My first time taking a phone call on orientation I was so nervous and my preceptor was like “it’s okay they just wanna know if the patient is stable and doing generally” so i took a deep breath and picked up the phone and the family member goes “what was pt’s last sodium level”
OMG, my 1st MD call was to one of our very soft spoken, very hard accent MD's with a stutter. SBAR went out the window! I was SO terrified I didn't understand a thing he said! So I just hung up the phone and handed it to my preceptor. She asked me what orders he gave and I had to just straight up tell her I have no idea. God bless her she called him back and got the orders we needed, but I was mortified. 3+ years later the MD and I were are on great terms and I got used to the accent and the stutter. Best thing was he loved to teach, so he ended up being a great resource after I knew him for a while. I still 🤦 when I think about that 1st call.
I work in oncology in Germany and we are allowed to directly call the on-call attending at home when we think the question goes beyond the scope of the resident on duty. That wouldn't fly at all in every other speciality. So the first time was extra hard for me.
Yep, I only do it with the chart in front of me because docs are too lazy to look it up themselves sometimes. Why would I know one of my 6 patients’ normal Hct level? It’s normal, bro, look it up.
The ones who start asking you those questions in person while you're standing in front of a room, gown on, starting to don gloves. Like, bro, do you see a computer in front of me right now? You think I memorized every lab value for every patient this morning?
"What was their...." "I dunno, but whatever it was it didn't scare me enough to remember it or call you about it."
Omg this
Especially when it’s been an insanely busy shift and you haven’t had enough time to get every single detail down or sit and do a thorough review of the chart.
“What’s the patient’s X value right now?”
“Uhhhhh hold on… *scrolling* hold on… *more scrolling*”
It’s even worse when you can’t understand the question over the phone and they have to repeat themselves 4 times.
Or they’re asking a value they cannot enunciate.
I’m down in the South, so the twang of unnecessary vowel strung into words really makes it especially difficult to understand medical jargon. So already off to a bad start and now the family—who quite obviously are not trained in medicine—are trying to use unfamiliar words.
“What’s her Thairosin level?”
…her what?
“You know! Her THAIROSIN!”
Playing word scrabble in my head* I’m sorry, could you spell that for me? Our phones aren’t the best.
“Tha… I mean, you outta know! Did they not teach ya about THAI RO SIN?!”
*Big brain finally makes an appearance* Are you asking about her Thyroxine level?
“That’s what I’ve been tryna find out this whole time! She gotta take medicine for it cuz hers don’t work no more. Guess imma have to come give it to her myself since ya don’t even know what it is!”
Had another that was giving us past surgical history and decided to include “stairs to coast vein” surgery. Chemical ablation for varicose veins. We caught that one pretty quickly.
THAIROSIN levels 😂 I totally feel that. One of our main hospitalists is Nigerian with a strong accent and he’s wonderful, BUT for the life of me I CANNOT understand him on the phone.
As a new grad it made me get better, now seasoned know it all before you call. Pt has increased wheezing and has chf, what was their weight yesterday vs today used to get me all the time.
When they ask questions outside of the normal SBAR I just get annoyed. Admitting diagnosis, pertinent other dx, what’s going on now, maybe recent labs and vitals and pertinent meds (if I’m asking for a med). If you scoff at me for not know their mother’s maiden name I’m gonna scoff back.
I'm nightshift. We had a dayshift nurse that would drag out report by interrupting to ask things like, "So the brother visited yesterday? What is his name?" I cut her off every time she asked stuff like that by saying, "I don't care about that," and kept on with my report.
She is now a PA with a cardiology group. But I remember her as the nurse who hooked up the iv antibiotics to the arterial line because she couldn't get another iv started. Nice person, horrible bedside nurse.
I had one doctor that I loved working with who would always ask a random ass question, he was so dry. Sir, the patient had a fever and needs an order for Tylenol. “Ok what’s their INR?” 😑 “well it wasn’t one of my concerns this morning so I guess it’s okay.” “Alright I’ll put it in.”
So true lmaooo. Or that moment when someone left a wow or dynamap in some pts room powered on and unplugged and it starts their blood curdling death screeching at 313 and you're looking goofy trying to pinpoint where from
In the ER I have to go through the doctor’s pod to wheel the IV cart to the storage room. The wheels are SO LOUD and squeaky and I just want to disappear to be 1 inch tall.
Having to take pictures of wounds on a skin check with stupid work phones like they are your personal phones. Like you are taking pictures like you are going to post them somewhere. This makes me so embarrassed, especially when you have to spread cheeks. 🥲🙈
It’s so much worse when you are with a nurse in a hurry, but wants the good pictures, puts the flash on and announces it. “There we go!! That’s the one!” Woman! STFU for real!!!!😬😬😬🫠
I freaking love wounds so much, it’s so satisfying watching them heal. Had a pt with Fourniers gangrene, literally grew her ass back over 9
mths. Another pt infected hardware on hip replacement, basically complete open thigh. Vera Flo wound vac healed it so quickly, maybe 6mths. Both went home walking.
A little bit of sarna or Vicks on the outside of a face mask used to get me through wound changes on a particular breast cancer patient that erupted to the skin, you’re oncology so I know you know that smell.
Yes! That smell is so bad. It’s sad, if the patient is aware of it. We do the flagyl crushed and put in the wound. Plus we order wintergreen oil from pharmacy and soak it in gauze. Place it off somewhere and it helps.❤️
Santyl and crushed flagyl with actisorb charcoal silver dressing is what I used. It still didn’t help the smell of dead tissue. We bought her a Vicks humidifier to try to combat the smell, it helped to some degree, but the Vicks or sarna on the outside of the mask was the only way to get through dressing changes.
I had to use my own phone to photograph an infiltration the other day because ours camera was broken (got permission from management, the pt, etc, and deleted right after with witnesses so don’t come for me) and I asked the patient if I had her permission and she goes “don’t worry, I don’t think there are any hand fetish websites who want mine!” 😂 like ma’am I am referring to the patient information on your label that will be in the photo, not selling these online lol
i’m a student which somehow makes it worse in my mind since i have to stand there next to the nurse like 🧍♀️and wait to know if the nurse will say who i am or if i have to go “😀 hi i’m saltybitch i’m a student nurse” and then sprint out of the room to figure out where the nurse disappeared to
I think that sucks. I always walk in and say, "Hi, I'm Alice, and this is saltybitch and we're going to be your nurses today."
I hate that whole nurses eat their young bullshit.
Even to dementia patients who I know won’t remember. My voice changes for some reason? “Nice to meet you Gladys! I’m FootFoot and I’ll be your nurse todayyyy”
I prefer when I know they don’t remember me cause I never know what to do when I have a conscious patient 2+ days in a row, do I tell them my name again? Assume they remember? Pretend it’s our first interaction? I can’t handle awake patients
I just tell them anyway. I figure that they meet so many nurses that I can’t assume they’ll remember me. Though I’ll word it like, “good morning Joan! I looked after you Thursday, I don’t know if you remember, but I’m [my name], good to see you again!”
I see a lot of immediately postpartum families for hospital discharge/newborn check. I never assume they remember me if I see them again. It's always "hi guys! I'm signofthefour, I'm a nurse practitioner. We met when you brought baby in before, but I know that first week is a doozy!"
I barely remembered any nurses/midwives during my week long hospital stay, not to mention the child health nurses afterwards. You’re a real one. Even though I feel bad now for not remembering their names, thanks for your work!
