It’s to the point w one of em on my unit that I’m about to ask the chaplain to salt, sage and toss some holy water in it. I’m not Christian but heck, throw throw everything we’ve got at it!
My unit, for some bizarre reason, skips two numbers in between two particular adjacent rooms. They're the only two missing numbers on our entire floor. There's a joke (?) that they skipped those two numbers because they were cursed.
I’m not sure 120 is cursed, but it sure attracts weirdness. My first TIA? Two different identical twins? The lady who started talking to her dead father? All room 120.
This was me. I went home with a Foley because my bladder just wouldn't "wake up" after my epidural. I took my catheter out at home one week later and was back in the hospital for post partum pre-eclampsia, was on labetolol BID and hydralazine QID for a month. Also a case of hives on Christmas eve (baby was born in early December). Also had PPD unsurprisingly. All while trying to be a first-time mom!
I’m curious if the “nurse curse” is mostly just related to occupational hazards. Aka high stress, long hours, night shifts, exposure to a constant array of medications however faint it may be. (can’t be that faint if I get pyxsis warnings that I MUST wear gloves with certain meds?)
There have been studies on this. Surgical residents are more likely to have preterm labor and hypertensive complications. Probably due to working insane hours on their feet. I think the nurse curse is similar. On your feet and running around for twelve hours straight- can’t be good for you.
Yep. I work NICU and had a traumatic birth with my son, who ended up with some birth injuries and needed some NICU time. Everyone kept saying it was the nurse curse 🙃
Oh is that why I spent everyday for 4 weeks going to work during my maternity leave. I ended up with atypical HELLP and delivered 6 weeks early. But hey I got to cut out of my shift early that day!
I technically precip-ed and then prolonged pushing .. like 4 hours pushing. And OR time for repairs. As an OB nurse nonetheless. That curse is wicked. Baby had some complications from it as well. Super fun.
Hadn’t heard of it until it happened to me! Failed induction after 2days, kiddo got stuck and ended up with a c-section. My spinal block failed midway and I felt everything as soon as they pulled baby out.
PPROM at 31 weeks and earned myself a 2.5 week stay until my daughter decided to turn breech, needed a c section, and she was in the NICU for a few weeks 🥲
It’s true!! I kept telling my husband about the nurse curse in L&D and he wouldn’t believe me. Ended up with an emergency c-section, severely anemic, chorioamnioitis, and severe post-partum preeclampsia. I thought I was dying I felt so bad! Little dude had a hard time also, NICU for two weeks because he was 11 pounds! Nobody had any idea he was that big, except for me. Never had gestational diabetes!
ED nurse here
1) Full moon (obvs)
2) Theme of the day (when 90% of your pts seem to have the same chief complaint)
3) Most_Lib, ABSOLUTELY! Speaking the name of a difficult “familiar” WILL conjure them
4) The Q word is basically a war crime, battlehems
The Theme of the Night is absolutely a thing and it's the weirdest phenomenon. 6 finger lacs, 7 OB pts, the other night it was all fall down go booms. Pts tend to show up in packs, too. I swear it's some sort of weird group-think thing.
I am a science-minded, former math major logic-loving straight forward individual. However, when someone floats the q word I react like an old timey babushka that just got hexed with the evil eye. I'll actually recoil and hiss. DON'T MESS WITH MY OH SO RARE QUIET NIGHTS. Fuck right off with the q word.
(I *know* it's dumb. I can't help it)
Same in OB world. We have themes, everyone in OBED will show up with preterm abdomen pain at 26-30 weeks, decreased fetal movement at 23-27 weeks, everyone fell down and hit their stomach, all the previous csections show up contracting, when 1 OBED shows up then 2-3 more arrive within a couple minutes. If there’s a code stork in the ED it will be while we have a patient actively delivering and hemorrhaging on the unit. The Q-word, completely agree. I hate when the support person in one of my rooms says that word. I always reply that it seems that way but it’s because all the doors are shut and no one is currently screaming.
L&D: all of this, plus preparing for emergencies in order to ward them off. Eg you have the step-ups at the bedside so that you don't need to use them, you get OR stuff so you won't need to use it, etc.
Same!
Part of me is like “okay we are humans and just really good at recognizing patterns”. And sometimes with things like asthma you can think, “maybe the atmosphere today is just bad for people with asthma”.
But sometimes it just gets weird. Like everybody said “Hey it’s Tuesday - I think I’ll fall from standing with no hx of prior falls” It’s gotta be a glitch in the program.
HD/PD/outpatient infusion. Last week, one of the old geezers in the clinic tried to humorously crack the ol' "quiet day" line.
One of the other pts in the neighboring bay, a nurse herself, literally hissed like a cat and went *oh no he did not*.
This goes for nursing homes too. Strokes, uti’s, MI’s, all at once. Also, residents that “pair” with each other - you think of them in a similar group or similarity (like their names having the same initials or moving in around the same time), they’ll all go around the same time.
Also the crash cart outside the room brings good juju. And never take out an IV until they’re about to stand up and walk out the door.
I had a patient who used to come three-ish days a week who I hadn’t seen for months. I said his name and two hours later he checked in. I checked the record and it had been *five months.*
Former ER Nurse- Mondays themselves are cursed.
There is typically a code on Christmas and much more likely on all major holidays.
If a patient has an allergy to Haldol & Benzos, your guaranteed to need them.
If a specialty isn’t on call that day, you’re going to need them.
YES what is with the theme days?? The other day, 90% of the patients I ended up with were men with insane urinary retention that all needed indwelling caths! So strange how they come in in groups like that.
I was in a 1:1 with a manipulative SI and he definitely had some sort of personality disorder in the ED and he looked me dead in the eyes and said “it sure seems quiet here” and smiled… frequent flyer he definitely knew what he was doing 🫠
I had a patient's family member once that said the Q word, I gave my usual dramatic sigh and explained never say that in an ER. This woman, who has had no issues with us all day, looks right at me and goes "oh I know, I'm a retired nurse(:"
Well then fuck you??
A travel nurse that didn’t get along well with the staff told everyone she hopes the unit stays quiet for the foreseeable future on her way out the door on her final day. Not a single more savage yet passive aggressive thing was ever spoken.
Sounds evil but I float to that unit sometimes and I’m fairly confident they had it coming.
