursing is a calling, not a random choice. Life circumstance might make you the compassionate one who is drawn to nursing, in which case you are indeed made compassionate not by academic study.

For me it was a fairly random choice. I showed up at university registration and they asked, "what would you like to major in?" Unfortunately, it hadn't ever occurred to me to plan for this moment, so I said "uhhhh.....what are my choices?" They suggested I try nursing first, so I did. The end.

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Specializes in Public Health, TB.
A nurse is just writing his own orders? Is he an advanced practice nurse with prescription privileges? Or just someone practicing medicine without a proper license?

They relied on something called Nurse Directed Protocols, so nurses can initiate things to speed up delivery of care. So starting IVs, hanging fluids, getting ECGs, collecting labs.

Regarding the metoprolol, it was routinely given IV for chest pain, but this nurse conveniently looked past the parameters.

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Specializes in ICU/ Surgery/ Nursing Education.

After returning a patient to our Med/Surg floor a nurse thought I promptly deserved an incident report. Seems like I returned the patient to the floor with make-up (blush) across the abdomen. How careless I was to drop it on the patient and then not clean it up.

Couldn't stop laughing, "sweetheart, that was Chloraprep from the patient's abdominal surgery."

My manager would not give me the name of the nurse who submitted the report. Best thing that has happened to me in my career.

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