You Know You Are a Nurse When...

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Specializes in Cardiac/Progressive Care.

My grandmother just shared this list with me, and I thought it was wicked cute!! Feel free to add your own :)

You Know You Are a Nurse When...

  • You would like to meet the inventor of the call light in a dark alley one night.
  • You know the phone numbers of every late night food delivery place in town by heart.
  • You can only tell time with a 24 hour clock.
  • When asked, "What color is the patient's diarrhea?", you show them your shoes.
  • Every time you walk, you make a rattling noise bcause of all the scissors and clamps in your pockets.
  • You can tell the pharmacist more about the medications he is dispensing than he can.
  • You refuse to watch ER because it's too much like the real thing and triggers "flashbacks".
  • You check the caller ID when the phone rings on your day off to see if someone from the hospital is trying to call to ask you to work.
  • Everytime someone asks you for a pen, you can find at least three of them on you.
  • You don't get excited about blood loss...unless it's your own.
  • You live by the motto, "To be right is only half the battle; to convince the physician is more difficult."
  • You've basted your Thanksgiving turkey with a Toomey syringe.
  • You'e told a confused patient your name was that of your coworkers, and to HOLLER if they need help.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

Cute! I especially liked the one about showing the color of diarrhea on your shoe.:eek:

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Specializes in Oncology; med/surg; geriatric; OB; CM.

...when you're sitting at a family dinner telling everyone about a patient's diarrheal/emesis attack, stuffing your face and you can't figure out why everyone else is turning green!!:yeah:

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Very Funny :lol2: ! I am only a student...but expected to graduate in December 2011 and I already understand the emotions toward the call lights, lol.

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Specializes in Retired OR nurse/Tissue bank technician.

You know you are a nurse when:

-Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal seems perfectly acceptable to you.

-The phone rings at home and you answer as if you were at work (Operating Room, Retired Too Soon, RN)-I did this to my uncle once; he was completely baffled.

-You believe there should be a licencing process that people have to successfully complete in order to be allowed to breed.

-You look at people's hands to see what kind of veins they have

-Family and friends ask for medical advice, ignore it, then go to the doctor, get the exact same advice and come home, amazed at the brilliance of the doctor.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

You can discuss BMs while eating lunch.

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You use an emesis basin to put a frozen entree in after it gets nuked (back in the day when they came in bags to boil, or nuke)... and the doctors turn green watching you eat it from the puke basin :D Chow main is not the ideal choice for sparing co-workers.

When the staff nurse comes to you and says they need something for their patient's diarrhea, and you ask the consistency in terms of "cookie dough, mashed potatoes, applesauce, or pea soup" and they go running for the hills.... :eek: Then go look yourself.

Do dressing changes on a gangrenous foot, have a toe fall off, and just lay it down with the rest of the dressing, unphased.

Give instructions to your dad, who is concerned about your mom who hasn't pooped in a week....he's on the phone- 1500 miles away, acknowledging the items you tell him to get at the drug store- glycerin sups, MOM, Fleets, Colace, prune juice, gloves, and lube- to which he shrieks "what are those last 2 for', to which you say "if it doesn't come on its own, you have to go get it" and he mutters something about paying for nursing school and this is what he gets :D

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

"You'e told a confused patient your name was that of your coworkers, and to HOLLER if they need help."

OK, gotta admit that I have done this one. Spent a whole glorious night hearing her name every 15 minutes. Fortunately she has a great sense of humor and we both got a laugh out of it.

ps, this is why I NEVER tell a confused pt my name, I am OK with hearing "Nurse!" all the time, but I cringe when it's my actual name that is being yelled.

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-how bout, when you catch yourself knocking on the break room door

-can be in the middle of eating lunch and b e called away to have to put a c.diff pt. in the bedpan and can come right back and finish lunch (griping since the food is cold after having to decontaminate from the remnants of all of the icky isolation garb and the little buggers we are isolating ourselves from)

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-another i think is very funny, being warned by another nurse to give it a minute before entering cuz she just farted, lol

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one last, while I'm thinking of it:

when you start comparing medical equipment to everyday things (for personal benefit, of course)-like explaining to a patient that iv tubing is like a hose pipe and when it kinks, the ivf cant run and it beeps to alarm us the fluid is not infusing, just like water can cant run when the hose is kinked)-just so they will know why I need them to keep their arm straight so the IV pump wont beep, which will keep me from having to reset a pump every 5 minutes...selfish, huh? lol

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Having a confused/hollering patient across from the nursing stating call out for god to help them and you answer "this is god please be silent I am busy with the person in the next room.

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