Published
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.
I survived the night, as always. But felt so sorry for oncoming nurse.
Before report: It's 3am, the overheads are on, the lights are on in several rooms, the doctor is yelling to the nurse who is to give you report "he's not dying on my shift! What other orders do you want?" You peek in the room and see multiple pumps, CMV, CRRT, and the nurse is pushing a bristojet of something and says, "can you come give me a hand? I'll give you report in a bit."
When you walk in and hear any of the following, or a combination:
"Thank God!"
"Fresh meat!"
"Got your roller skates?"
"I hope you ate on the way."
"Can you go ahead and clock in right this minute?" (a lot of us would arrive early, we self-assigned, so the early bird got the first choice of patients)
When (as a home health nurse), you walk into your former hospital (that you're at at least 3x/week between dropping of labs and attending meetings) and the first two people you see are your old boss and the particularly horrible guardian of a former patient.
ETA: I realize this is not report, but I don't get report in my job. :)
proud nurse, BSN, RN
556 Posts
I got report from the PM nurse that a 93 yo female patient leaped out at 2 security guards and held on like a spider monkey. Then she donkey kicked the nurse in the chest. The nurse got an order for making the patient 1:1. I go in to meet the patient, unsure if I should be afraid of this 93 yo woman or not. Introduced myself, she gave me a high five and was a sweetie all shift.
Sometimes it's the one's they don't warn me about.