You know its going to be a bad shift when...

Nurses Humor

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Just as you're walking into the hospital for your shift, you hear "Code Blue" followed by your unit.

Eight of your patients have had 13 BM's, and it is not even the first hour. (Happened to me 3 weeks ago, wound up dealing with 27 bms that day)

All of your patients are restrainted and just happen to be related to Harry Hodieni.

Your coming on shift, and you see a patient from your unit making a break for the main entrance in their Birthday Suit followed by six nurses and two techs from your unit.

When the night shift (Or day shift) who doesn't smoke hands you a pack of cigarettes and says "Here, You'll need this."

During report on 605, night nurse laughs and refuses to tell you why.

When the night shift tells you good luck.

The night shift says it was quiet and hopes your day goes the same.

When the A/C breaks down and its 102 outside or the Heater goes and its -32 outside.

You only have one patient at report.

When you come into work, and everyone is bagging the vent patients, because of no power.

When you hear a doctor go "Oops."

The the Alheimers guy in 405 tries to climb into bed with Alheimers lady in 406, insisting they are married, let alone they live in two different states.

Five nurses call O/S for the 7 a to 7 p shift, and there are 30 total care patients with no techs.

When your patient has 72 different meds to be given during the day. (I have seen this one also.)

Feel free to add

Adam, RN

Passed my Boards 7/18/2005

Specializes in Critical Care, ER.
Oh, I know all about them!

You know it's gonna be a bad shift the first day the hospital tries a 'rapid response team' to prevent codes: result - 2 'codes' in 1 shift show up in your unit unannounced (after all, the PURPOSE was to avoid codes, so we didn't have to notify the code team/ICU, right!) or better, "Aren't you glad we got them to you before they coded. Oh and where do you keep your ambu bags and the doc wants V and V now (vecuronium and versed)."

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when all the NPB840 vents, and the PB7200 vents are in use and they're breaking out the old Bear IIIs and Servos. . .

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the docs last words on the phone were 'I've never seen anybody code over this before, it'll be fine . . .'

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the comment about the 'closed down room' is "do you really need a functioning monitor to admit a patient; don't you have portables somewhere?"

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when THAT GI doc is coming into do an afterhours EGD - you know the one that can't aim when he's aiming the blood at a non-bio trashcan . . .

You know its gonna be a bad shift 10 minutes after your idiot co-worker comments how quiet it is. . .

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when you have 1 patient, the rooms on either side of you are empty, and the charge nurse says "After your admit, we're gonna have to triple"

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the ABP and SPO2 alarms are turned off because "they wouldn't shut up". . .

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when there are 7 IV pumps in your room, and the off-going shift is looking for more . . .

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the OR is bringing their equipment up with the patient 'just in case' - had the OR leave a continuous TEE in a patient the other night. . .just in case.

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when THAT doc that likes to write 4 pages of orders is both your patient's primary and he's writing orders when you show up for report.

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the off-going nurses first remark to you is "Do you know where the tube exchangers are?"

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the doc asks you to set up a balloon pump, just in case . . . and then slinks out.

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the off-going report is something like "After CT scan, he's going for a VQ scan and a bleeding scan. Oh, and the first of 3 units of blood is hanging and the 2 units of FFP are thawing"

You know it's gonna be a bad shift when the wife says "I gave the nurses station's phone numbers to his 11 siblings, 23 nephews/neices, 8 children, and 2 ex-wives . . .but I'd prefer if you don't tell them anything."

Should I continue?

~faith,

Timothy.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

You know it will be a bad shift when:

- every patient you have is on q1 or q2 hour FS

- a vented 600 pounder with q4 wet to dry dressing changes on the stage IV sacral decub

- you've got 19 family members in the waiting room violently insisting that each and every one of them must be with the patient at all times - for moral support

- the nurse on nights walks out in a different color of scrubs than you remember seeing 12 hours prior

- night charge starts report with the phrase "it was certainly an interesting night"

- you are assigned the q1 hour break tech who insists on taking lunch at a specific time each day, despite what is going on on the unit, simply to watch soaps in the break room.

- you're asked if the negative pressure room is open for the TB/HIV/necrotizing fascitis pt

- you hear the beeping as you step off of the elevator

- JCHAO tracers - enough said.

Specializes in ICUs, Tele, etc..

it would be a bad shift when u have three call in's, replaced by wonderful and amazing agency nurses who aren't allowed by heart surgeons to take care of any open hearts whatsoever, for whatever reason i dont know because agency nurses i strongly believe are some of the strongest nurses around, and you find out there's an emergency open heart and u have to take the patient while being in charge of the whole unit.

Specializes in ER.