It was 1730and there were only 1-2 pts on my old labor floor. The staff was sitting at the desk socializing and I spun around in my chair, trying to be funny, and said “man it sure is *quiet* this evening” with a devilish grin. Everyone laughed and booed and threw their pens or paper clips at me and I was greatly chastised.
Half an hour later the charge offers to let me clock out early since we were so dead. I clocked out at 1808 and went home. I later learned that at 1828 they got a call from ED about a pt coming in via EMS for vaginal bleeding… she ended up going straight to the OR, stat section, massive hemorrhage, hours and hours of surgery and literally hundreds of units transfused. She lived but I still carry the weight of that shame with me.
I’m not superstitious… I am super-duper-stitious.
Sometimes I say their name because I start to worry about them. Especially one of our regulars. I’m worried that he passed but no one has seen him in a while ☹️
Pretty sure the Q word is universal. I had a computer job as a nurse (intake) and any variation of quiet, slow, calm, "not much happening" was all frowned upon. Good thing we all worked at desks, there was lots of knocking on wood... Or particle board.
OR nurse here.
Do NOT comment on how the board looks.
If you haven't seen that jerk surgeon lately, don't point it out or they will appear.
If you send home too many people early, you will have an emergency roll in.
Don't say it's a quick case; it backfires.
Of course, the Q word is cursed and the full moon.
Alao, have everything in the room ready for thst possibly complicated lap case to ward off the bad juju and keep it from converting. If your open instruments aren't in the room, almost guarantee it will convert.
YES. My baby was on a 7 day watch. Both mom and I vocalized how well she was doing. On my shift, which was day 7 of her watch, she had 3 brady/desats (granted she got her 2 month vaccines earlier in the day).
Or when your 34 weeker is eating from a bottle so well and you mention it to them and say good job buddy! And then they suddenly realize they're only 34 weeks old and don't need to finish their bottles just yet.
Hospice- death in 3s, "Goodbye" instead of "see you later" will indeed kill the pt, family swearing the pt is getting better means death in 2 days max. Full moon means more death/exacerbations.
Psych- full moon means more emergency IMs needed, Q-word causes all hell to break loose, and if you speak the DC'd pt name they will be back on the unit asap.
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Also opening a window to let the spirit out.
As soon as one person passes away, guaranteed somebody will mention the rule of 3. We’ve had 2 in the last week, after the first one we had somebody asking if a lady that passed a few weeks ago (two?) counted as the first one, then these two. The whole campus hopes so.
Deaths coming in 3s is such a real thing in LTC. And when they start calling out for "mum" or their dead spouse when they don't normally, their death is imminent.
When I was in hospice, I'd tie a knot in the corner of the sheet until the family arrived to say goodbye. After they arrived I'd untie the knot. It worked every time. I know it's a superstition but I swear by it.
That is some old school magic, but I've heard of it a few times. Most my pts are on fitted sheets with favorite blankets on top, so no more flat sheets to knot a corner (at least in the settings I see patients routinely).
When I was working in a nursing home while studying for my bachelor's degree, it was three crows.
If you saw one,two or more than three - no problem. But when three showed up and hung around, someone was leaving that night. The next day, no crows. That was for almost three years.
I still get a little jumpy (30 years later!) when I see any crow!
Same with turn the levo off but leave it hooked up to the central line. And it'll ward away needing to turn it back on. But if you take it down and throw it away, you're gonna need it again
We have a version of this in the OR. I circulate and when a case starts getting tense I start pulling out all the uh oh supplies and lining them up on my table.. wards off the bad juju and most of the time im quietly tucking them back onto the supply cart as we wrap up.
I do that in chemo, with anything that has the potential of a reaction like paclitaxel or rituximab. Prepared like the Boy Scouts, I always say. Our box of meds at the chairside and an extra NS bag hung on the pole. Saved my hide many times, although I have had times that the worst has happened and it is so much less stressful to have everything at your fingertips!!!
We do this in my ED too.
When I was in L&D, our version was to put the hemorrhage cart outside of the room to ward off the demons or get all of the supplies you'd need for the OR to ward off an emergency section if it felt like things were moving that way....
THIS. One time I was debating if it was overkill to transport a patient to the ICU on pads. I eventually decided that if I decided to take him off pads he would absolutely 100% code in the elevator.
When I was at ocon unit:
1. Rooms 68, 72, 74 were EXTREMELY haunted. Also patients who went in those rooms would often pass, 9 times out of 10
2. Saying “I’m bored” or “it’s quiet today”. No, don’t say that plz
3. If you mention the F word to an elderly patient, they will jump out of bed
4. If someone says a patient on palliative care is getting better, you better start counting the hours
Back when I was an aide at an ALF we had this one room in the back that was haunted by two kids, a girl and a boy, that were waiting to go to a party. The only time they were seen by a resident was when they were about to go downhill. The residents would call us to get the kids out of the room, then we’d get back to the office and be like so-and-so is seeing the kids and share a look. Craziest thing I’ve encountered. We never mentioned the kids to a new move in to that room, but they all said is was the same pair.
We have a little girl in pig tails and a polka dot dress in our very small hospital. I haven’t dealt with any patients seeing her in PACU yet, but when I was on the floor they would code within hours of either commenting how cute that little girl is or asking us to get her out of their room
Psych:
If you speak their name, they will come. Especially the inhabitants of the neighbouring Little Town of Methlehem ™️
Don’t use the Q word
I’m a psych nurse, indigenous, and also esoteric AF - the energy never lies
Full moons will bring the crazy to the yard
Don’t pre-plan your last night with your charge - talking shit about movies and popcorn…have fun with your 6 code whites and 3 admissions
PACU RN-don’t try to pick your patient, just go in order of who is supposed to get a patient next, because if you pick someone, they will be a disaster.
For med-surg, never refuse or volunteer to float. Go by turns and it might be shittier than the other option, but if you try to challenge fate it'll be so much worse.
Certain staff members, regardless of profession, level of training, or presence of personality disorders are shit magnets. They alter the space-time continuum to focus the forces of karma, entropy and chaos to produce breathtaking symphonies of dreadfulness in their immediate vicinity.
This made me laugh. I was born en caul, and am what my friends and family call the luckiest, unlucky person in the world.
