You know the shift is gonna be a hot mess when ...

Nurses General Nursing

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You know your shift will be a hot mess when your patient is on a PEEP of 25, Fio2 100, PaO2 50, febrile @ 40 degrees Celsius, maxed pressors, white count

Glad I had a cup of joe.

Who wants to continue?

"You know your shift will be a hot mess when..."

Specializes in Pediatrics, Women's Health, Education.

Someone says "wow, it's really quiet tonight...".

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Specializes in L&D/Mother-Baby.
:no: :***: - duplicate entry.
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Specializes in L&D/Mother-Baby.
When you walk in and look at the central fetal monitoring screen, and at least 5 babies are in distress, there are currently 2 c-sections in progress in the OR, and triage is full. Yee-haw.

:no: A scene like this was enough to make me want to turn around and go back home.

There were many nights I came on shift to a scenario like this and just wanted to cry. This definitely made for a "fun" night. At least, we were busy and time flew by quickly. :confused:

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Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.
These are hilarious and so true guys! Thanks.

I'll add more...

--- When you walk in to the ICU and your assignment has a crash cart in their room and a sign that reads "hemodynamically unstable, no turns, please see RN".

--- When you sit for report and the phone goes off 5 times from CT, lab, Vascular, and pharmacy all on the same patient.

Oh yeah...that's a bad shift about to happen !

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Specializes in PICU, Pediatrics, Trauma.

You are a 12 hr traveler in an 8 hr unit...

You are told you are getting 2 patients, one a discharge and the family is angrily standing at the door to the room. Then you are told to take a patient from a nurse who tells you she just got report and she hasn't even gone in the room yet. Then you get a forth patient and can't find the nurse to get report from. Then 2 hrs into the shift you are told you are being floated. That was fun...NOT!

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You know it's going to be a bad night when you walk onto the floor and the charge nurse looks at you and says, "OH, THANK GOD YOU ARE HERE."

No matter what setting, this has ALWAYS been a bad omen for me. That, and someone using the "Q" word....:no:

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Specializes in Oncology (OCN).

Charge RN of 26 bed inpatient oncology unit: 22 pts. and expecting 4 direct admits for chemo, floor split between 2 LVNs and 1 new grad RN (just off orientation & not chemo certified) and a float RN (experienced but not chemo certified or use to oncology). Staffing is trying to get another RN to come in for expected admits. (Our normal ratio on days was 1:4-5). Don't recall the exact number but at least 1/3 of the patients getting chemo, which is the charge nurses responsibility, along with hanging all the blood products & IV pushes for the LVNs (both of which are numerous on oncology). I knew it was going to be an extremely busy day but...less than an hour into the shift the float reports a chemo spill. í ½í¸³ In the middle of cleaning up said chemo spill new grad calls a code--had no idea her patient was going bad. We rarely run codes in oncology, most of our patients are DNRs. Thank God for code teams! Needless to say, it was a really bad day...

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Critical Care.

You know the shift is going to be a hot mess when security is escorting your patient's parent out on your way in, still screaming threats.

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Specializes in Cardiovascular recovery unit/ICU.

You know it's gonna b a hot mess when you get report on your fresh heart CABG who already has an implantable defibrillator goes into VFib and the defibrillator shocks her 12 times. Yes, 12 before you can even finish receiving report. Just pull up a chair and bedside table I the room. You're gonna be in the "cave" awhile.

Or you walk into the unit to get report and the surgeon is standing over the post op heart your taking, cracking the chest at the bedside dumping something resembling clotted liver into the kick bucket fast as he can go, so you start prepping for back to OR and haven't gotten report yet.

still love it though!!!

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Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.

When everyone calls in but you.

Oh. Dear. God.

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Specializes in Oncology.
Charge RN of 26 bed inpatient oncology unit: 22 pts. and expecting 4 direct admits for chemo, floor split between 2 LVNs and 1 new grad RN (just off orientation & not chemo certified) and a float RN (experienced but not chemo certified or use to oncology). Staffing is trying to get another RN to come in for expected admits. (Our normal ratio on days was 1:4-5). Don't recall the exact number but at least 1/3 of the patients getting chemo, which is the charge nurses responsibility, along with hanging all the blood products & IV pushes for the LVNs (both of which are numerous on oncology). I knew it was going to be an extremely busy day but...less than an hour into the shift the float reports a chemo spill. ������ In the middle of cleaning up said chemo spill new grad calls a code--had no idea her patient was going bad. We rarely run codes in oncology, most of our patients are DNRs. Thank God for code teams! Needless to say, it was a really bad day...

I don't even know what to say to that. After 8 years of working oncology the thought of this gives me palpitations.

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Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.

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