At what point do you get to tell the docs to kiss your butt? Right about now would work for me :p

Specializes in Gerontological Nursing, Acute Rehab.

You know it's going to be a loooong 12 hours when you get in report....."Pt. is in a vail bed with hand mitts....by the way, she pulled out her trach and Foley twice last night."

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

...you walk into the breakroom and hear a nurse giving taped report about a patient elevated troponins and low H/H and the internal medicine doctor who hates nurses and loves to write pages of difficult to read, time consuming orders is coming up to see him shortly- then you find out this pt. is on your assignment (learned a lot that night, the pt. did have a heart attack after a partial gastrectomy but he survived)

...as you're walking into the nurse's station you hear 3 second shift nurses saying they haven't charted yet because of all the admissions

...you see the crash cart in a pt. room

...it's 3 minutes to shift start, you're just arriving, and no other night shifters are there yet

...the unit smells like code brown

...when you're charge and you call the shift supervisor to get the names of your staffing for the night shift, she starts by telling you she had a lot of call-ins

...you walk in to your break room at 10:55 to find 4 floats staring at you and you're the only regular on the unit. the assignment hasn't been done, the count hasn't been done or the crash cart checked, and you practically have to get the whip out to get them to do the other tasks while you make the assignment

...you just finally started listening to your taped report at 2335 after the nurse who hits the pause button every 10 seconds is done listening to hers and before you even get through the first patient, the aide is handing you a list of vital signs and you see a temp of 103 F, a blood pressure of 220/110 and she tells you that 405-1's daughter is insisting on more pain meds for her mother immediately, even though she's already on enough dilaudid to knock out a gorilla and 406-2 is throwing up and your cover in 410 has a pulse ox of 80 (this happened and I survived)

...you're walking onto your med-surg unit and you see two gurneys bringing up post-op patients at the same time

...you see a full moon as you drive in

...you just got your assignment and a second shift nurse sticks her head in and tells you that 419-2 hasn't made any urine in 12 hours and she's paged the doc twice and hasn't got a call back yet

...it's the first night of a new computer charting system (happened last night, i got the hang of it by 2 am tho)

...i hope this one doesn't get taken wrong- i love 99.9% of patient care assistants :) , except one lazy, rude one who practically has to be hit on the head with an IV pump to answer lights :angryfire and she's the one who you see walking onto the high-census unit just ahead of you and she's the only one assigned for the night (on nights like that, we might as well not have a pca- i end up doing so much myself)

Specializes in ortho/neuro/general surgery.

you're a half hour into your shift, and you can't find your cordless phone- then you discover that the reason you can't find it is because you're talking on it... (happened Friday night to me! :lol2: )

During report, each of your patients have some sort of psychological issue and should all be in the psych unit but are not because of some sort of medical condition.

When the elevator doors open onto the unit for your shift and the first thing you see is security holding down three patients for a unit brawl.

When the elevator doors open and the scent of c-diff hits you like a punch.

You know it was a bad shift When you start vomiting towards the end of you shift because of General Tzo's Chicken you had at lunch. :barf01: (Happened to me yesterday. It was a tough shift to begin with. But felt well enough today to goto work!!)

When the Pyxis Narcotic Despenser starts opening wrong draws for the meds. (Happened today, ordered Tylenol, it opened the draw for Percocet instead, another nurse asked for Morphine, Gave her the pca keys instead, and it just got weirder after that. Especially when the printer started vomiting the paper in it.)

God I love my profession.

Adam, RN

You know its going to be a bad day at work when the day nurse says "I tried not to have to leave you anything , but its been a bad day" (nearly everyday)

When the elevator doors are already open to take you to your floor when arriving for work.

When I drive by my unit on the way in and see ALL the lights on. (In NICU we keep the lights dim.)

When there is an overhead page for ANY OB STAT!

When 26 week triplets make their appearance exactly at change of shift. Happened last year.

When the dayshift nurse tells you that the doc who likes to wite pages and pages of orders has just gotten around to seeing your baby and you have maybe 2 or 3 hours of fluids left.

When you are scheduled to work the night of a hurricane and you go in early as to not be on the road during the worst of it and your co-workers dont believe you about how bad the conditions already are until part of the ceiling comes crashing down!

When you walk into the unit and overhear the respiratory therpist desperately calling the rental companies for more vents.

Question for you big people nurses...whats a walkie talkie?

Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

An ICU patient who can ambulate and answer you and gets a full meal tray - usually ready to transfer to the floor but being held up for some reason. Most ICU nurses "like" their patient out cold and intubated, with their feeds being tpn or tube...

Question for you big people nurses...whats a walkie talkie?

A patient that is fully cognitive and ambulates with out assistance all over the unit.

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