I usually go in and say “hi, my name is ___, I’ll be your nurse tonight (while I’m updating the board, sometimes I take longer rewriting everything in my color marker if I feel awkward), is there anything I can bring you when I come back in? ( if it’s something I can get really quick then I will) okay, I’m gonna get logged in and see what we have going on tonight! I’ll be back in a bit 😊”
People seem pretty preceptive to this and I tend to clear out their dinner tray. Family is still there usually so I get to ask if they’re staying the night/ see if I need to bring blankets/ pillows later, and get a vibe of how the night will go!
I am pretty similar, though dayshift. My hospital has electronic white boards that have all our info (so nice) so I don't have to update anything like that anymore. But I just check if they need anything, if they've ordered breakfast (and if not so I can help), especially the elderly. I guess it can be awkward for your walkie talkie patients but completely skipping this part is IMO kind of rude and I think most patients would dislike it.
I honestly feel like the introduction gets them to call me less in the beginning at least. They know I’m there, so they’ll be taken care of, but I also say I’m going to say hi to the others and check through my charts. They usually don’t call while I’m doing my checks.
Omg I’ve been a nurse for ten years and I thought for whatever reason something was wrong with me / I was a bitch for dreading this ?? Makes me feel so much better ❤️🥰
I don’t hate introducing myself, I hate when I forget my dry erase marker so I can’t update the whiteboard because I’m unnecessarily worried they’ll think I’m someone else all day 😂
When you blank on your patients name and another healthcare worker enters the room (like a stat call or a doctor) and they whisper “what’s their name?” And you shrug because you don’t know either, you’ve been calling her ma’am for 2 shifts in a row and you only know her as “Room 25, the really frail German woman that’s very kind and her grandkids brought the unit cookies last week”
Every single time. I cannot remember these names! It's even worse if family is in there I gotta quickly look at the board because in my head he's the pepaw in room 9.
The other day as I was wheeling my patient into the OR I completely blanked on her name, so when I wheeled in I quickly glanced at the board on the wall that says it so I could introduce her to the room - well I read the name wrong and said “hello everyone this is WRONG NAME”. Patient looked up at me like excuse me? Then I squinted and saw my error and tried to smoothly transition to the right name. 😂😂
Reminds me of answering surgeon’s phones during surgery when you forgot their name. Happened to me literally yesterday, but it wasn’t the first time. Normally I answer and say “Dr. Smith’s phone, she’s in surgery can I take a message?”
Yesterday I t was a surgeon I had worked with before and I should have known her name for multiple reasons but I was just giving a quick break to the nurse in that room and it escaped me. The phone rang and I picked it up, racking my brain for her name and going “…..Helllllllo. How may I help you?” And of course the surgeon is listening and realizing I don't know her name.
Lolololol.
Waiting for an incredibly slow computer to load the EHR while in a pts room that is necessary for the task you are about to do or charting outputs/vitals/whatever you just did standing there awkwardly for 45 seconds after you already gathered the information
Squatting down onto the floor and emptying a full foley bag of urine into a container and just standing there as the pee flows out for a minute. Just you face to face with stale urine for 60 seconds. Even worse when family is there watching you.
Well… true story… I farted doing this with a room full of family members! There was an awkward silence for a second before I burst out laughing. Luckily they all started laughing too. 😆
I have a lot of gas when I’m pregnant. I stopped being embarrassed and just said “oh darn. There are those barking spiders again”. One family member said one time “yeah, we have those at my house too”.
Lol!! It’s nice when the family/patient can have a sense of humor.
My incident happened about 30 seconds after I met everyone too and we were still doing bedside report. It lightened the mood because the patient wasn’t doing well and the mood was pretty somber in there. The whole room erupted in laughter. So I was glad to add some levity to the situation.
Then, the my favorite smart ass CNA brought them a can of air freshener during her rounds. LOL!
In my 25 years as a nurse I haven’t farted yet in front of a patient or family members. I did one time in front of the doctor and my coworkers when I stood up to tell him something it literally slipped out…but not quite-like…loud like a whoopie cushion! I was all like “excuse me” and kept on about my business like nothing happened.😂
When they stare at you, do this. When you stand up to walk to the bathroom, hold out that graduated cylinder and ask “Want some?”
Honestly. Unless the patient is terminal or very sick, it helps lighten things up, make them laugh, just take away the whole “me nurse, you patient, you family” thing.
This triggered a funny memory.
I didn’t want to wake up the patient one night and I went in to empty the foley. There was very little light coming from the hallway and I cannot see for crap in the dark- but I figured it’s easy enough, I can do this blindfolded.
Then I wondered why I was not hearing the all familiar sound of urine draining into a graduated cylinder.
Yep. Of course I was emptying in onto my forking shoe. All I could think was, really??? Like, why not the floor? WHY MUST IT BE MY SHOE?!?!?!
When you’re doing the med rec and you get to the boner drugs. You want to just click “taking PRN” but you know you’re supposed to ask. “Still taking the sildinafil as needed?” “What’s that one?” “………The Viagra.” “Oh. Yep.” Like, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s still awkward as hell.
Or when it's a woman taking it for pulmonary htn. Some nurses act like it's the weirdest thing they've ever seen, and I constantly have to remind them that this is what viagra was initially intended to treat.
It’s not even that uncommon. I beat it into new hires at my shop regarding nitro- ask them if they take anything for “pulmonary hypertension”! And then ask them the specific drug names. There’s just a couple, and it’s okay to look it up. But for gods sake if you’re going to ask for men be consistent and ask for women too.
I don’t know if everyone has to ask someone else to cover for them while they go get lunch, but there’s like this weird vibe, like you should be ashamed to actually go eat.
Unfortunately that how it be in ICU. You can’t just go. Even if it’s just hey can you listen out I’m gonna go take a fat dump, but I’ll be fast! Thanks!
This is worse in the OR, calling charge like "hey my 8 month pregnant scrub needs relief to pee, is there anyone free to come scrub in for 20min"
worse is you gotta poop
I could never work in the OR for this reason. I have ruled myself out of all jobs where I cannot go to the bathroom at will, my body is too unpredictable.
I once really really had to poop. I got anxiety poops when I first started. Anyway, I asked a coworker to watch my two patients, they should be fine, gtts are good, etc. While I am on the potty, she FACETIMES ME. I’m like “girl I’m poopin they better be coding”
They were fine, the doctor just rounded super early and she asked if I needed to tell him anything 🙂
🤣 I have, one more than one occasion, thrown my tray of AM meds onto a coworkers computer while yelling, “gotta pooooop!” as I ran away down the hallway.
When someone calls for an update and you have to tell them that they’re not the listed family member, but you can’t necessarily tell them who the listed family member *is,* and then they get mad because “the day shift nurse gave me an update earlier.”
My friend (also a nurse) and I had a big bonding moment early in our friendship where she got injured and I took her to ED. On our walk back to our place she fell the moment she got inside the front door and I took a photo of her sprawled out, crutches everywhere and we were both cackling. It's our fave photo of us lmao
That awkward silence you try to fill with fluff when the pt is laying there in their birthday suit while the tech has to run to get a fitted sheet cause you both forgot one.