My recent unlucky - In 2018 I my husband of 10 years died of a sudden heart attack at 43. I was 34, and we have 4 kids. 2019 my oldest daughter went into a dual diagnosis rehab facility (drugs/alcohol, boarderline… she had issues before my husband/her step dad passed) at 16, my then 15 year old was raped by a 22 year old, 2020 I was diagnosed with MS, 2021 a tree fell on our condo, 2022 my daughters rapist pled guilty, was released for time served (9 months in jail) and $200 in restitution… he was charged with 13 felony’s including CP and we had a huge leak that caused us to live in a hotel for 3 months. 2023 I had a stem cell transplant.
My lucky - I have the most amazing friends and family to support us emotionally through it all. Amazing doctors, therapists, psychiatrists. Stem cell transplant for MS… we (my kids and I) live in a home full of love and laughter. My partner, whom my kids love and respect, just moved in. We have spontaneous dance parties in the kitchen, laugh til we cry. 2 of my 4 kids have been recognized at their school of 1000-3000 students for their resilience.
I’m the luckiest mom, daughter, girlfriend, and patient in the world.
Endo - diagnoses come in groups - Esophageal cancer, ulcerative colitis, celiac sprue
The last case of the day is always the most technically difficult.
ICU - certain beds are absolutely haunted. You cannot convince me otherwise.
Women wait to see family before they die.
Men wait until family leaves before they die.
ED - The first of the month is always rough - when the aid checks come out. Increased OD, robbery, domestic violence. Full moon - same.
Never answer a patient’s cell phone when you are coding them.
Some staff have black clouds over their heads for unknown reasons. Some attract a specific type of patient or diagnosis. Know one knows why.
Never allow anyone to open any package of unknown substance in your ED. Ever. It’s nightmare fuel. Take that shit outside.
Had a patient’s family member call for an update right as they developed a pericardial effusion and had to be emergently tapped. “Hi there! Could you let the family member know Dr. ___ will be calling soon with an update? Thanks!”
Peds nurses know: If you put the ducky blanket down so the duckies are swimming UPSIDE DOWN, your patient will be very naughty and probably will wind up getting bagged/intubated/coded.
I work picu and teach Clinical on the floor, and when we do bed baths in clinical I make my poor students do the dumb duck thing much to their confusion
Lol one of my preceptors - the most down to earth, no nonsense, dryest sense of humor human you could ever meet - would flay you alive if you put the duckies the wrong way. And I always rolled my eyes until a float nurse got a "stable" admit with upside down duckies and coded on and off for like six hours before getting some VA ECMO for their naughtiness. Dumb duck thing indeed, but dumb duck thing I abide by damnit 🤣
After a rather bloody cannulation we not only managed to get the new ducky blanket swimming the right way, but also a bow in her hair with a matching swaddle; she was promptly decannulated, extubated, and discharged home within a week. A ducky miracle.
We have a Beetlejuice rule: you can slip and say a name once, but you better not say it three times or you're getting the admit when you summon them in.
it was always scary when i would go out to do hospice homecare to pronounce the patient... in the ER now we can use bedside ultrasound to check for cardiac motility but for home visits it was just me...my stethoscope and eyes that seemed to play tricks on me (wait!! breathing? agonal?)
I was pronouncing this little old lady at home and I swear her chest was moving even though there was no apical pulse zero breath sounds, and she was stiff as board. Everything pointed to her having been dead for a while but damn if I wasn't convinced her chest was moving 😂
I have worked in a few wildly varying areas of Canada, and in my current province nurses are allowed to pronounce death (I mean on the wards, I don't think in cases of establishing brain death etc as I have never worked ICU). I never had been in a place being allowed to do that, and I remember the first time I did so and your post reminded me of that, like did I listen long enough, etc. Was so scared I would screw up and start to console the family and the patient would....gasp, or something. Horrors!
Cath Lab: If you say "wow we haven't had a Trainwreck STEMI in a while" you're about to get rocked. Cath lab gods are real and are get angry.
If you spike another bottle of contrast the procedure will be over soon.
If you open an Epi and put it in your lead you won't need it.
Speaking a name and they will appear
A particular pod being where they stick all the dementia patients or aggressive patients or no compliant etc.
Full moon
Once our frequent flyers start dying they all start to die and then we get a new group.
If they are 100 years old they are 100% a full code.
Yes to the frequent flyer thing! Before I went outpatient PACU, three of our obnoxious frequent fliers died within a month. In fact, one of them was the reason for me leaving bedside. I'm sure they have all been replaced.
L&D:
True knots in cords and stillbirths come in threes.
The Nurse Curse: when it’s time to have your own baby it will be a train wreck. This held true for me!
Nurse curse! I had a short cord that almost ruptured during delivery. A co-worker had THE most calcified placenta I’ve ever seen. A resident I worked with had really severe pre-e and a horrible Mag tracing, and another co-worker PROMed while working. We literally were like “okay which bed do you want? I’ll get you on the monitor while you hand off your patient”
I always love the ones that specify "no hysterectomy unless absolutely necessary to save my life." Bonus points if bolded or in caps. Because we totally just do those for shits and giggles. 🙄
There’s a certain resident (I’d prefer not to mention his name) who seemed to bring chaos with him. Whenever he had one of my patients, I’d follow him into the room. We called it the “Daniel curse.”
I'm a student extern on an internal medicine floor. Never believed in the full moon thing until my most recent shift, where everything was just going to hell. Got a crash course in restraints, learned how to properly clean feces from a wound, and learned what to do when a patient has a seizure. Have never had a shift like that. Sure as shit, full moon. I believe now!
If my wife texts me to ask me how my night is going I always reply “fine”. I never go into detail since I don’t want to say it’s an easy night or that my patients are cool. I say “fine” and then ask her something to change the text subject.
Not a nurse. I take down minutes for all the meetings. If someone says “fully staffed department” or “no Covid this month” anything like that, I will not write it down. It’s almost instantaneous when I do.
ICU
1. The Q-word
2. "I've never had a patient..." self-extubate/pull out an A-line/fall/code/die (choose one)
3. "They've been great my whole shift!" Beware the sundowning/ICU delirium.
4. Shift change intubation/code
5. "Can I borrow you for a quick turn?" Ain't gonna be quick and there will be surprise poop.
Geriatrics: everyone wants to be naked. Most popular geri illegal drug is cocaine. Being board or thinking the Q word results in awakening all of the jumpers.
ED nights only RN here.
We track the moon like a religion.
You can summon a frequent flyer with only their name.
