You know you are going to have an interesting day when you get report that . . .

Nurses Relations

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Feel free to add your own, thought this might be kinda fun. I feel so sorry when I see the looks on the oncoming nurses' faces when I give report and hand-off on patients and they realize what kind of day it's going to be.

I probably had one of those looks when I got report that I had one patient in a Posey Bed with a sitter who needed frequent PRN Ativan. The next patient was a total care on Ketogenic diet which means crushing lots and lots of bedtime meds and giving things like 0.67 tablet of this, and 0.35 tablet of that, and needing to watch carefully, do labs and replace electrolytes as needed. And then am told by charge nurse that my next patient is in the ED, they are waiting for another Posey bed and a sitter to become available before sending them up, and family will not be at bedside. :wacky:

I survived the night, as always. But felt so sorry for oncoming nurse.

how about before report....you walk in to 4 new admissions, 23 patients, 3 1:1's, 2 aides, 4 nurses including myself. hmmm that math doesn't sound too right either!

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What about when I go to get report in the ED I hear: he was kicked out of the nursing home tonight for fighting other residents or when I walk in and they called off 2 nurses and 1 CNA which left 4 nurses and 1 CNA for 20 patient then we get 4 admissions in 2 hours!

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Math is wrong on this one, you would push all but 3.4 mL. Just sayin

Push out as in waste. Keep the rest in the syringe and use.

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But it would also depend on the concentration. 3.4mL might not always be right. What if it's a 10mg tab in 10mL H2O? That's 1:1. Right?

Oh goodness-- the mg per tablet have already been calculated and the dose has been determined to be a certain fraction of the tablet.

Usually we draw up liquid meds but certain patients, due to diet restrictions, cannot have any sugar. Meds come in non-sugary pill form.

Here's a real life example. A patient needs 250mg Tylenol. The tablet is 350mg. Do the math, how much of the tablet do you need to give the patient? How can you be sure you are splitting that amount accurately? Remember they cannot swallow pills or parts of pills. Has to be crushed and mixed with water in a med syringe. Hopefully that real life example will help you see what I mean . . .

Now imagine the patient needs 10 bedtime meds, all pills that need to be crushed, and because the patient is a child the doses are going to be parts of pills, not whole pills. Makes for a very long prep time for the night time meds! Usually there are two of us doing it and we are able to then double-check each other's work at the same time as sharing the manual labor of crushing pills and mixing with water.

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You do realize I was in YOUR court on that one, right? Someone had said you were wrong, and I was questioning them, not you. You misunderstood what I was saying - but it doesn't matter.

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At report time: HUGGGEEEE sigh......Welllllll, I am not sure where-ever to begin.......***SIGH***

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Oh, and I have to add one of my personal favorites: This is an actual report I received.....names and identyfying details changed to protect the innocent......LOLOLOL "Remember that patient that day, the one with the stomach thing? Turned out to be C-DIFF? Remember? Huh? Hmmmm? WELL, ANYWAYS....big family reunion, shared toilet, now we got 6 of em here, mad as wet hens, swearing it was the BBQ sauce....which I can see.....my uncle's 2nd wife used to make this stuff that this one time, back in like I dunno 93, I was 18 and going with that guy who I told you about? The one with the nice car? Who's now married to that friend who collects creepy dolls???? ANYWAYS..."

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

When you hear "Boy am I glad to see you!" you know your night will be interesting.

When you hear that your pt is "annoying" your in for it.

When you hear "Good luck I just stopped all sedation on your vented pt" who is bucking the vent already and the attending is nowhere around and they seriously want the sedation vacation right now because they want to round on this pt first and you know they wont be out for at least an hour.

When you walk in and you pt isn't even on the unit yet and you are 1:1 with them because you have no clue what your going to get.

When you see that your pt can't have visitors and you ask why and are told "they are a criminal and shot someone yesterday and they shot back."

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Specializes in pediatrics.

When your patient keeps a written running tab of everyone who has wronged him since his admission assessment!

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Specializes in Emergency.

The charge says "thank god you're here" and the nurse giving report leads with"i'm sorry".

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I hope that's not what you do. 0.67 of a tablet = about 2/3 of a tablet. If you gave the patient "all but 0.67 ml" of that mixture, you just gave the patient over 9/10ths of the medication.

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Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

I'd like to start by saying I work ADULT MEDSURG, not peds, not psych...

"She has multiple personalities and is currently the personality that is suicidal"

"I called security to have her parents removed"

"There are two sitters because she's so big and scary"

"His pressure is usually 60s systolic. That's how he runs."

"She gets 6 mg IVP of Dilaudid every hour, she'll flip if you're a few minutes late - and you have to show her the vials"

"You have one patient right now but the ER is crazy"

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