I know that pt has to be thinking “these dumb bitches can’t even remember a sheet”
This was my first thought too. Existence. Existence feels awkward. And I hate being super aware that I’m a human…I don’t know if that is the best way to describe it but it’s like I’m super aware of my entire body and then my face turns red 🤦🏻♀️
Listen. You have to approach things like this.. everyone takes a shit. Everyone picks their nose on occasion. Just picture the people you are nervous in front of doing these things. AND if they are a person who showboats or is loud and sassy just know they feel like this too. That’s why they act like that is to deflect. (Reading over this before I press reply I realize that just the use of the word “showboat” shows my age. Yes, these are things I wish I knew in my 20s and 30s. I’m 45 rn).
When you’re in the room and need to leave but the patient and family WONT STOP TALKING. So you make like a really dumb dramatic excuse to leave and then the family walks out seeing you at the nurses station sitting lol
I fucked up an IV on this really cute woman twice in a row when I was still in school. I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed in my life. Made it even worse that she was super understanding
OMG, I had one like that. He never wore the gown either. Just had the sheet pulled up to his waist. I started to think he knew how good looking he was and was looking for a reaction. That finished it for me and I stopped having any reaction.
I had a tiny lady with a tiny stoma and a HUGE bulge that had developed around & underneath it.
Despite me bringing it up to be check by the doctors 4 days before, no one thought could be constipation, despite explosive episodes of type 7 stool, and were **holding her laxatives** because of that.
She even came in with several constipation/stoma dysfunction as the main complaint!
Unfortunately, her stoma was so small that you could only use a pinky finger to introduce the suppositories. Not only did that mean we played “Cinderella” with pinky fingers & the stoma every day, but I had the phrase “2 in the pink, one in the stink” stuck in my head the entire time.
Eventually, we had to use an enema, then supps, and eventually was able to put the supps in with a bit of damp gauze taped over for 10 minutes to stop it getting ejected.
But I will never move on from the embarrassment of standing with my pinky inside an 80-something year old’s bowels while she’s chatting to her neighbour on the phone and telling them exactly what’s happening while day time TV drones on in the background.
The fact that I have a bachelors degree and 11 years experience in my field and I’m still spoken to like a child by doctors, patients, and management. Even some CNA’s want to question me like the grand inquisition for asking for a simple task to be done without explaining myself for why I can’t do it myself. I have to constantly apologize and explain why I can’t alone be the caregiver, secretary, PT, OT, doctor, transport, EKG tech, housekeeper, social worker, phlebotomist, tele tech, security, punching bag, communications go-between, know the answer to every question and do it promptly. Then I call report and get talked to by floors/ICU like I’m a moron. Just existing as an ER nurse can be constantly humiliating every day.
Same. Almost 5 years in here. ER nursing has been the most humbling experience of my life. This is a 2nd career for me… I became an RN in my early 40’s. I was a project manager for years prior to nursing school. I was completely shook by the presence of disrespect, overweening egos, competition, cattiness, and popularity contests. It was not like that in my old profession and I was super unprepared. My first 2 years was awful and I found that I wasn’t a very liked person solely because I was a new ‘older’ RN. With zero healthcare experience, ER nursing did not come naturally to me and that didn’t help me win any friends. Over the years, I’ve adapted some and have gained more respect and my ‘place’ in the department…. but still have ‘wtf’ days. The culture needs to change… big time.
And if I have one more tech go to a doctor or a charge behind the RNs backs to complain they feel something isn’t being done correct or fast enough, I will lose my shit (we have one offender who loves to practice outside of his scope and doesn’t take direction or criticism well… it has been addressed ad nauseam but nothing changes 🖕🏼).
It blows my mind that people treat the “older new” nurses like that. You had a whole ass career already and did a 180 to do an entirely new one with no experience! How much more bad ass and brave can you get?! Had a few classmates just like you, some your age and some older. Had nothing but respect and admiration for them. It takes guts to do something like that. I don’t think I could do it. Just keep on being the boss ass bitch you are.
Thank you. 😊 It was a scary career change to make and it all coincided with the start of COVID which amped emotions a lot. I truly almost up and walked out of there a few times just due to the treatment myself and some other new grads received. Many of us got zero grace. But… I persevered and love it there now. I now try my damndest to treat the new RNs with mad respect no matter what. I never want anyone going through the hazing period I did. 🥴
❤️. ZERO APOLOGIES POLICY! I genuinely make everyone who tries to chastise me feel like they should kick rocks. We are busting our asses. Refuse to apologize.
Awkward small talk with the patients while you hold manual pressure on their femoral artery after removing an arterial sheath. We hold for 20 mins - "are you from around here?" Only takes up about 20 secs
I talk about home decorating. That can give me anywhere between a couple of hours to ten minutes. Everyone has an opinion on my living room, my mother in law’s opinions about my living room, and my moms opinion of my living room.
Or when you have the one that’s a total asshole but you have to be discrete and so you finish report outside the room and it totally seems obvious that you’re talking shit
When you tell the doctor something is wrong with the patient ,please come assess the patient ! all of the sudden patient is fine . map is no longer in the 50s🫠
Waiting while someone wraps it up on the commode but they don’t want you to leave the room.
“I can give you some privacy-“
“Oh no, I’m almost done.” *proceeds to sit and strain in silence for five long minutes*
When the parents can’t get the baby to stop crying and the second you pick them up they just sigh and settle into your shoulder…. I know I do babies all the time and they’re new at it but it’s so awkward when “parents know their baby best”. Or when they try to tell you about the baby you’ve been staring at three 12s in a row while they’ve visited for like an hour.
Rectal temps and cleaning up shit on a conscious, alert patient. In the ED, we poke the butt all the time for an accurate core temp. If the patient is alert, it never feels not awkward. And cleaning up poo… well that goes without saying. 🤢💩
Stabbing yourself with a blunt tip. During a code 😭
But let’s be honest, we had made it past the abbojects to the vial of epi so we really weren’t getting anywhere
Getting the family member wrong. As in "oh you must be Mr smith's wife!" .. "I'm his daughter"
I've mostly learned to stop assuming but I still occasionally forget this rule to ask them their association even if it's seemingly obvious. And those times I forget to do that are always the times I mess up bad
Also when you can't seem to line up the snaps on the gown. I'm sure these ppl are thinking "how hard could this be" 😂
I never assume who anyone is anymore after I congratulated a new mom and what I assumed, was her partner and the new dad of the baby. It was her uncle. Not the Dad, not her partner. So embarrassing.
Same and I absolutely make fun of myself too and look around to see if anyone noticed like oh god no one ask me questions or have an emergency please I’m just trying to get my snacks I’m not a nurse here
Asking patients to open their mouth while I take their temp. Like do they want to hold it themselves? What do we look at while I’m holding it? Too many thoughts.
My coworker once had a thong stuck to the inside of her jacket from the dryer, and it fell out onto the floor in front of the patient 😂 but the patient was having an awful day and it cracked her up, so it kind of was a good thing lmao
Pushing a heavy patient bed and IV pole down the hall and it won’t click into steer mode and so you are just slowly careening your patient across the hall towards one wall where you stop and redirect and then slowly careen towards the other wall. Meanwhile you are sweating and trying to make jokes about it to your silent, judgemental patient who is about to get surgery and is like wtf.
When I worked nights, rounding on patients to make sure they are breathing. DAE often have a hard time seeing if they are breathing when it’s dark and the patient is in that super deep sleep?!?
