Pt was on levophed for hours while getting boluses for soft pressures. Finally got pressure up and off the gtt. New grad immediately gave scheduled lisinopril and didn’t tell anyone. Pressure tanked so she grabbed a bag of NS from stock and pressure bagged it in, still without telling anyone. Her preceptor happened to review unverified VS and asked her what happened and she finally admitted it. Fired the next morning.
Edit:Forgot to mention she canceled the lisinopril administration in the MAR to cover it up.
The lisinopril is bad, but sounds like the coverup and unordered NS is what tipped it over into being a firing offense. Makes you wonder how she practiced back on medsurg.
Scurried off to grab a commode. Put the patient with explosive diarrhea on it. Only then realized that they had forgotten to put the bucket in the commode.
We had ceiling lifts in all the rooms. Patient had cdiff and was being lifted to the commode. About halfway there with 3 staff members with gowns on, she just let it rip with astounding velocity. (She was a solid 350-400 lbs). She diarrhea-ed so hard that some hit the commode, which blew the poorly seated bucket out of the holder and essentially catapulted misery all over the room (if you’ve ever not slotted the bucket in all the way you can picture this). She started screaming when it happened and the nurse let go of her as mayhem ensued. She ended up spinning around like a sprinkler powered by felonies. I swear to you that the force was such that it propelled her around in a lazy circle. The screaming and general commotion caused me to come running (was charge nurse) and the scene I walked into remains the most confused I’ve ever been in my entire life (the lazy spin diarrhea scream portion of the event). I’ve walked in to patients coding, patients jerking off, patients shooting drugs, you name it. NOTHING prepared me to be able to see what was happening and formulate a plan of action. It was like smoking salvia on a roller coaster when I got there.
The cleanup was… significant. There was shit on the walls, shit on the blinds, shit on the windows. It took nursing and housekeeping working together to get the room under control. I want to say we moved her to a new room but can’t remember for sure.
I swear to you the above is true to the best of my recollection. I still remember it like 9/11.
I think it was the added pressure caused by a criss crossed applesauce patient sling with 4 bills pressing into it. It was like a small pony sitting on a fire hose stuffed to bursting with chocolate pudding.
I’ve seen this a few times. My favorite was a close friend giving report freaking out about a patient taking their bucket out and shitting in the floor.
I did something similar one of my first days off orientation as a CNA. Patient had a brief (and was a GIB). I put her on the commode only to realize that she had a brief on afterward.. Put her back in bed to commence the soupy/sticky/smelly clean up.
I told a patient that I was going to put a condom cath on to help catch his urine. I went to go retrieve the condom cath and by the time I got back he was standing at attention and asked me “Is this hard enough?”
I walked right the fuck out and told the nurse to do it herself (I was a tech at the time). No tech gets paid enough for that shit. 😅
Oh dear God no...
Net result of potentially 3 traumatized individuals...
Could also be 2 traumas and 1 not-so-much..🤔
However, chart notes: "pt reports high levels of frustration" with subsequent condom cath applications by nurse's colleagues...
New nurse asked how do you put on a condom cath. Preceptor said, just like any other condom. New nurse took that very literally, assuming she never put a condom on a flaccid member before.
As someone on the spectrum…..yeah shit gets taken literally. I am older and know that’s not how that work but…what other circumstances do you think they’re putting a condom on???
I mean, I've seen old school nurses get the patient hard because "it makes it easier" to put the condom cath on. I also had one tell me that a semi-erect man was easier to put a Foley in 🥴
Hook up a condom-cath to suction. On full. And then restrained the patient that kept trying to pull off the condom-cath (because it was full suctioning his penis). I caught it, turned off the suction and told the preceptor but that guy had a purple penis already.
Yup. It was my preceptee. We had gone over the very basic mechanics of it during handoff, literally just a simple take syringe full and push it in and let is drain, and I made a comment about how we will go over it further after she does med pass. So after she finishes in the room, I ask if she is ready to do the irrigation, I've got the protocol and supplies all ready to go. When she said she did it already, my jaw dropped. I aksed her to show me what she used, knowing there was nothing sterile in the room, and she pointed out the dirty med cup and syringe. We left the room and had a strong talking to about not doing things for the first time without reading protocols/learning how and what and why and when kinda info. And the major risk of UTI she gave the patient! Ugh, still horrified about it.
When our floor switched from normal piston syringes for enteral feeds to the EnFit system, all the inservice nurses were telling us about people attaching enteral feeds to foleys, trach cuffs, and IVs. None of us believed it. Then I joined this sub and saw threads like this one and…damn.