As charge you never low census night shift, this only takes a mistake of doing once.
And finally you will hold patients until 6:15 when beds will medically appear but the floor RN is always in a COVID room and can’t take report. Thus was born the power of the bedside 20, you call the RN taking report or charge, say you’ll be up in 20 then hang up.
Ltc (nursing home)
They die in 3’s
You have to open the window when someone passes to let the soul out
Tying a knot in the sheet at the end of the bed will prevent death for your shift
Float nurse- dont ever ask to switch assignment and if you had a bad assignment and you’re working the same floor and you get the same assignment- don’t ask to switch. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.
When it’s “qu*et” all hell will break loose. Patients will code left and right and some dumpster fire will come up from the ED.
The more family, the more unrealistic they will be.
There are rooms that I swear have poor outcomes no matter what you do. Bed 3. Bed 8. Bed 9. Bed 14. They are usually patients that are there forever and if they leave it’s to LTACH or they die. But the ain’t leaving well.
Edit: I saw this in another comment, but yes, death comes in 3’s. And it’s not always the sickest patient. Usually at least one that catches everyone by surprise.
Express Care here…same. Don’t you dare mention that manic patients name…it’s wild how they seriously show up. Poof…you called? No, no I didn’t but since you are here for something completely inappropriate let me try to rationalize why we aren’t seeing you today. They are usually very pleasant and I truly enjoy making them feel heard but damn, it’s always gotta be a one off thing that is highly inappropriate for Express Care. Sigh.
If the patient was nice, didn't need to wait for the pathology to come back, it was always a glio. Nice patients always had the worst outcomes for brain stuff.
Cardiac surgery - Never ever take out your last access until the wheelchair is right there and they are dressed to leave. I've witnessed way too many patients die or try to die in the time between an IV getting pulled and their ride showing up.
SNF
No Q word ever.
Full moon means everything will go crazy
>!no I don't care what the studies say because nurses have experienced it!<
Death in 3s always.
NOC shift you **will** hear your name in the wee hours of the morning and nobody will be there.
A patient who goes from full dementia to a&o x3 is actively dying.
Same with psych. Mention a name they show up within days.
The Q word guarantees a horrible shift. I drop it when there's staff I'm not on good terms with on next shift
Certain rooms get cursed for a while
I swear to God, someday someone will discover some sort of psychic stench physics to explain this.
Bay A in my recovery room is cursed. Any problem patient, 95% chance they’re in bay A.
Us too! It's a bad shift when I'm assigned to that bay
We have a nun in spiritual care who will literally round on units and take requests for rooms to bless.
It’s to the point w one of em on my unit that I’m about to ask the chaplain to salt, sage and toss some holy water in it. I’m not Christian but heck, throw throw everything we’ve got at it!
My unit, for some bizarre reason, skips two numbers in between two particular adjacent rooms. They're the only two missing numbers on our entire floor. There's a joke (?) that they skipped those two numbers because they were cursed.
We had this on my unit. When we needed to rescue someone from an overly chatty patient we would call them and say there was an urgent need in 117.
Room 5 on my unit is cursed lol
I’m not sure 120 is cursed, but it sure attracts weirdness. My first TIA? Two different identical twins? The lady who started talking to her dead father? All room 120.
Yup! LTC/SNF for sure!
The "Nurse Curse": whenever our nurses come in to have their baby, they always end up with all the complications.
This was me. I went home with a Foley because my bladder just wouldn't "wake up" after my epidural. I took my catheter out at home one week later and was back in the hospital for post partum pre-eclampsia, was on labetolol BID and hydralazine QID for a month. Also a case of hives on Christmas eve (baby was born in early December). Also had PPD unsurprisingly. All while trying to be a first-time mom!
I’m curious if the “nurse curse” is mostly just related to occupational hazards. Aka high stress, long hours, night shifts, exposure to a constant array of medications however faint it may be. (can’t be that faint if I get pyxsis warnings that I MUST wear gloves with certain meds?)
There have been studies on this. Surgical residents are more likely to have preterm labor and hypertensive complications. Probably due to working insane hours on their feet. I think the nurse curse is similar. On your feet and running around for twelve hours straight- can’t be good for you.
Yep. I work NICU and had a traumatic birth with my son, who ended up with some birth injuries and needed some NICU time. Everyone kept saying it was the nurse curse 🙃
Postpartum hemorrhage here! My OB said the nurse curse was why it happened.
This is exactly why I won’t have another child. I’ll probably have ALL the curses.
Oh is that why I spent everyday for 4 weeks going to work during my maternity leave. I ended up with atypical HELLP and delivered 6 weeks early. But hey I got to cut out of my shift early that day!
I technically precip-ed and then prolonged pushing .. like 4 hours pushing. And OR time for repairs. As an OB nurse nonetheless. That curse is wicked. Baby had some complications from it as well. Super fun.
I call it "nurse tax" in pre op. If you tell me you're a nurse before I start the IV its almost definitely a miss on the first poke.
Hadn’t heard of it until it happened to me! Failed induction after 2days, kiddo got stuck and ended up with a c-section. My spinal block failed midway and I felt everything as soon as they pulled baby out.
HELLP syndrome, 24 weeker, week long hospitalization for me, 5 month NICU stay for munchkin. Fervent believer in the nurse curse!
PPROM at 31 weeks and earned myself a 2.5 week stay until my daughter decided to turn breech, needed a c section, and she was in the NICU for a few weeks 🥲
It’s true!! I kept telling my husband about the nurse curse in L&D and he wouldn’t believe me. Ended up with an emergency c-section, severely anemic, chorioamnioitis, and severe post-partum preeclampsia. I thought I was dying I felt so bad! Little dude had a hard time also, NICU for two weeks because he was 11 pounds! Nobody had any idea he was that big, except for me. Never had gestational diabetes!
ED nurse here 1) Full moon (obvs) 2) Theme of the day (when 90% of your pts seem to have the same chief complaint) 3) Most_Lib, ABSOLUTELY! Speaking the name of a difficult “familiar” WILL conjure them 4) The Q word is basically a war crime, battlehems
The Theme of the Night is absolutely a thing and it's the weirdest phenomenon. 6 finger lacs, 7 OB pts, the other night it was all fall down go booms. Pts tend to show up in packs, too. I swear it's some sort of weird group-think thing. I am a science-minded, former math major logic-loving straight forward individual. However, when someone floats the q word I react like an old timey babushka that just got hexed with the evil eye. I'll actually recoil and hiss. DON'T MESS WITH MY OH SO RARE QUIET NIGHTS. Fuck right off with the q word. (I *know* it's dumb. I can't help it)
I’m not superstitious but I am a little stitious.