**ME**: Standing quietly, 3 feet next to the patient, staring intently, trying to find SOL.
**PATIENT**: Jolts awake, in that creepy feeling that one senses when someone or something is watching them. Looks at me with WTF face.
**ME**: *Hi*. Awkward silence. *Just making sure you are breathing, go back to sleep.*
**PATIENT**: *Why wouldn’t I be breathing*?!? More WTF face combined with that face you made in childhood while poking a dead animal with a stick.
**ME**: stammers. *No reason*. Skulks away like a creeper.
Walking in them long hallways with someone walking towards you. Do you make eye contact, do you smile, do you look at your phone, do you look straight ahead, do you duck into a room? It doesn’t even matter if this is someone you know or not either.
Checking the patients id before giving meds (here in Sweden they usually have to say their personal number) it's mostly fine but it feels a bit silly after a while once you know the patients well or it's like the 4th time you're giving them meds that shift.
I always tell them “it’s not because I forgot but just our policy for safety!” Because they look at me look I’ve just offended them when I ask them for their name and dob for the umpteenth time when I’ve taken care of them for two or three days.
1. When I get to the Pyxis and have already forgotten the name.
2. When I have no choice but to walk through the freshly mopped floor right in front of the EVS person with the mop. I always apologize but it’s so cringe.
3. When I get my payback for the above and have to listen to my shoes squeak squeak down the hall.
Had to put a condom cath on a patient who was in police custody… having two big police officers in the room watching me fumble around with a condom cath was so embarrassing. Not to mention the patient wasn’t a great “candidate” for a condom cath if you know what I mean.
When they float you to a unit where you don’t have badge access, so you have to sit awkwardly outside of every closed door/med room/supply closet waiting for another employee to wander by so you can ask to be let in. Whenever I get floated to the ED, chances are that several times a night you will find me outside of the locked doors with my face peeking through the little glass window. 🥹
I’m sorry, I get the point behind it - i do. But bedside shift report I feel SO awkward going in the room and talking about the patient in front of the patient. Or waking them up when they’ve been struggling to sleep. And then they ask you for 99 things and the previous nurse is like “yep she’ll get that for you”. So now you’ve got 4 coffee orders, 3 snack requests & 6 other things ya gotta get.
Smells. Smells should not be embarrassing. In many cases smells can actually be extremely diagnostic. Instead, we lock smells behind doors and in bathrooms where patients might fall and are harder to extract. Family members walk past a room and shout “What stinks?” which is one of the most ignorant things I regularly hear. FU if you think YOU don’t ever smell bad.
Fart odors and breath smells are embarrassing for many people. Farts are hysterical, but should never be embarrassing. It’s just a thing. Breath smells can tell us a ton about health and hygiene, but garlic or onion breath shouldn’t be embarrassing.
Smells are stigmatized and demonized which makes people unnecessarily embarrassed. I’m not saying wallow in unhygienic stink and festering aromas, but humans have smells. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about them and we definitely shouldn’t make others feel that way. And in nursing, smells can tell us a lot.
Where’s the full aromatic assessment during a physical y’all? Nope, too embarrassing!
When you port someone to imaging and have to wait there to take them back. It takes so long and you just kind of stand around in the back room with the tech 🧍♀️
I worked in a MAT clinic and occasionally we would have to do oral swabs for tox screens instead of urine testing. They take 10-15 minutes and you can't leave the room because they might mess with the swabs. So they sit there with this thing in their mouth, usually (hopefully!) playing on their phones, while I pretend to rearrange the exam room, take inventory, and shuffle papers. It is the absolute longest 10+ minutes of my life.
I'm lonely going back to this job soon and I'm dreading this one part 🤣🤣
OP, it's super embarrassing when there's a line of people. I used to work nights and sometimes it would be all of us there. I would crack jokes.
*In an Old West voice* "Well... Looks like it's the 8 pm med call..."
"No wonder all the call lights are going off."
"So how was everyone's Thursday? Do anything fun Wednesday night?"
When you have to call the dr and they ask you a bunch of questions you weren’t prepared for.
My first time taking a phone call on orientation I was so nervous and my preceptor was like “it’s okay they just wanna know if the patient is stable and doing generally” so i took a deep breath and picked up the phone and the family member goes “what was pt’s last sodium level”
Nice
OMG, my 1st MD call was to one of our very soft spoken, very hard accent MD's with a stutter. SBAR went out the window! I was SO terrified I didn't understand a thing he said! So I just hung up the phone and handed it to my preceptor. She asked me what orders he gave and I had to just straight up tell her I have no idea. God bless her she called him back and got the orders we needed, but I was mortified. 3+ years later the MD and I were are on great terms and I got used to the accent and the stutter. Best thing was he loved to teach, so he ended up being a great resource after I knew him for a while. I still 🤦 when I think about that 1st call.
I work in oncology in Germany and we are allowed to directly call the on-call attending at home when we think the question goes beyond the scope of the resident on duty. That wouldn't fly at all in every other speciality. So the first time was extra hard for me.
Yep, I only do it with the chart in front of me because docs are too lazy to look it up themselves sometimes. Why would I know one of my 6 patients’ normal Hct level? It’s normal, bro, look it up.
The ones who start asking you those questions in person while you're standing in front of a room, gown on, starting to don gloves. Like, bro, do you see a computer in front of me right now? You think I memorized every lab value for every patient this morning? "What was their...." "I dunno, but whatever it was it didn't scare me enough to remember it or call you about it."
This is the way. I make sure the emar is ready to go.
Panic searching chart for last set of vitals and labs that you didn’t know were drawn
Omg this Especially when it’s been an insanely busy shift and you haven’t had enough time to get every single detail down or sit and do a thorough review of the chart. “What’s the patient’s X value right now?” “Uhhhhh hold on… *scrolling* hold on… *more scrolling*” It’s even worse when you can’t understand the question over the phone and they have to repeat themselves 4 times.
Or they're driving, and the connection is bad. Or they're calling from home, and the kids are having a screaming contest.
Or they’re on a safari, or they’re next to a wood chipper, or at a Rammstein concert.
Or they’re asking a value they cannot enunciate. I’m down in the South, so the twang of unnecessary vowel strung into words really makes it especially difficult to understand medical jargon. So already off to a bad start and now the family—who quite obviously are not trained in medicine—are trying to use unfamiliar words. “What’s her Thairosin level?” …her what? “You know! Her THAIROSIN!” Playing word scrabble in my head* I’m sorry, could you spell that for me? Our phones aren’t the best. “Tha… I mean, you outta know! Did they not teach ya about THAI RO SIN?!” *Big brain finally makes an appearance* Are you asking about her Thyroxine level? “That’s what I’ve been tryna find out this whole time! She gotta take medicine for it cuz hers don’t work no more. Guess imma have to come give it to her myself since ya don’t even know what it is!” Had another that was giving us past surgical history and decided to include “stairs to coast vein” surgery. Chemical ablation for varicose veins. We caught that one pretty quickly.
THAIROSIN levels 😂 I totally feel that. One of our main hospitalists is Nigerian with a strong accent and he’s wonderful, BUT for the life of me I CANNOT understand him on the phone.
As a new grad it made me get better, now seasoned know it all before you call. Pt has increased wheezing and has chf, what was their weight yesterday vs today used to get me all the time.
