Your Favorite one liner used with patients

[scaredofshots]

I am a student and I use humor to get me through clinicals. Once I told a patient "This is my first time giving an injection on a real live person." At the time it was very funny! The look on his face and my instructors was priceless!! I was curious what other things people have said or say to patients to break the ice.

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[NurseRotten]

I'm a night-shift nurse. My patient asked me once if I needed the light turned on to hang a new bag of IV fluid. I replied, "Nah, the night shift nurses can do it in the dark." I didn't even realize what I said.

Once I said, "Night shift nurses do it all night long."

[kellyskitties]

I always include the part of our admission assessment about "are you pregnant" even for the men. Always gets a laugh.

I sometimes leave in the question about "gynecological problems" but for most of my clientel I rephrase it as "female problems." One male pt stated "no, not since the divorce."

I sometimes tell a pt with a difficult IV start "Next time you come in, please don't forget to bring your veins."

When they say "I hate needles" I just say "ME TOO"

When I do anything painful (don't use this with violent pt) I say "Now if this hurts you hit _______" Insert name of whoever is helping you or with pt.

When a pt says "man, I hope I go home in the morning" I say "man I hope I do too."

When pt won't/can't urinate I tell them "If you don't go soon I've got a 300 lb male nurse with a garden hose he'll put in to help you out" Gets a UDS sample fast!

When on says "I pay your salary" say "can I get a raise"

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

When a needle-phobic patient shuts their eyes in fear as I prepare to give an injection, I say,

"By the way, I have this rule...If you shut your eyes during the shot...so do I"

[rianne1117]

you guys are hilarious!!!!

:rotfl:

[ROSYJO11]

When I'm flushing the TURP patients and they are wincing I calmly say, "I'm not thinking of childbirth when I do this", the patient's eyes near pop out of their heads as they ponder whether or not their nurse is sadistic and the female relatives (especially the wives) laugh so loud! Once the patient sees the wives laughing they realise that all sympathy is lost on a woman who's gone through childbirth and they have a chuckle themselves.

[ROSYJO11]

pre-op checklist - do you have anything in you that you werent born with? ( asking about prosthesis, lenses, pacemaker, artificial bits and pieces)

[ROSYJO11]

a common one I use on the post ops when moving them or changing a dressing or other such thing,

' Does that hurt?'

pt replies "no",

I say, "Hmmmn, I"ll have to try harder then"

[Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN]

"It's cold in here, but at least it keeps the beer cold." (hey, the cath lab is a COLD room!)

Oh, can I use that one please!!

I work in a dialysis clinic and the patients are always complaining about how cold it is.

[grace90, LPN, LVN]

When I do a patient admission, one of the questions I have to ask is if they have any dentures or hearing aids. When they're young, as in teens or 20's, I still ask it. I ask it seriously, in case they really do, but if they don't, they usually get a good laugh out of it.

[JuneBug1868]

Not as funny as some of these, but on the maternity unit I work on the Dad's get a wristband too. When one of them asks me why they have to wear a wrist band I reply, "If you leave and come back show us your wristband we get super annoying if we can't figure out who you are." They usually laugh and roll their eyes at me.

[flaerman]

Whenever I tell a patient that I need to start an IV and they tell me, "I'm a hard stick". I give them my best devilish smile(aka Jim Carey's Grinch potrayal) and reply, " OOO, I just love a challenge".....

Or my latest snappy retort was the other night when I had to stick a young woman who was being seen for the 3rd time in about 1 1/2- 2 weeks for gallbladder pain, She told me the last visit the nurse who started her IV about killed her. I calmly told that her unfortunately I needed to poke yet another hole into an extremity for testing, meds/fluids etc. She asked how long had I been a nurse then. I replied after looking at my watch, "Including this week, only 22 years" for which I got a little smile and she said that I must have done this(IV start) then a few times.(I stuck her so smoothly she barely noticed the 20 Ga. going in)

flaerman

[uraqt2]

I work in corrections and anytime we see an inmate or they get KOP (keep on person) meds they have to sign for services and instead of asking for their signature I simply say "I need you to sign you're life away here by the X" Always good for a chuckle especially for death row inmates.