Your most bonehead moment in nursing. Or 2. Or 3.

Nurses General Nursing Video

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As promised, here it is. Post your bonehead moments in nursing.

1. I'm a community psych nurse and I have more than once gotten to my patient's house and realized I had forgotten to bring the needle for injection. Had to drive 25 minutes back to the office and then right back to patient's house. Sorry for wasting state funds for gas and travel time guys. I'm a bonehead.

2. Could not remember "QTC" while talking to the ICU nurse taking care of my patient. Just brain farted. My mind just locked up. Stood there and said "NP discontinued the seroquel because of prolonged Q... prolonged Q... uhhhh.... abnormal ekg."

3. As a nursing student I squirted a patient in the face with saline. Duh.

4. One of our checklist assessments has a typo on it that says cynotic instead of cyanotic. I got so used to it that I thought cyanotic was the wrong spelling and cracked a joke about someone being the color cyan when I saw the correct spelling. Derpity derp.

Specializes in Practice educator.

Or in a builders merchants and they ask for a big weight.

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Specializes in ER OR LTC Code Blue Trauma Dog.
5 hours ago, Nurse Beth said:

haha! but what did they really want?

They wanted to stand around cackling and giggling at the new guy with the look of a deer looking into the headlights of a car on his face.

I finally gave up my frantic, panic stricken rummaging through everything on the supply cart and returned to the nursing station to sheepishly report I couldn't manage to find any #7 fallopian tubes.

They finally busted out laughing, but I just stood there confused and felt like I had one simple job... How could I screw it up? lol

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

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This was what I did yesterday. Coworker needed a catheter placed in a women, so I told her I would be glad to do it for her. Everything went without a hitch until I went to pull on the cath to make sure the bulb inflated. The cath came straight out, and I was like I know I inflated the balloon. The doctor and other nurse was in there, and we all tried inflating the balloon and it wouldn't inflate. We chalked it up to a bad cath kit. Got another one and inserted it. The bulb still didn't inflate. By this time the doctor had already left the room when my co-worker noticed I had the syringe in the access port not the part that you put it in to inflate the balloon. Whoops! Even the doctor didn't notice when he tried inflating it. LOL. We didn't mention to him otherwise. We just chalked it up to a "bad" catheter kit. ?

I'm a new grad and still orienting, so I feel like I am making too many dumb mistakes and not critically thinking enough. I hope it gets better and I feel more confident and not second guess myself too often like I do now.

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Specializes in PACU, Stepdown, Trauma.

I was having a really, really busy day a few months ago and apparently my brain clocked out before I did. I set up a fresh set of tubing for an IV piggy back antibiotic on a patient, programmed in correctly in the pump... and forgot to hook it up to the patient! So, I ran 100 mL of antibiotic onto the floor... whoops! Called pharmacy and got a new one and the patient got their antibiotic 30 minutes late. No harm done, but still dumb.

I'm also really clumsy and notorious for tripping over things... lots of things. One time, I tripped, lost my balance, tried to catch myself on a pull cord attached to the light switch, continued falling, ripped the cord out of the wall and almost landed in bed with the patient. Thankfully, I did not land on them and they thought it was hilarious!

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Specializes in ER OR LTC Code Blue Trauma Dog.
23 hours ago, JJL618 said:

I know I inflated the balloon. The doctor and other nurse was in there, and we all tried inflating the balloon and it wouldn't inflate. We chalked it up to a bad cath kit. Got another one and inserted it. The bulb still didn't inflate. By this time the doctor had already left the room when my co-worker noticed I had the syringe in the access port not the part that you put it in to inflate the balloon. Whoops!

I suppose you could have hooked up something worse to blow up the ballon I guess... ?

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

I have banged my head on the shelf by the bed in our neuro ICU that we put our tube feed pumps on.

I have hit my head on those tv that are on swing arms.

I have tripped over IV tubing and foley tubing, thankfully not pulling either of them out.

I have sprayed myself with tylenol giving meds down an NGT.

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Specializes in Emergency medicine, primary care.

I placed EKG leads on an elderly lady in triage once. She came in for syncope. I put the stickers on and could not get the leads to pick up. I used two different machines and rebooted the damn thing and finally asked he tech for troubleshooting help. My elderly lady was wearing nude pantyhose and the stickers were on top of the pantyhose. We all had a good laugh. ?

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

I once tripped over O2 tubing, grabbed the pt curtain which proceeded to swing all the way around the back of the bed to the other side where I ultimately landed on the floor.

I once tripped and slammed myself into the wall in a patient room and knocked the clock off the wall which landed right on my head.

Once when I was doing HH I went to a pts house for SOC, it was about 107 degrees and the pt wanted to sit outside. I was there for about 2.5 hrs, left there and ate a hurried lunch and went to next pts house. The house was semi-cooled but not much. I was doing a wound care and between the heat, the bad smells, and the hurried lunch I started to get really nauseous. I tried to stop it but just could not, I really didn't want to use the pts bathroom so was deciding what to do about this but too late, I had to use my nurse bag, luckily I had a lg zip lock baggie in there so did manage to get things out and used that. Very embarrassing!

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.
On 7/24/2019 at 8:18 PM, JJL618 said:

I'm a new grad and still orienting, so I feel like I am making too many dumb mistakes and not critically thinking enough. I hope it gets better and I feel more confident and not second guess myself too often like I do now.

Don't worry, it will get better!!

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
8 hours ago, Daisy4RN said:

I once tripped and slammed myself into the wall in a patient room and knocked the clock off the wall which landed right on my head.

Heh!

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On 7/20/2019 at 2:55 PM, sevensonnets said:

Let's just say there are reasons I don't get dressed in the dark anymore!

Thanks for the belly laugh!!!!!

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