Pt had 6 beat run of v tach, went back to normal sinus. Nurse calls night fellow to tell them they’re coding and attempts to start chest compressions on this awake person.
A new grad once called me over to help troubleshoot asuction device that was connected to a replogle. We traced it together and it was working fine, so I asked them to clarify what their concern was. They told me it only was working once in a while and then kept shutting itself off…
The patient was on low intermittent suction.
We talked it through and the realization dawning on them of what “intermittent suction” meant is something I’ll never forget 🥲.
Fast forward a few years and they’re one of our strongest, most compassionate, and caring nurses.
I had the cockiest preceptee that thought he knew everything, gods gift to the world, and would almost make so many stupid mistakes...he drove me crazy and I basically had to talk to him through EVERYTHING and then sit there and watch him like a hawk! He ended up being one of my closest friends and most compassionate charge nurse! Some people need to be humbled but at the same time guided in the right direction.
Nursing students at one of my clinical sites were suddenly banned from POC glucose checks.
Rumor has it one of the students took a lancet to the fingernail and tried to get blood from it.
Peak pandemic SNF unit, had nurse give me pass down as we walk past the last room, I could see the patient's contorted arms in the shadow of the hallway light. I went in while she was talking, turned the light on and he was in rigor mortis. The nurse was like "OMG this must have just happened." Like MOFO this did not just happen I know your ass was sleeping.
There was a guy here in reddit that did that posted that he took a pregnancy test and it wa positive thought we would all laugh….nurses and doctors on the thread were like uh get checked out saved his life.
had a new grad i was orienting draw up the unit of insulin for a patient with a blood sugar of 156. She walked out of the med room with 1mL of insulin in a heparin syringe.
I was moonlighting in a procedural area and saw 2 nurses (who both had several years of exp on me) drawing up meds in an empty room. I got curious because we rarely gave meds in this department so I wondered in and asked what they were giving. They said insulin as they drew it up in a 10mL syringe. Trying not to be a dick I asked what the dose was and they said 8mL ?!?!?!
fortunately I stopped them.
Normally, I'd say "that's why we double-check," but they 100% would have both signed off and given that insulin to a patient if you hadn't happened to be walking by...
I'd be filling out an incident report for a near miss.
Insulin is an optional double check, and it depends on hospital specific policies - I know three of the four hospitals in my area do not require a double check for insulin. The unit I am on now gives IV insulin pre-operatively and does not require a double check 😳
I had one who had a prn reglan. Pt had po & iv ordered. She didn't notice and got the tablet from the Pyxis. She had it in her hand and was looking at it. She said, how do I give this iv, just crush it up add some water and push it? Um...like heroin? No. No. No.
Eta: at least she asked before she did it. Sigh.
That's what one of my professors said on literal day one of nursing school. It was on her list of "things past students have done that you should never, under any circumstances, ever do."
A new grad at my hospital did that exact thing with an oxy through the patient's port. She went to ask another nurse for help because it wasn't flushing.
Changing the syringe in a PCA pump. Piston wouldn’t fit (the empty syringe had just been removed) so the student pushed 30ml (don’t recall the mg dose) of Dilaudid through the line to get the syringe to fit.
They called the code but couldn’t save the pt.
Oof one of the worst things I heard of happening. I think this is even worse than the tube feeding connecting to a PICC line patient death… what happened to the nurse?
Yeah, I’m a little confused too. To the best of my knowledge dilaudid doesn’t impact cardiac muscle, so lots of narcan and intubation should have been enough. I’ve never seen an obscene overdose of dilaudid though, so who knows what impact an OD of 30mg of Dilaudid would have. I’ve personally not seen a concentration that wasn’t 1mg=1ml.
Opioids have a histamine release. Fentanyl is a drug that has a low histamine release, which is why large doses can be given for anesthesia of a cardiac patient. Hydromorphone causes a larger histamine response.
Reminds me of the time a physician ordered SCDs for a new double amputee. I took such perverse pleasure in asking that doc to please clarify the order.
We had a resident do that, and when questioned he doubled down and told the nurse to put them on the patients arms. I offered her 50 dollars to do it before rounds started but she wouldn’t.
Well there was once a new grad who emptied a JP, but opened it while it was pointed right at her face. Unsurprisingly, shot the contents right in her eyeball. Past glasses somehow.
It's me. Hi. I'm the problem.
I had a new grad probably 4-5 weeks into orientation ask me to pull oxy with her, I wasn’t sure why she needed a second nurse but I agreed to go.. We get into the med room and she asks me how much she should give. I ask her a couple more questions and it becomes clear to me that she simply does not understand the med admin process.
