Worst doctors orders ever received

[jenfromjersey]

I have a two nursing degrees, going for a third and have a whole lotta common sense. When I see stupid or hear stupid orders I may or may not carry them out..here are my all time favorites:

1) Male patient with active lower GI bleed...HGB of 5...Hypotensive and tachycardic..has 2 large bore IVs running with NS wide open as fast as it will go...blood bank working as fast as possible to get me my units of PRBCs ASAP...BP barely 90 systolic.

Order from resident: "We need orthostatic vitals on this patient"

[Hilinenursegrl]

What is a myers cocktail and why does it need to be sterile?

[Thunderwolf, MSN, RN]

Hmmm....now let me think upon this...ah, here's one:

"Lasix 40 mg IV once, Milk, Bread, Eggs, zzzzzzzzz............"

The doc was falling asleep while hand writing his orders, possibly combining with his grocery list.

[thegreenmile]

that is hilarious!!!!!

[morte, LPN, LVN]

What is a myers cocktail and why does it need to be sterile?

http://www.scoopshare.com/Health/Fibromyalgia/Thp_Myers_Cocktail.cfm

[Emma Peel]

this doc walks in, does his "assessment", compliments the pt on how cool his eyebrows look, and that he seems to be doing much better (this would be the dead guy). ...

weirdo who is making grizzly bear and ambulances noises ...

He let out this blood curdling scream, and then stepped out of the room and looked around trying to figure out who screamed.

This doc needs a psych eval, STAT. Holy cow!

Emma "get the Haldol!" Peel

[SMBTG, RN]

Ok, I'm not an ER nurse...but thought I'd toss in my two cents.

Brand new patient comes to floor, ED orders were all screwed up (the doc's fault, not the nurses), I call hospitalist for clarification. I mean, there were some MAJOR issues. Like to continue Coumadin with an INR>5, and start on Lovenox also.

Anyway, I call doc, he FINALLY calls back, and cuts me off..."Just write whatever orders you want and don't call me back again"....then hangs up on me. Evil me, I actually wrote that as an order. I thought he was going to stroke out on me when he saw it there in the morning...

This is so freakin' fantastic... I would have loved to see his face. What a JERK!!!!!!

[debgirl71]

dumbest order ever: tylenol 650 mg iv. huh? admittedly, the patient had a catastrophic abdomen and couldn't have anything pr or po, but tylenol iv? when i clarified it with the resident she said "can't you just draw up the elixer in a syringe?" no, i replied. "so what should i do?" asks resident. call your attending if you are unsure. patient thus received no orders for temp of 103.5. nurse, however, can give a tepid bath without an order.

[Miss Poppy]

Actually when I was in the hospital in Mexico, I did recieve IV Paracetamol (acetaminophen)!

[Miss Poppy]

One night in the ICU, I had a patient (with a long cardiac history) that had been having multiple ectopic beats, getting more frequent as the night went on. Normal lytes, temp & VS. 2 junior residents on covering for the night. Eventually she went into a VT of about 80-90 BPM, no change in LOC and maintaining her MAP. I call the resident over who states "well I don't know what to do"!!! I ask her if if she hasn't done her ACLS and she tells me "Yes, but I don't remember it" then walks away from the bedside!!! She gets the 2nd jr and they stand at the end if the bed "consulting", thank God this woman is still stable. Till she's not. Vent rate doubles, MAP goes to 38. This woman is now mottleing as they are still consulting with each other. I bring over the crash cart and put on the defib pads and Agnes tells me....... there's no need, it's not V-tach, just a lot of abberant beats :banghead:.

This same resident is on one night when I had another pt go into rapid A fib of 180 and drop her pressure to a MAP in the low 30's. I page her, tell her exactly whats happened and she tells me to start an amio infusion. I tell her that she is in an unstable fib and needs to be cardioverted. She says "OK" and hangs up the phone. I imagine her coming around the corner straight away and get the cart over and pads on, but wait.... no Agnes. She doesn't show up at the bedside. She's rolled over and gone back to sleep. This woman is crashing badly so I hit the code button at the top of the bed. That brings her. Only to have her look at me and say "why didn't you tell me it was an emergancy"? :banghead:

And yes, it was the same resident who wanted me to start dopamine on a pt who had the most severe pulses paradoxis due to cardiac tamponade.

[talaxandra]

"Please bathe patient. If nursing staff is too incompetent to do this, please inform me."

I think it's the 'incompetent' that tips this from "NQR" to "***, dude!" I'd be only too happy to notify him that we couldn't do it but he was welcome to give it a shot, because bathing a fit young man against his will clearly takes a butt load more learning than any of us have. I wasn't even there but I'm steamed about it!

For an insulin overdose:

"check fingerstick blood glucose q1hr. Keep an amp of Dextrose at the bedside"

No mention of administering it............

No, there's a new theory - osmosis through the air - just having the ampoule there will maintain the patient's sugar stable, without any of those nasty side effects

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

MD ordered a pregnancy test for an 86-year-old woman.

[ThrowEdNurse, BSN, RN]

Not an order but, the overnight nurses had a slow night so when they called a code on the floor one of them actually went. (We don't usually go to codes on the floor although we are supposed to. True ED nurses understand why not.) Anway she enters the room and and notes that no one is doing compressions so she asks, "Is there a pulse?"

The resident responds, "yes."

She asks, "Well what rhythm is she in?"

He says, "PEA."

Yeah stupid, right? Well the next thing out of his mouth is, "Hook up the pads so we can convert." Apparently he wants to convert PEA that has a pulse.

This was when the ED nurse turned and left the room.