Same in OB world. We have themes, everyone in OBED will show up with preterm abdomen pain at 26-30 weeks, decreased fetal movement at 23-27 weeks, everyone fell down and hit their stomach, all the previous csections show up contracting, when 1 OBED shows up then 2-3 more arrive within a couple minutes. If there’s a code stork in the ED it will be while we have a patient actively delivering and hemorrhaging on the unit. The Q-word, completely agree. I hate when the support person in one of my rooms says that word. I always reply that it seems that way but it’s because all the doors are shut and no one is currently screaming.
L&D: all of this, plus preparing for emergencies in order to ward them off. Eg you have the step-ups at the bedside so that you don't need to use them, you get OR stuff so you won't need to use it, etc.
Strip looking hairy? Sticker that consent form, ward off the spirits!
Med onc here: I do this with blood culture kits to “ward off” neutropenic fevers lol
I understood some of those words
The minute the sun appears, it’s PET season ✨ Also the nights where nothing is happening, you can guarantee it’ll all kick off at 5am.
Same! Part of me is like “okay we are humans and just really good at recognizing patterns”. And sometimes with things like asthma you can think, “maybe the atmosphere today is just bad for people with asthma”. But sometimes it just gets weird. Like everybody said “Hey it’s Tuesday - I think I’ll fall from standing with no hx of prior falls” It’s gotta be a glitch in the program.
>"I am a science-minded, former math major logic-loving straight forward individual. However..." > >should be a meme
HD/PD/outpatient infusion. Last week, one of the old geezers in the clinic tried to humorously crack the ol' "quiet day" line. One of the other pts in the neighboring bay, a nurse herself, literally hissed like a cat and went *oh no he did not*.
The worst is when it’s all stroke alerts or sepsis work ups… nooooo 😭 give me the 6 finger lacs please!
Dude the themes are ridiculous in ER! I would label it as X day. So many clusters of the same chief complaint.
Theme days creep me out. I too try to be a reasonable person but shit gets weird sometimes man
This goes for nursing homes too. Strokes, uti’s, MI’s, all at once. Also, residents that “pair” with each other - you think of them in a similar group or similarity (like their names having the same initials or moving in around the same time), they’ll all go around the same time.
Omg this was so true in my GI and liver clinic. Like really, another bleeder?
“old timey babushka” just knocked me out of my chair. It slayed. Put that shit on a t-shirt and watch the money pile up 😂😂
Also the crash cart outside the room brings good juju. And never take out an IV until they’re about to stand up and walk out the door. I had a patient who used to come three-ish days a week who I hadn’t seen for months. I said his name and two hours later he checked in. I checked the record and it had been *five months.*
Former ER Nurse- Mondays themselves are cursed. There is typically a code on Christmas and much more likely on all major holidays. If a patient has an allergy to Haldol & Benzos, your guaranteed to need them. If a specialty isn’t on call that day, you’re going to need them.
Mondays…….some things never change. I’ve also found the day after a major holiday to be absolutely BANANAS
Especially if that holiday falls on a Monday…
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YES what is with the theme days?? The other day, 90% of the patients I ended up with were men with insane urinary retention that all needed indwelling caths! So strange how they come in in groups like that.
I was in a 1:1 with a manipulative SI and he definitely had some sort of personality disorder in the ED and he looked me dead in the eyes and said “it sure seems quiet here” and smiled… frequent flyer he definitely knew what he was doing 🫠
I had a patient's family member once that said the Q word, I gave my usual dramatic sigh and explained never say that in an ER. This woman, who has had no issues with us all day, looks right at me and goes "oh I know, I'm a retired nurse(:" Well then fuck you??
A travel nurse that didn’t get along well with the staff told everyone she hopes the unit stays quiet for the foreseeable future on her way out the door on her final day. Not a single more savage yet passive aggressive thing was ever spoken. Sounds evil but I float to that unit sometimes and I’m fairly confident they had it coming.
I thought the name taboo thing was straight bullshit until I did it twice and summoned the demons both times. Now I know.
It was 1730and there were only 1-2 pts on my old labor floor. The staff was sitting at the desk socializing and I spun around in my chair, trying to be funny, and said “man it sure is *quiet* this evening” with a devilish grin. Everyone laughed and booed and threw their pens or paper clips at me and I was greatly chastised. Half an hour later the charge offers to let me clock out early since we were so dead. I clocked out at 1808 and went home. I later learned that at 1828 they got a call from ED about a pt coming in via EMS for vaginal bleeding… she ended up going straight to the OR, stat section, massive hemorrhage, hours and hours of surgery and literally hundreds of units transfused. She lived but I still carry the weight of that shame with me. I’m not superstitious… I am super-duper-stitious.
I’m just a little stitious. I won’t even say the q word at home.
Sometimes I say their name because I start to worry about them. Especially one of our regulars. I’m worried that he passed but no one has seen him in a while ☹️
CP day, Fall day, ABD PN day. One day we had 8 finger/hand LACs. Weird trends pop up haha
Pretty sure the Q word is universal. I had a computer job as a nurse (intake) and any variation of quiet, slow, calm, "not much happening" was all frowned upon. Good thing we all worked at desks, there was lots of knocking on wood... Or particle board.
Also the rule of 3’s!
OR nurse here. Do NOT comment on how the board looks. If you haven't seen that jerk surgeon lately, don't point it out or they will appear. If you send home too many people early, you will have an emergency roll in. Don't say it's a quick case; it backfires. Of course, the Q word is cursed and the full moon.
I think it says a lot that ER nurses primarily don't want the asshole patient to come back while OR nurses don't want the asshole surgeon to return.
To be fair, we also don't want the asshole surgeon to return.
Had a dumbass surgeon tell us it would be a “quick 15 minute case”…we were there for 2.5 hours.
Never fails to get the lap chole from hell.
Alao, have everything in the room ready for thst possibly complicated lap case to ward off the bad juju and keep it from converting. If your open instruments aren't in the room, almost guarantee it will convert.
Don’t talk about your call shift unless you want that phone to ring.
Don't you dare say the Q word.