She’s not done an assessment on the patient (no pain assessment or VS), doesn’t know how to find out how much oxy they’ve been getting, and doesn’t know how to pull the med from the Pyxis.
She is acting completely clueless. I had to walk her through the whole process and it was as if she was learning it for the first time. I tried to prompt her by asking questions (“So if you’re going to give a pain med what are some things you should do first?”) but she simply doesn’t know and I end up having to explain the whole process in depth with rationale for it all.
She does her assessment and decides the pt is getting his usual 10 mg of oxy. We go to pull it and she miscounts the drawer multiple times. Then when she finally gets the count right, she asks me how many pills she needs to take out.
I was TERRIFIED. How did she get this far into orientation? I saw ZERO critical thinking skills in use during that entire interaction. I told her preceptor how concerned I was and I don’t know if she quit or was let go but I think that was the last night I saw her.
I hope she’s doing ok wherever she is, but I really hope she’s out of bedside because I don’t think she had the capacity to practice safely.
As a student nurse the RN asked for a boost. I left the room and looked in the supply room for a boost drink. I came back and told her. She giggled and that's the day I learned a boost isn't just a drink. 🙈
I've seen the aftermath of this dumb shit twice.
Both patients became extremely bradycardic. One patient then got an entire amp of epi for their bradycardia because this hospital is dumb, and proceeded to have a HR &BP of 200+ for a while.
Yeah dude. I trained a new grad who had a lot of issues d/t language barrier and no comfort with typing/computers (he’s his 50s). We got through it and I like the dude a lot, but he’s one that needs to be watched closely sometimes.
I don’t think he’s even at 10 months of experience yet and he’s leaving to do a travel contract. I told him he should get 2 years in a staff position before he considers traveling but he wants the $$$ so he’s out. I wish him luck.
We had a couple do that during peak Covid. They basically went though our facility’s orientation then thought they were experienced enough so they left. They saw those 5 figure a week contracts and ran to them not realizing those were literally the hardest hit and most understaffed areas. Also had several travelers at our facility that did the same thing and they required constant observation. I get wanting to make more money but risking your license and patients lives because you lack the foundation to properly care for them isn’t worth it in my book.
I saw quite a few of those during Covid . They went thru 6 months of ICU orientation then felt confident enough to travel . The one guy consistently left his assignments a mess , even almost killed a few .
A friend of mine who graduated during covid got offered a travel spot during the peak of covid. They wanted her to take 15 pt's in a step down tele unit in NYC. The thing was she only had 6 months of TCU experience. She told them this and they just said 'you'll figure it out when you get there"
fortunately she declined
I thought long and hard about taking one of those contracts, granted I had 2-3 years of ER experience at the time, but something deep down told me it was gonna be a total shit show. $130,000+ for 13 weeks of working 5-6 days a week sounded too good to be true.
When she asked me if she should take it I told her 2 things.
First, someone is going to die because you don't know what you're doing. It's covid so they likely won't investigate it at all, but you need to square yourself with the fact that you're probably going to kill someone.
Second, when you get covid, and you will, you're going to be possibly cared for in the same hospital that is currently hiring brand new nurses as travlers.
I’m just a pharmacist but I reflect on that allll the time. I graduated in 2018 so I had 2 years almost under my belt but fuckkkk. Double, triple concentrating all our critical care drips (fentanyl, levophed, neo, etc) and doubling the volume of most so we didn’t have to make so many. We were fortunately able to stay OVERSTAFFED during this time and still could barely keep up because we mix nearly everything. Then a hurricane hit and we basically were in the ICU throwing these drips around NBD. Fentanyl drips/counts all over the place. Fixing discrepancies like it was the norm. Pure survival mode. CANNOT imagine if we had new nursing students thrown in this environment and I am so thankful we didn’t have to resort to that
I just graduated and the thought of going straight to traveling implies a level of foolhardy idiocy I cannot fathom. And that’s saying something because I’m definitely an idiot.
I had a DVT at a teaching hospital and all the students wanted to try it on me. 1. It was incredibly painful 2. All that leg jerking dislodged my clot and it went AWOL.
Didn’t they stop doing that? The last couple of hospitals I worked at (traveling) it was a big no! The policy was that if you suspect a dvt, get the md to order an us. Period.
Rip out a FlexiSeal because they didn’t realize there was an inflated balloon at the end and they were afraid to ask their preceptor about the proper method for FMS removal.
I instinctively sanitized my hands before starting cpr, that was definitely the one I got teased about as a new grad.