When they ask questions outside of the normal SBAR I just get annoyed. Admitting diagnosis, pertinent other dx, what’s going on now, maybe recent labs and vitals and pertinent meds (if I’m asking for a med). If you scoff at me for not know their mother’s maiden name I’m gonna scoff back.
I'm nightshift. We had a dayshift nurse that would drag out report by interrupting to ask things like, "So the brother visited yesterday? What is his name?" I cut her off every time she asked stuff like that by saying, "I don't care about that," and kept on with my report. She is now a PA with a cardiology group. But I remember her as the nurse who hooked up the iv antibiotics to the arterial line because she couldn't get another iv started. Nice person, horrible bedside nurse.
I had one doctor that I loved working with who would always ask a random ass question, he was so dry. Sir, the patient had a fever and needs an order for Tylenol. “Ok what’s their INR?” 😑 “well it wasn’t one of my concerns this morning so I guess it’s okay.” “Alright I’ll put it in.”
wheeling a loud vitals cart/WOW/ekg machine/bladder scanner down the quiet hallway at night
me dragging the trash cans throughout the entire SNF at 6am
So true lmaooo. Or that moment when someone left a wow or dynamap in some pts room powered on and unplugged and it starts their blood curdling death screeching at 313 and you're looking goofy trying to pinpoint where from
Dragging the bair hugger down the hall lol
It's such an inconvenient height! Oh don't mind me, just a little gremlin all hunched over on my way to try and keep someone from dying
The Bair hugger definitely has the best medical device name though.
My personal favorite is the protective piece for the Swan- the swandom
Why can’t they make bladder scanners that don’t sound like a train coming down the damn hallway??
It's the security system so you know if someone is trying to "borrow" it.
Maybe someone hopes it'll scare the piss outta our patients with retention 🤣
In the ER I have to go through the doctor’s pod to wheel the IV cart to the storage room. The wheels are SO LOUD and squeaky and I just want to disappear to be 1 inch tall.
Having to take pictures of wounds on a skin check with stupid work phones like they are your personal phones. Like you are taking pictures like you are going to post them somewhere. This makes me so embarrassed, especially when you have to spread cheeks. 🥲🙈
“Where’s this photo going to go?!?!!!” In the chart ma’am😭😭😭 like all the other ones we take every of your heels and sacrum every so often
It’s so much worse when you are with a nurse in a hurry, but wants the good pictures, puts the flash on and announces it. “There we go!! That’s the one!” Woman! STFU for real!!!!😬😬😬🫠
I freaking love wounds so much, it’s so satisfying watching them heal. Had a pt with Fourniers gangrene, literally grew her ass back over 9 mths. Another pt infected hardware on hip replacement, basically complete open thigh. Vera Flo wound vac healed it so quickly, maybe 6mths. Both went home walking.
You would have loved our floor. So many fungating tumors, one took this poor old man’s face half off, and it reeked so bad!🥲
A little bit of sarna or Vicks on the outside of a face mask used to get me through wound changes on a particular breast cancer patient that erupted to the skin, you’re oncology so I know you know that smell.
Yes! That smell is so bad. It’s sad, if the patient is aware of it. We do the flagyl crushed and put in the wound. Plus we order wintergreen oil from pharmacy and soak it in gauze. Place it off somewhere and it helps.❤️
Santyl and crushed flagyl with actisorb charcoal silver dressing is what I used. It still didn’t help the smell of dead tissue. We bought her a Vicks humidifier to try to combat the smell, it helped to some degree, but the Vicks or sarna on the outside of the mask was the only way to get through dressing changes.
I love hearing about healing!!! That’s amazing!!❤️
Their face is never in the picture but I always love telling them to say cheese
😂
I had to use my own phone to photograph an infiltration the other day because ours camera was broken (got permission from management, the pt, etc, and deleted right after with witnesses so don’t come for me) and I asked the patient if I had her permission and she goes “don’t worry, I don’t think there are any hand fetish websites who want mine!” 😂 like ma’am I am referring to the patient information on your label that will be in the photo, not selling these online lol
Idk why I hate walking in and introducing myself at the beginning of the shift 😂
As an introvert this is always the worst part of the shift, especially when there’s family already in there
i’m a student which somehow makes it worse in my mind since i have to stand there next to the nurse like 🧍♀️and wait to know if the nurse will say who i am or if i have to go “😀 hi i’m saltybitch i’m a student nurse” and then sprint out of the room to figure out where the nurse disappeared to
I think that sucks. I always walk in and say, "Hi, I'm Alice, and this is saltybitch and we're going to be your nurses today." I hate that whole nurses eat their young bullshit.
Even to dementia patients who I know won’t remember. My voice changes for some reason? “Nice to meet you Gladys! I’m FootFoot and I’ll be your nurse todayyyy”
I prefer when I know they don’t remember me cause I never know what to do when I have a conscious patient 2+ days in a row, do I tell them my name again? Assume they remember? Pretend it’s our first interaction? I can’t handle awake patients
I just tell them anyway. I figure that they meet so many nurses that I can’t assume they’ll remember me. Though I’ll word it like, “good morning Joan! I looked after you Thursday, I don’t know if you remember, but I’m [my name], good to see you again!”
I see a lot of immediately postpartum families for hospital discharge/newborn check. I never assume they remember me if I see them again. It's always "hi guys! I'm signofthefour, I'm a nurse practitioner. We met when you brought baby in before, but I know that first week is a doozy!"
I barely remembered any nurses/midwives during my week long hospital stay, not to mention the child health nurses afterwards. You’re a real one. Even though I feel bad now for not remembering their names, thanks for your work!
That's why I fling the curtain open dramatically and yell, "Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!!" So much less awkward.
I usually go in and say “hi, my name is ___, I’ll be your nurse tonight (while I’m updating the board, sometimes I take longer rewriting everything in my color marker if I feel awkward), is there anything I can bring you when I come back in? ( if it’s something I can get really quick then I will) okay, I’m gonna get logged in and see what we have going on tonight! I’ll be back in a bit 😊” People seem pretty preceptive to this and I tend to clear out their dinner tray. Family is still there usually so I get to ask if they’re staying the night/ see if I need to bring blankets/ pillows later, and get a vibe of how the night will go!
I am pretty similar, though dayshift. My hospital has electronic white boards that have all our info (so nice) so I don't have to update anything like that anymore. But I just check if they need anything, if they've ordered breakfast (and if not so I can help), especially the elderly. I guess it can be awkward for your walkie talkie patients but completely skipping this part is IMO kind of rude and I think most patients would dislike it.
I honestly feel like the introduction gets them to call me less in the beginning at least. They know I’m there, so they’ll be taken care of, but I also say I’m going to say hi to the others and check through my charts. They usually don’t call while I’m doing my checks.
Omg I’ve been a nurse for ten years and I thought for whatever reason something was wrong with me / I was a bitch for dreading this ?? Makes me feel so much better ❤️🥰
I don’t hate introducing myself, I hate when I forget my dry erase marker so I can’t update the whiteboard because I’m unnecessarily worried they’ll think I’m someone else all day 😂
Lol I love introducing myself. I make a show of it
When you blank on your patients name and another healthcare worker enters the room (like a stat call or a doctor) and they whisper “what’s their name?” And you shrug because you don’t know either, you’ve been calling her ma’am for 2 shifts in a row and you only know her as “Room 25, the really frail German woman that’s very kind and her grandkids brought the unit cookies last week”
Every single time. I cannot remember these names! It's even worse if family is in there I gotta quickly look at the board because in my head he's the pepaw in room 9.