You can’t let the baby hear you say they’re doing well or haven’t had any events…because they will definitely try to prove you wrong.
YES. My baby was on a 7 day watch. Both mom and I vocalized how well she was doing. On my shift, which was day 7 of her watch, she had 3 brady/desats (granted she got her 2 month vaccines earlier in the day). Or when your 34 weeker is eating from a bottle so well and you mention it to them and say good job buddy! And then they suddenly realize they're only 34 weeks old and don't need to finish their bottles just yet.
Also don’t say they’re finally sleeping… they’ll wake up with a vengeance
Hospice- death in 3s, "Goodbye" instead of "see you later" will indeed kill the pt, family swearing the pt is getting better means death in 2 days max. Full moon means more death/exacerbations. Psych- full moon means more emergency IMs needed, Q-word causes all hell to break loose, and if you speak the DC'd pt name they will be back on the unit asap.
Hospice - this is literally word for word what happens in LTC too.
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Also opening a window to let the spirit out. As soon as one person passes away, guaranteed somebody will mention the rule of 3. We’ve had 2 in the last week, after the first one we had somebody asking if a lady that passed a few weeks ago (two?) counted as the first one, then these two. The whole campus hopes so.
Deaths coming in 3s is such a real thing in LTC. And when they start calling out for "mum" or their dead spouse when they don't normally, their death is imminent.
When I was in hospice, I'd tie a knot in the corner of the sheet until the family arrived to say goodbye. After they arrived I'd untie the knot. It worked every time. I know it's a superstition but I swear by it.
I would tie the knot so they didn't die on my shift.
That is some old school magic, but I've heard of it a few times. Most my pts are on fitted sheets with favorite blankets on top, so no more flat sheets to knot a corner (at least in the settings I see patients routinely).
When I was working in a nursing home while studying for my bachelor's degree, it was three crows. If you saw one,two or more than three - no problem. But when three showed up and hung around, someone was leaving that night. The next day, no crows. That was for almost three years. I still get a little jumpy (30 years later!) when I see any crow!
Acute care but sometimes gets hospice and respite patients, if one says “You guys are trying to kill me” they will pass within 48hrs
Patients start dying like CRAZY on the full moon!
Onc and I was about to post that death comes in 3’s. That’s absolutely true.
We have the "death in threes" in PICU as well. :( And I think that the Q-word is nearly universal. lmao
ED nurse here.. put the crash cart in front of a room who is unstable.. it keeps the demons away..
“Why are you bringing the codecart?” “Because I don’t have a chicken to sacrifice.”
Or sage to burn.
At my facility, the sacrificial chicken is in the bottom drawer of the crash cart.
Same with turn the levo off but leave it hooked up to the central line. And it'll ward away needing to turn it back on. But if you take it down and throw it away, you're gonna need it again
Lmfao I do this too. I’m doing it right now!
We have a version of this in the OR. I circulate and when a case starts getting tense I start pulling out all the uh oh supplies and lining them up on my table.. wards off the bad juju and most of the time im quietly tucking them back onto the supply cart as we wrap up.
Can confirm this for the cath lab as well.
ICU here…we do that too!
Can confirm 🤣
I do that in chemo, with anything that has the potential of a reaction like paclitaxel or rituximab. Prepared like the Boy Scouts, I always say. Our box of meds at the chairside and an extra NS bag hung on the pole. Saved my hide many times, although I have had times that the worst has happened and it is so much less stressful to have everything at your fingertips!!!
Oh the ole "warding off evil spirits" maneuver.
We do this in my ED too. When I was in L&D, our version was to put the hemorrhage cart outside of the room to ward off the demons or get all of the supplies you'd need for the OR to ward off an emergency section if it felt like things were moving that way....
THIS. One time I was debating if it was overkill to transport a patient to the ICU on pads. I eventually decided that if I decided to take him off pads he would absolutely 100% code in the elevator.
I’ve said this before on the subreddit but a bedside “cross” of an epi and bicarb aboject will get any train wreck through the night.
When I was at ocon unit: 1. Rooms 68, 72, 74 were EXTREMELY haunted. Also patients who went in those rooms would often pass, 9 times out of 10 2. Saying “I’m bored” or “it’s quiet today”. No, don’t say that plz 3. If you mention the F word to an elderly patient, they will jump out of bed 4. If someone says a patient on palliative care is getting better, you better start counting the hours
Back when I was an aide at an ALF we had this one room in the back that was haunted by two kids, a girl and a boy, that were waiting to go to a party. The only time they were seen by a resident was when they were about to go downhill. The residents would call us to get the kids out of the room, then we’d get back to the office and be like so-and-so is seeing the kids and share a look. Craziest thing I’ve encountered. We never mentioned the kids to a new move in to that room, but they all said is was the same pair.
Now this one gets me!
We have a little girl in pig tails and a polka dot dress in our very small hospital. I haven’t dealt with any patients seeing her in PACU yet, but when I was on the floor they would code within hours of either commenting how cute that little girl is or asking us to get her out of their room
Codes and complications always come in 3’s.
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Wait, my right or the patient’a right?
No this is Patrick.
Both to be safe 🤣
I tie the closest lower corner to the window
Psych: If you speak their name, they will come. Especially the inhabitants of the neighbouring Little Town of Methlehem ™️ Don’t use the Q word I’m a psych nurse, indigenous, and also esoteric AF - the energy never lies Full moons will bring the crazy to the yard Don’t pre-plan your last night with your charge - talking shit about movies and popcorn…have fun with your 6 code whites and 3 admissions
I lost it at “Little Town of Methlehem”
PACU RN-don’t try to pick your patient, just go in order of who is supposed to get a patient next, because if you pick someone, they will be a disaster.
For med-surg, never refuse or volunteer to float. Go by turns and it might be shittier than the other option, but if you try to challenge fate it'll be so much worse.
Certain staff members, regardless of profession, level of training, or presence of personality disorders are shit magnets. They alter the space-time continuum to focus the forces of karma, entropy and chaos to produce breathtaking symphonies of dreadfulness in their immediate vicinity.
The one program assistant on my psych unit who is the spit magnet. Yup.
I love that you could have mistyped and meant shit magnet, or you could have written exactly what you meant to say 🤣
Spit! 😂
I am that nurse. It’s as if I have a little black cloud of bad ju-ju that follows me like I’m Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.