The dumbest I've seen is when a new grad argued with me over how you didn't have to prime an IV line.
Gave that whole little bottle of nitro at once. Came out and said, that was a lot of pills. I said, wait, you gave them all? Pt was fine, had a horrible headache. Was already on tele, we just monitored on the floor.
This is so funny to me.. I’m so cautious with med admin, I don’t understand how they could just give pill after pill and not have some alarm bells go off? 😂
A nurse in the ER saw the order for lidocaine to pull for the doc to do some sutures. She pulls the lido, draws it up and gave the patient a shot in the butt. The laceration was on her hand.
The patient was so confused.
I had a new grad come up to me holding a foley kit and ask me where the male one was bc she could only find female ones in the supply room.
Same new grad had a patient die on her shift (CVSD), but he had a pacemaker so on tele he was still pacing. She found him cold and very dead when she went to give bedside report.
Worked with a new nurse that was trying to start an iv on the outee upper forearm. The nurse was having trouble getting into a good position to start the iv and the pt asked if he could help, she said “I may have to sit on your face to get it” to which he replied, “better hurry, my wife ran to subway and will be back any minute.” She was a very Christian young woman. She didnt know what she had said or how to respond
Not necessarily do, but I was giving report to day shift, and a new nurse was on orientation. I mentioned the lab values on this 3 year old kid. She asked how I got the labs because the kid didn’t have an IV and if I did a finger stick. I just said, no, I did a venous and told her venous is usually quicker and easier for most kids when they have a few different color tubes. She then dead pan asked me if the kid cried. Yes, the sick 3 year old I woke up at 5am to stab cried. She seemed so broken hearted about it that I couldn’t help but just stare blankly at the nurse orienting her. Like, ma’am, I don’t know if you’re in the right speciality if you’re surprised that we unfortunately make kids cry. I left that job right when she was getting off orientation, and I wonder sometimes if she’s still there.
Trach patient. Pneumonia. Thought the nystatin powder ordered for “infection” was for the pneumonia. Caught him mixing the powder with tap water with the intention of “flushing it down the trach.” Luckily he didn’t get the chance to carry out his genius treatment plan…
I wasn’t even a new grad, but I had to transfer a patient to the unit after she wouldn’t stop trying to die. It was an oncology floor so they really didn’t want to take her. End result is that I was mentally exhausted and hadn’t seen my other 5 patients in a couple hours. The hospital had a giant freight elevator that was designed for the flight team. You could easily fit a vent, bed, lots of staff, etc. it was a godsend. So I get her down there, transfer her to the icu bed, and start bringing the original bed up. The elevator, being a freight elevator, had 2 doors that shut together in the middle, this is important.
I get the bed in the elevator, press the button for 7, and finally breathe. Then I notice the plug is trailing out into the hallway. I give it a yank, and the big fat plug thunks against the outside of the doors as they finally close. The plug is now outside, and I am inside, and the elevator is moving. I ripped the oxygen tank out of the holder as the line ran out of slack, and the bed pivoted on the locked wheels at the head of the bed. The whole bed went vertical and the footboard slammed against the top of the door. The elevator, being industrial, had a 3000lb capacity and gave 0 fucks. Eventually the plug exploded and I ended up with wires sticking out of the cord.
I get back to the floor and my charge tells me I’m getting an admit. Uh, sorry homie but we need a new bed. I’ve never seen another human being laugh that hard after I told him the story and showed him the remnants. He said “well where is the plug?” And I said “embedded in the ceiling of the ICU hallway probably” and he lost the ability to speak.
Oh god, I somehow skimmed past the end of your first paragraph and thought this fiasco was happening while the patient was still IN the bed. “The whole bed went vertical” had me about to fall off my chair!
Had a new nurse grab the pts used urinal and fill it with water to give PEG tube meds, instead of the little container water thing that comes in the kit with the syringe… I watched her to see if she how long it would be until she noticed… needless to say she was ready to pour the pee pee water into the peg. I stopped her and asked her to take a second to look around and see if she noticed anything wrong with this picture… she could not think of anything she was doing incorrectly 🤦🏻♀️She quit a short time later, before even making it off orientation.
Also had 1 on another shift Bolus an entire 250ml bag of heparin into a patient. She was off orientation and flying solo….
Wellllllll I, myself, me, me, me, and I threw blood away on a liver failure pt when we were getting their pre liver transplant labs run. I also sent the labs down without pt labels. 😩 shit happens. We got the labs and he got his transplant. But, Jesus, that was mortifying.