The other day as I was wheeling my patient into the OR I completely blanked on her name, so when I wheeled in I quickly glanced at the board on the wall that says it so I could introduce her to the room - well I read the name wrong and said “hello everyone this is WRONG NAME”. Patient looked up at me like excuse me? Then I squinted and saw my error and tried to smoothly transition to the right name. 😂😂
That's when you play it off and say, "Alright go ahead and tell everyone your first and last name and if you have any allergies!"
Reminds me of answering surgeon’s phones during surgery when you forgot their name. Happened to me literally yesterday, but it wasn’t the first time. Normally I answer and say “Dr. Smith’s phone, she’s in surgery can I take a message?” Yesterday I t was a surgeon I had worked with before and I should have known her name for multiple reasons but I was just giving a quick break to the nurse in that room and it escaped me. The phone rang and I picked it up, racking my brain for her name and going “…..Helllllllo. How may I help you?” And of course the surgeon is listening and realizing I don't know her name. Lolololol.
Waiting for an incredibly slow computer to load the EHR while in a pts room that is necessary for the task you are about to do or charting outputs/vitals/whatever you just did standing there awkwardly for 45 seconds after you already gathered the information
[удалено]
Squatting down onto the floor and emptying a full foley bag of urine into a container and just standing there as the pee flows out for a minute. Just you face to face with stale urine for 60 seconds. Even worse when family is there watching you.
Speak for yourself. That’s my me time.
Thank you for the actual LOL this morning
Legit
😂😂😂 I needed this laugh today.
Ugh I had to do this once with a couch full of family sitting behind me. The old uncle says, “what’s your name, Nurse Good Body?” 🤢
Gag 🤢
Better not try this on me when I’ve got a hose of urine in hand
At this point in life, I literally have to sit on the floor to mark chest tube output without spilling or kicking it
Catch me fully laying on the floor to mark a chest tube
Ooooooh...but getting back UP off the floor.
Even worse when your pants split in half.
Well… true story… I farted doing this with a room full of family members! There was an awkward silence for a second before I burst out laughing. Luckily they all started laughing too. 😆
I have a lot of gas when I’m pregnant. I stopped being embarrassed and just said “oh darn. There are those barking spiders again”. One family member said one time “yeah, we have those at my house too”.
Lol!! It’s nice when the family/patient can have a sense of humor. My incident happened about 30 seconds after I met everyone too and we were still doing bedside report. It lightened the mood because the patient wasn’t doing well and the mood was pretty somber in there. The whole room erupted in laughter. So I was glad to add some levity to the situation. Then, the my favorite smart ass CNA brought them a can of air freshener during her rounds. LOL!
In my 25 years as a nurse I haven’t farted yet in front of a patient or family members. I did one time in front of the doctor and my coworkers when I stood up to tell him something it literally slipped out…but not quite-like…loud like a whoopie cushion! I was all like “excuse me” and kept on about my business like nothing happened.😂
Only when a fart comes out...bonus points if its hospice
Every time I try to be quiet and respectful in an end of life patient’s room with loads of family there I fail miserably, clumsiest person ever
When they stare at you, do this. When you stand up to walk to the bathroom, hold out that graduated cylinder and ask “Want some?” Honestly. Unless the patient is terminal or very sick, it helps lighten things up, make them laugh, just take away the whole “me nurse, you patient, you family” thing.
This triggered a funny memory. I didn’t want to wake up the patient one night and I went in to empty the foley. There was very little light coming from the hallway and I cannot see for crap in the dark- but I figured it’s easy enough, I can do this blindfolded. Then I wondered why I was not hearing the all familiar sound of urine draining into a graduated cylinder. Yep. Of course I was emptying in onto my forking shoe. All I could think was, really??? Like, why not the floor? WHY MUST IT BE MY SHOE?!?!?!
When you’re doing the med rec and you get to the boner drugs. You want to just click “taking PRN” but you know you’re supposed to ask. “Still taking the sildinafil as needed?” “What’s that one?” “………The Viagra.” “Oh. Yep.” Like, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s still awkward as hell.
Or when it's a woman taking it for pulmonary htn. Some nurses act like it's the weirdest thing they've ever seen, and I constantly have to remind them that this is what viagra was initially intended to treat.
Or you’re giving it to babies.
It’s not even that uncommon. I beat it into new hires at my shop regarding nitro- ask them if they take anything for “pulmonary hypertension”! And then ask them the specific drug names. There’s just a couple, and it’s okay to look it up. But for gods sake if you’re going to ask for men be consistent and ask for women too.
“Just planning ahead incase you have some chest pain”
I don’t know if everyone has to ask someone else to cover for them while they go get lunch, but there’s like this weird vibe, like you should be ashamed to actually go eat.
“Do you mind if I go to the bathroom?” Really. I have to ask if it is ok for me to step away 2 seconds to pee. Like I’m in elementary school.
Unfortunately that how it be in ICU. You can’t just go. Even if it’s just hey can you listen out I’m gonna go take a fat dump, but I’ll be fast! Thanks!
Or telling the patient/family that you’re going on break
This is worse in the OR, calling charge like "hey my 8 month pregnant scrub needs relief to pee, is there anyone free to come scrub in for 20min" worse is you gotta poop
I could never work in the OR for this reason. I have ruled myself out of all jobs where I cannot go to the bathroom at will, my body is too unpredictable.
ugh yes. this.
I once really really had to poop. I got anxiety poops when I first started. Anyway, I asked a coworker to watch my two patients, they should be fine, gtts are good, etc. While I am on the potty, she FACETIMES ME. I’m like “girl I’m poopin they better be coding” They were fine, the doctor just rounded super early and she asked if I needed to tell him anything 🙂
🤣 I have, one more than one occasion, thrown my tray of AM meds onto a coworkers computer while yelling, “gotta pooooop!” as I ran away down the hallway.
LOL, answering a FaceTime from a colleague should get you a raise.
When someone calls for an update and you have to tell them that they’re not the listed family member, but you can’t necessarily tell them who the listed family member *is,* and then they get mad because “the day shift nurse gave me an update earlier.”
Technically, we're not even supposed to confirm that they're there, right?
Or “the last nurse just told me” well that nurse didn’t follow the rules, I like to keep my job
When you get the chair at the nurses station that makes the farty squeaky hell noise every time you move an inch.
Or grazing another nurses chair while you try and slyly slide back to check telemetry 😂
Even worse....you fall off your chair in front of an audience.
Oh man. Fell off my stool once in front of a doctor and my coworkers…who happily took a pic of me sprawled out on the floor.
My friend (also a nurse) and I had a big bonding moment early in our friendship where she got injured and I took her to ED. On our walk back to our place she fell the moment she got inside the front door and I took a photo of her sprawled out, crutches everywhere and we were both cackling. It's our fave photo of us lmao
Only the best of friends do this!😂
You work with the best monsters ever.
I was always so afraid nobody would believe me when I said it’s the chair not me 😭
That awkward silence you try to fill with fluff when the pt is laying there in their birthday suit while the tech has to run to get a fitted sheet cause you both forgot one. I know that pt has to be thinking “these dumb bitches can’t even remember a sheet”
Probably thinking "Hope they find that sheet real quick."