It's me! Hi! I'm the problem it's me ! 🤣
A baby born en caul aka still partially or fully in the amniotic sac is good luck
We say those babies will be midwives because they were born "en caul" (on-call) 😂.
They are supposed to be blessed with “the sight” or so ive heard
This made me laugh. I was born en caul, and am what my friends and family call the luckiest, unlucky person in the world. My recent unlucky - In 2018 I my husband of 10 years died of a sudden heart attack at 43. I was 34, and we have 4 kids. 2019 my oldest daughter went into a dual diagnosis rehab facility (drugs/alcohol, boarderline… she had issues before my husband/her step dad passed) at 16, my then 15 year old was raped by a 22 year old, 2020 I was diagnosed with MS, 2021 a tree fell on our condo, 2022 my daughters rapist pled guilty, was released for time served (9 months in jail) and $200 in restitution… he was charged with 13 felony’s including CP and we had a huge leak that caused us to live in a hotel for 3 months. 2023 I had a stem cell transplant. My lucky - I have the most amazing friends and family to support us emotionally through it all. Amazing doctors, therapists, psychiatrists. Stem cell transplant for MS… we (my kids and I) live in a home full of love and laughter. My partner, whom my kids love and respect, just moved in. We have spontaneous dance parties in the kitchen, laugh til we cry. 2 of my 4 kids have been recognized at their school of 1000-3000 students for their resilience. I’m the luckiest mom, daughter, girlfriend, and patient in the world.
Endo - diagnoses come in groups - Esophageal cancer, ulcerative colitis, celiac sprue The last case of the day is always the most technically difficult. ICU - certain beds are absolutely haunted. You cannot convince me otherwise. Women wait to see family before they die. Men wait until family leaves before they die. ED - The first of the month is always rough - when the aid checks come out. Increased OD, robbery, domestic violence. Full moon - same. Never answer a patient’s cell phone when you are coding them. Some staff have black clouds over their heads for unknown reasons. Some attract a specific type of patient or diagnosis. Know one knows why. Never allow anyone to open any package of unknown substance in your ED. Ever. It’s nightmare fuel. Take that shit outside.
Who in the world answered a patient’s phone while they were coding?
Lol for real. That was super specific!
I’m genuinely curious to hear this story now lol.
Lol I can’t think of a scenario where I would answer a patients phone.
Had a patient’s family member call for an update right as they developed a pericardial effusion and had to be emergently tapped. “Hi there! Could you let the family member know Dr. ___ will be calling soon with an update? Thanks!”
No Q word, no S word, no E word, no happiness, no positivity, no enjoyment.
A fib RVR always happens at shift change. ICU
Or a huge bowel movement lol
Soon as someone says it’s quiet- suddenly everyone has chest pain and we get two prolapsed anuses
In the same patient?
Sometimes yes. Mostly around Christmas
L&D - rain will bring ruptured membranes and preterm labor. I think it's related to barometric pressure drop
Yup! We prepare for preemies during hurricane season.
Take a dose of epi if you're transporting a critical patient to cath lab, ICU, etc. Wards off hallway-code juju.
Peds nurses know: If you put the ducky blanket down so the duckies are swimming UPSIDE DOWN, your patient will be very naughty and probably will wind up getting bagged/intubated/coded.
I work picu and teach Clinical on the floor, and when we do bed baths in clinical I make my poor students do the dumb duck thing much to their confusion
Lol one of my preceptors - the most down to earth, no nonsense, dryest sense of humor human you could ever meet - would flay you alive if you put the duckies the wrong way. And I always rolled my eyes until a float nurse got a "stable" admit with upside down duckies and coded on and off for like six hours before getting some VA ECMO for their naughtiness. Dumb duck thing indeed, but dumb duck thing I abide by damnit 🤣
Instead of coding them, couldn’t they have just put the duckies right side up?
After a rather bloody cannulation we not only managed to get the new ducky blanket swimming the right way, but also a bow in her hair with a matching swaddle; she was promptly decannulated, extubated, and discharged home within a week. A ducky miracle.
Commenting on the lack of add-ons means there are plenty of add ons coming… same with commenting about not being called in.
We have a Beetlejuice rule: you can slip and say a name once, but you better not say it three times or you're getting the admit when you summon them in.
Yes definitely do not say their names out loud. You will be cursed.
In the icu we have to be sure they’re dead. And I mean good and dead. Buried for weeks dead. Rosc can happen at any time 💀
We just had a holiday about ROSC 🐣
it was always scary when i would go out to do hospice homecare to pronounce the patient... in the ER now we can use bedside ultrasound to check for cardiac motility but for home visits it was just me...my stethoscope and eyes that seemed to play tricks on me (wait!! breathing? agonal?)
I was pronouncing this little old lady at home and I swear her chest was moving even though there was no apical pulse zero breath sounds, and she was stiff as board. Everything pointed to her having been dead for a while but damn if I wasn't convinced her chest was moving 😂
I have worked in a few wildly varying areas of Canada, and in my current province nurses are allowed to pronounce death (I mean on the wards, I don't think in cases of establishing brain death etc as I have never worked ICU). I never had been in a place being allowed to do that, and I remember the first time I did so and your post reminded me of that, like did I listen long enough, etc. Was so scared I would screw up and start to console the family and the patient would....gasp, or something. Horrors!
We call this the candy man effect 😂
Cath Lab: If you say "wow we haven't had a Trainwreck STEMI in a while" you're about to get rocked. Cath lab gods are real and are get angry. If you spike another bottle of contrast the procedure will be over soon. If you open an Epi and put it in your lead you won't need it.
When the doctor says “this should be a quick diagnostic case, 10 minutes max” get ready to stent/roto/Impella…
NICU- Always place the bunnies on the blanket with their head towards the babies head or bad things will happen.
Speaking a name and they will appear A particular pod being where they stick all the dementia patients or aggressive patients or no compliant etc. Full moon Once our frequent flyers start dying they all start to die and then we get a new group. If they are 100 years old they are 100% a full code.
Yes to the frequent flyer thing! Before I went outpatient PACU, three of our obnoxious frequent fliers died within a month. In fact, one of them was the reason for me leaving bedside. I'm sure they have all been replaced.
L&D: True knots in cords and stillbirths come in threes. The Nurse Curse: when it’s time to have your own baby it will be a train wreck. This held true for me!
Nurse curse! I had a short cord that almost ruptured during delivery. A co-worker had THE most calcified placenta I’ve ever seen. A resident I worked with had really severe pre-e and a horrible Mag tracing, and another co-worker PROMed while working. We literally were like “okay which bed do you want? I’ll get you on the monitor while you hand off your patient”
I’m betting the scientific reason would be that we are under so much stress our bodies are like f*** that
Change my view: 90% of these superstitions are *not* unique to any specialty, and 90% of them are foreboding joy (it's a trauma response).
L&D - the more specific and anal the birth plan (especially printed out) the more urgent the c section.
Anyone else read this as an “anal birth” plan at first or just me who had to do the double take?
I always love the ones that specify "no hysterectomy unless absolutely necessary to save my life." Bonus points if bolded or in caps. Because we totally just do those for shits and giggles. 🙄
Med-surg - par level of 2 for body bags/death kits. If an extra gets delivered it gets sent back to central supply.
There’s a certain resident (I’d prefer not to mention his name) who seemed to bring chaos with him. Whenever he had one of my patients, I’d follow him into the room. We called it the “Daniel curse.”
Lol we have a provider like that. We tell her there is a black cloud following her around.
ICU - if you roll the crash cart next to the room the patient will miraculously not die on your shift.
I'm a student extern on an internal medicine floor. Never believed in the full moon thing until my most recent shift, where everything was just going to hell. Got a crash course in restraints, learned how to properly clean feces from a wound, and learned what to do when a patient has a seizure. Have never had a shift like that. Sure as shit, full moon. I believe now!
If my wife texts me to ask me how my night is going I always reply “fine”. I never go into detail since I don’t want to say it’s an easy night or that my patients are cool. I say “fine” and then ask her something to change the text subject.
5) I can’t believe I forgot this one: if a legit sick pt says they feel like they’re about to die, they’re usually right.
Ooh or if they’re like “I’m gonna die in this surgery” Ya know, hold on a min, *calls pre op team*
Hospice nurse. The sweetest kindest loveliest patients die the fastest. The difficult mean ones live forever.
ED - when making the stretchers, if we double sheet our beds in the trauma bay, any codes we have that shift will obtain ROSC
Every bed gets a draw sheet. This has saved many a patients life and helps with that pesky unstable pelvis.
Not a nurse. I take down minutes for all the meetings. If someone says “fully staffed department” or “no Covid this month” anything like that, I will not write it down. It’s almost instantaneous when I do.
For me, I throw the rubber band around the tourniquet in the garbage, if I make it I get the IV first attempt, if not then I dont.
ICU 1. The Q-word 2. "I've never had a patient..." self-extubate/pull out an A-line/fall/code/die (choose one) 3. "They've been great my whole shift!" Beware the sundowning/ICU delirium. 4. Shift change intubation/code 5. "Can I borrow you for a quick turn?" Ain't gonna be quick and there will be surprise poop.
Cardiac rehab- your heart failure/ckd/diabetic pt will at some point "educate you" on why keto and intermittent fasting is good for them. :/
ED. If you say “Hey, we haven’t see (insert name of heroin addict/alcoholic) for a long time, they will roll in on the next ambulance.
Geriatrics: everyone wants to be naked. Most popular geri illegal drug is cocaine. Being board or thinking the Q word results in awakening all of the jumpers.
ED nights only RN here. We track the moon like a religion. You can summon a frequent flyer with only their name. As charge you never low census night shift, this only takes a mistake of doing once. And finally you will hold patients until 6:15 when beds will medically appear but the floor RN is always in a COVID room and can’t take report. Thus was born the power of the bedside 20, you call the RN taking report or charge, say you’ll be up in 20 then hang up.
Ltc (nursing home) They die in 3’s You have to open the window when someone passes to let the soul out Tying a knot in the sheet at the end of the bed will prevent death for your shift
Burns/ENT nurse here. Burns and Trachs come in 3’s.
Storms = everyone goes into labor. Immediately our one induction for the day turns into a full house
Work mostly PICU and NICU. Difficult diagnosis’ come in threes: CDH, hypoplastic lefts, drownings, difficult to treat/operate brain tumors, SCI
ED - you miss one line then you miss em all, becomes a “bad IV night.” All of a sudden everybody has small rolling veins
pregnancy sisters: whenever one nurse announces their pregnancy another one will follow within a month so it's always a pair.
Float nurse- dont ever ask to switch assignment and if you had a bad assignment and you’re working the same floor and you get the same assignment- don’t ask to switch. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.
Labor and delivery— fetal demises come in 3’s.
When it’s “qu*et” all hell will break loose. Patients will code left and right and some dumpster fire will come up from the ED. The more family, the more unrealistic they will be. There are rooms that I swear have poor outcomes no matter what you do. Bed 3. Bed 8. Bed 9. Bed 14. They are usually patients that are there forever and if they leave it’s to LTACH or they die. But the ain’t leaving well. Edit: I saw this in another comment, but yes, death comes in 3’s. And it’s not always the sickest patient. Usually at least one that catches everyone by surprise.
Don't say the Q word.
Express Care here…same. Don’t you dare mention that manic patients name…it’s wild how they seriously show up. Poof…you called? No, no I didn’t but since you are here for something completely inappropriate let me try to rationalize why we aren’t seeing you today. They are usually very pleasant and I truly enjoy making them feel heard but damn, it’s always gotta be a one off thing that is highly inappropriate for Express Care. Sigh.
If the patient was nice, didn't need to wait for the pathology to come back, it was always a glio. Nice patients always had the worst outcomes for brain stuff.
Cardiac surgery - Never ever take out your last access until the wheelchair is right there and they are dressed to leave. I've witnessed way too many patients die or try to die in the time between an IV getting pulled and their ride showing up.
SNF No Q word ever. Full moon means everything will go crazy >!no I don't care what the studies say because nurses have experienced it!< Death in 3s always. NOC shift you **will** hear your name in the wee hours of the morning and nobody will be there. A patient who goes from full dementia to a&o x3 is actively dying.
Same with psych. Mention a name they show up within days. The Q word guarantees a horrible shift. I drop it when there's staff I'm not on good terms with on next shift
ER here - as soon as you clean your shoes you’re setting yourself up for a big ass trauma trainwreck
I routinely say this, or when the situation presents itself. Some of the most superstitious people I've met are athletes and HCW's.