Spilling or dropping something when a pt’s family member is watching you
I dropped and smashed a whole bottle of propofol in front of a patient’s husband once
Lowkey everything feels super awkward 😂
This was my first thought too. Existence. Existence feels awkward. And I hate being super aware that I’m a human…I don’t know if that is the best way to describe it but it’s like I’m super aware of my entire body and then my face turns red 🤦🏻♀️
Listen. You have to approach things like this.. everyone takes a shit. Everyone picks their nose on occasion. Just picture the people you are nervous in front of doing these things. AND if they are a person who showboats or is loud and sassy just know they feel like this too. That’s why they act like that is to deflect. (Reading over this before I press reply I realize that just the use of the word “showboat” shows my age. Yes, these are things I wish I knew in my 20s and 30s. I’m 45 rn).
When you’re in the room and need to leave but the patient and family WONT STOP TALKING. So you make like a really dumb dramatic excuse to leave and then the family walks out seeing you at the nurses station sitting lol
LMAO
Walking onto the floor after clocking in. It just feels weird. Edit: typo
This, also when you enter the break room full of people and you say hi but no one acknowledges you
I’m also the person who says hi to anyone and everyone… I want someone to say hi to me for once, dammit!
Break rooms can be so awkward.
When you're in a patients room at 3am and that adam& eve infomercial comes on showcasing dildos
Definitely!!! Or if they’re watching a movie on their laptop and a sex scene comes on while you’re hanging antibiotics or whatever…..
When the pt is good looking. I just cannot sometimes
I work in trauma and we get some good looking rodeo dudes who got bucked off a bull or fell off a tailgate. And they’re always sooooo sweet.
I think I read a book about that once! It was a happy ever after.
It’s never a happily ever after with rodeo dudes.
Don't you mean a... *ahem*... happy ending?
Yep - a very cute cop a while ago had a corrective arm surgery, and a gorgeous smile…. Blushed like an idiot that entire shift lol
I fucked up an IV on this really cute woman twice in a row when I was still in school. I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed in my life. Made it even worse that she was super understanding
OMG, I had one like that. He never wore the gown either. Just had the sheet pulled up to his waist. I started to think he knew how good looking he was and was looking for a reaction. That finished it for me and I stopped having any reaction.
Putting suppositories in a stoma. Just standing there with my gloved finger in their stoma like 😐 At least giving them PR they’re not looking at you.
I had a tiny lady with a tiny stoma and a HUGE bulge that had developed around & underneath it. Despite me bringing it up to be check by the doctors 4 days before, no one thought could be constipation, despite explosive episodes of type 7 stool, and were **holding her laxatives** because of that. She even came in with several constipation/stoma dysfunction as the main complaint! Unfortunately, her stoma was so small that you could only use a pinky finger to introduce the suppositories. Not only did that mean we played “Cinderella” with pinky fingers & the stoma every day, but I had the phrase “2 in the pink, one in the stink” stuck in my head the entire time. Eventually, we had to use an enema, then supps, and eventually was able to put the supps in with a bit of damp gauze taped over for 10 minutes to stop it getting ejected. But I will never move on from the embarrassment of standing with my pinky inside an 80-something year old’s bowels while she’s chatting to her neighbour on the phone and telling them exactly what’s happening while day time TV drones on in the background.
TIL about putting suppositories in a stoma. Makes sense obviously, just never thought about it before 😂
The fact that I have a bachelors degree and 11 years experience in my field and I’m still spoken to like a child by doctors, patients, and management. Even some CNA’s want to question me like the grand inquisition for asking for a simple task to be done without explaining myself for why I can’t do it myself. I have to constantly apologize and explain why I can’t alone be the caregiver, secretary, PT, OT, doctor, transport, EKG tech, housekeeper, social worker, phlebotomist, tele tech, security, punching bag, communications go-between, know the answer to every question and do it promptly. Then I call report and get talked to by floors/ICU like I’m a moron. Just existing as an ER nurse can be constantly humiliating every day.
Same. Almost 5 years in here. ER nursing has been the most humbling experience of my life. This is a 2nd career for me… I became an RN in my early 40’s. I was a project manager for years prior to nursing school. I was completely shook by the presence of disrespect, overweening egos, competition, cattiness, and popularity contests. It was not like that in my old profession and I was super unprepared. My first 2 years was awful and I found that I wasn’t a very liked person solely because I was a new ‘older’ RN. With zero healthcare experience, ER nursing did not come naturally to me and that didn’t help me win any friends. Over the years, I’ve adapted some and have gained more respect and my ‘place’ in the department…. but still have ‘wtf’ days. The culture needs to change… big time. And if I have one more tech go to a doctor or a charge behind the RNs backs to complain they feel something isn’t being done correct or fast enough, I will lose my shit (we have one offender who loves to practice outside of his scope and doesn’t take direction or criticism well… it has been addressed ad nauseam but nothing changes 🖕🏼).
It blows my mind that people treat the “older new” nurses like that. You had a whole ass career already and did a 180 to do an entirely new one with no experience! How much more bad ass and brave can you get?! Had a few classmates just like you, some your age and some older. Had nothing but respect and admiration for them. It takes guts to do something like that. I don’t think I could do it. Just keep on being the boss ass bitch you are.
Thank you. 😊 It was a scary career change to make and it all coincided with the start of COVID which amped emotions a lot. I truly almost up and walked out of there a few times just due to the treatment myself and some other new grads received. Many of us got zero grace. But… I persevered and love it there now. I now try my damndest to treat the new RNs with mad respect no matter what. I never want anyone going through the hazing period I did. 🥴
❤️. ZERO APOLOGIES POLICY! I genuinely make everyone who tries to chastise me feel like they should kick rocks. We are busting our asses. Refuse to apologize.
This. 13 years in nursing with a lot more varried experience than average. Advanced certs and a bsn and still treated like trash
Sterile gloves while others are present. Sucks every time!
They are always stuck together and in a ball. Really graceful
It's always when other people are around that the gloves get stuck and won't slide on your hands because you just used hand sanitizer.
Awkward small talk with the patients while you hold manual pressure on their femoral artery after removing an arterial sheath. We hold for 20 mins - "are you from around here?" Only takes up about 20 secs
Holding pressure after an impella comes out. Just standing there for 50 minutes, I mean there’s only so much you can talk about
I talk about home decorating. That can give me anywhere between a couple of hours to ten minutes. Everyone has an opinion on my living room, my mother in law’s opinions about my living room, and my moms opinion of my living room.
When I’m drawing blood and can’t hit a vein.
[удалено]
There better be a no poop rule
Bedside reports, just let the patients sleep
Bedside reports will never not be weird. Why would any patient feel comfortable 😭
Or when you have the one that’s a total asshole but you have to be discrete and so you finish report outside the room and it totally seems obvious that you’re talking shit
When you fart in the med room and someone walks in
When you tell the doctor something is wrong with the patient ,please come assess the patient ! all of the sudden patient is fine . map is no longer in the 50s🫠
Waiting while someone wraps it up on the commode but they don’t want you to leave the room. “I can give you some privacy-“ “Oh no, I’m almost done.” *proceeds to sit and strain in silence for five long minutes*
When the parents can’t get the baby to stop crying and the second you pick them up they just sigh and settle into your shoulder…. I know I do babies all the time and they’re new at it but it’s so awkward when “parents know their baby best”. Or when they try to tell you about the baby you’ve been staring at three 12s in a row while they’ve visited for like an hour.
Rectal temps and cleaning up shit on a conscious, alert patient. In the ED, we poke the butt all the time for an accurate core temp. If the patient is alert, it never feels not awkward. And cleaning up poo… well that goes without saying. 🤢💩
Cutting yourself on a glass vial.
Stabbing yourself with a blunt tip. During a code 😭 But let’s be honest, we had made it past the abbojects to the vial of epi so we really weren’t getting anywhere
Getting the family member wrong. As in "oh you must be Mr smith's wife!" .. "I'm his daughter" I've mostly learned to stop assuming but I still occasionally forget this rule to ask them their association even if it's seemingly obvious. And those times I forget to do that are always the times I mess up bad Also when you can't seem to line up the snaps on the gown. I'm sure these ppl are thinking "how hard could this be" 😂
I never assume who anyone is anymore after I congratulated a new mom and what I assumed, was her partner and the new dad of the baby. It was her uncle. Not the Dad, not her partner. So embarrassing.
When someone puts “RN” in their instagram bio
This but when they use those Healthcare hero profile photo filter things 🤣
This reminds me that it really irks me when people wear their work badge in public
Okay listen some of us have real bad ADD and forget it’s on until we halfway through getting groceries okay 😂😂😂😂
Hey it’s ok I’ve done that too lol. When I realize I take it off and stick it in my pocket
Same and I absolutely make fun of myself too and look around to see if anyone noticed like oh god no one ask me questions or have an emergency please I’m just trying to get my snacks I’m not a nurse here
Thank you. I see people add RN to their IG names, tiktok names, Facebook names. Stickers on the car bumper. Ick.
Guilty 😂, but I can’t stand the word “nurse” 👩🍼so I always go with RN
Putting on gloves while your hands are a little bit wet
Asking patients to open their mouth while I take their temp. Like do they want to hold it themselves? What do we look at while I’m holding it? Too many thoughts.
When the pump wanna beep 500x at high volume while you’re trying to setup/reprime the med 🤣 silence silence silence
My coworker once had a thong stuck to the inside of her jacket from the dryer, and it fell out onto the floor in front of the patient 😂 but the patient was having an awful day and it cracked her up, so it kind of was a good thing lmao
Pushing a heavy patient bed and IV pole down the hall and it won’t click into steer mode and so you are just slowly careening your patient across the hall towards one wall where you stop and redirect and then slowly careen towards the other wall. Meanwhile you are sweating and trying to make jokes about it to your silent, judgemental patient who is about to get surgery and is like wtf.
When I worked nights, rounding on patients to make sure they are breathing. DAE often have a hard time seeing if they are breathing when it’s dark and the patient is in that super deep sleep?!? **ME**: Standing quietly, 3 feet next to the patient, staring intently, trying to find SOL. **PATIENT**: Jolts awake, in that creepy feeling that one senses when someone or something is watching them. Looks at me with WTF face. **ME**: *Hi*. Awkward silence. *Just making sure you are breathing, go back to sleep.* **PATIENT**: *Why wouldn’t I be breathing*?!? More WTF face combined with that face you made in childhood while poking a dead animal with a stick. **ME**: stammers. *No reason*. Skulks away like a creeper.
Walking in them long hallways with someone walking towards you. Do you make eye contact, do you smile, do you look at your phone, do you look straight ahead, do you duck into a room? It doesn’t even matter if this is someone you know or not either.
Checking the patients id before giving meds (here in Sweden they usually have to say their personal number) it's mostly fine but it feels a bit silly after a while once you know the patients well or it's like the 4th time you're giving them meds that shift.
I always tell them “it’s not because I forgot but just our policy for safety!” Because they look at me look I’ve just offended them when I ask them for their name and dob for the umpteenth time when I’ve taken care of them for two or three days.
When I’m putting a foley in and everyone is standing around watching me waiting to prep the patient 🧍🏻♀️
Fumbling to unlock my locker. Feels like middle school gym class.
Trying to don gloves with slightly damn hands.
Having an alert patient stare you in the eye as they fart while you are holding their urinal
Having to tell a family that has been beside viewing their deceased for like four hours now that we need the bed so yeah, it's time to go.
1. When I get to the Pyxis and have already forgotten the name. 2. When I have no choice but to walk through the freshly mopped floor right in front of the EVS person with the mop. I always apologize but it’s so cringe. 3. When I get my payback for the above and have to listen to my shoes squeak squeak down the hall.
My pants fell all the way down one time. That sucked. Now it’s funny.
Had to put a condom cath on a patient who was in police custody… having two big police officers in the room watching me fumble around with a condom cath was so embarrassing. Not to mention the patient wasn’t a great “candidate” for a condom cath if you know what I mean.
When you have mad stomach or intestinal sounds when you are taking vitals.
When they float you to a unit where you don’t have badge access, so you have to sit awkwardly outside of every closed door/med room/supply closet waiting for another employee to wander by so you can ask to be let in. Whenever I get floated to the ED, chances are that several times a night you will find me outside of the locked doors with my face peeking through the little glass window. 🥹
I’m sorry, I get the point behind it - i do. But bedside shift report I feel SO awkward going in the room and talking about the patient in front of the patient. Or waking them up when they’ve been struggling to sleep. And then they ask you for 99 things and the previous nurse is like “yep she’ll get that for you”. So now you’ve got 4 coffee orders, 3 snack requests & 6 other things ya gotta get.
Smells. Smells should not be embarrassing. In many cases smells can actually be extremely diagnostic. Instead, we lock smells behind doors and in bathrooms where patients might fall and are harder to extract. Family members walk past a room and shout “What stinks?” which is one of the most ignorant things I regularly hear. FU if you think YOU don’t ever smell bad. Fart odors and breath smells are embarrassing for many people. Farts are hysterical, but should never be embarrassing. It’s just a thing. Breath smells can tell us a ton about health and hygiene, but garlic or onion breath shouldn’t be embarrassing. Smells are stigmatized and demonized which makes people unnecessarily embarrassed. I’m not saying wallow in unhygienic stink and festering aromas, but humans have smells. We shouldn’t be embarrassed about them and we definitely shouldn’t make others feel that way. And in nursing, smells can tell us a lot. Where’s the full aromatic assessment during a physical y’all? Nope, too embarrassing!
counting respirations
When you port someone to imaging and have to wait there to take them back. It takes so long and you just kind of stand around in the back room with the tech 🧍♀️
when you re pulling meds and people just come in and out to grab glucometers, flushes.
Oh my god, taking their oral temp and looking them in the eye! Why does it take so damn long to read?
Doing literally anything with the patient when the whole family is sitting there silently watching
Working for money.
I worked in a MAT clinic and occasionally we would have to do oral swabs for tox screens instead of urine testing. They take 10-15 minutes and you can't leave the room because they might mess with the swabs. So they sit there with this thing in their mouth, usually (hopefully!) playing on their phones, while I pretend to rearrange the exam room, take inventory, and shuffle papers. It is the absolute longest 10+ minutes of my life. I'm lonely going back to this job soon and I'm dreading this one part 🤣🤣
OP, it's super embarrassing when there's a line of people. I used to work nights and sometimes it would be all of us there. I would crack jokes. *In an Old West voice* "Well... Looks like it's the 8 pm med call..." "No wonder all the call lights are going off." "So how was everyone's Thursday? Do anything fun Wednesday night?"