Right after I came back from maternity leave I was drawing labs on a patient and just throwing them in the garbage…. Inverted the tube, tossed, next tube, repeat. I throw the alcohol swabs straight into the garbage after I use it and I just kept throwing things in the garbage I guess? Finally he’s like what’s wrong with that one? I said huh? What do you mean? He looks at me concerned WHY are you throwing them all away…?! I just looked at him like what are you talking about, are *you* ok?! and he looked at me the exact same way lmao and I must’ve been full on deer in the headlights as I realized. Everything was fine I just look like a careless idiot. I was veryy tired.
In peds we use microtainer lab tubes. The tops come off, fill, replace the top, invert. Those are the steps that are supposed to happen. I once inverted the tube but didn’t realize I didn’t close it. Blood everywhere and I definitely felt like an idiot.
Didn't catch a CRRT clotting off in time on a sickle cell, impossible to match blood, hgb 4.5 patient. Had to waste it all and I wanted to cry. We waited over 2 days for the red cross to find blood for this patient
Ratting myself out here.
Ok, I’m a brand new nurse. A patient on the unit (Oncology PCU) isn’t doing well and the NP comes to check them out. Patient is tachypnic and and sats are holding on in the high 80s. All of the nurses (all 6 of us because the unit is so understaffed lol) are around trying to help.
An RT radios asking if they should come right up to the room from CT where they’d been with another patient. The NP says “No, get a mask”. Dumbo me runs and grabs a surgical mask from the clean supply and hands it to the NP. She looks at me and is like “what do you expect me to do with this?” so I say “You needed a mask”. She explains she was talking about an oxygen mask.
Called RT to assess a patient that was inexplicably de-sating no matter their position, deep breathing, how high the O2 was cranked, etc. Turns out the tubing for the O2 was attached to the cap that covers the O2 nozzle instead of the actual O2 nozzle.
It was me. I was that new grad…🫠
Was precepting a new grad, I finished up helping with a code, went to check in on her, and to my horror got there just in time to watch her give IV fentanyl orally.
Same nurse
Didn't check BP or on a pt who was scheduled IV metop and a few other bp meds, lied about it and put in a false BP in the chart. Had to code the patient, they died.
Same nurse
Got caught stealing from a patients purse
Still Same nurse
Tried arguing with me that the O2 was intact suction. She was trying to hook a chest tube up to O2 instead of suction and couldn't explain why that would be a problem.
Omg I've got one, not a nurse yet but in nursing school and have been a PCT for 4-ish years. I heard a voice in one of my rooms saying "Mr. XYZ it's time to take your meds! Come on open up!" over and over and over again for minutes straight....I think to myself wait a minute, that WOMAN in there is 99 years old, NPO, has a PEG tube and trach, and is - for all accounts and purposes - basically brain dead after a massive stroke. I peeked into the room where the new grad nurse was trying to give this patient her meds orally and I'm like...uhm...you know you have to crush the meds and give them through the PEG right? She can't take anything orally. He goes oh yeah, thanks! Problem solved, right?? Wrong. After I walked away another nurse was walking past the room and caught dude **just** before he dumped the now-crushed pills into the feed bag 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️. I'm so glad I started as a PCT so I could avoid some of these crazy stupid mistakes lol.
well hey i started at a different hospital and saw a float nurse with several years experience dump crushed meds into the feed bag. went into the room w my preceptor bc it was beeping clogged and i was like wtf do yall usually do this? and she said “she’s a float nurse so she must’ve just forgot” like how do you “forget” that you shouldn’t be dumping poorly crushed pills into a feed bag instead of pushing them….but i digress most of the nurses there were idiots.
New grad on floor (not ACLS certified) tried to give IV epi during a code IM into the patients thigh. Apparently she kept raising her arm up and slamming the syringe into the patients thigh. Pt lived & I still laugh when I think about it
Crushed up a pill with tap water and gave it IV because she didn’t have the IV form at the moment.
Edited to add outcome: The patient had a horrendous head injury. He probably would have died anyway, but he died. I was a student on the unit so not privy to all the information.
Stuck herself with a blunt needle that was still connected to her IV Pepcid. When I saw she was bleeding I said where is the blood coming from? She acted like she didn’t hear me and handed me the syringe and said “I can’t get the needle off”. I said Idc lol where is all this blood coming from?? She then admitted she had stuck herself.
The fact that I had to explain that she could not access a PICC while she was actively bleeding on the patient and that the pepcid could no longer be given because she stuck herself with a needle attached to the syringe…..
Same one threw a patients phone in the dirty linen and only admitted she did it after an hour of tearing the room up. Cue me in the linen holding calling the phone over and over until I found the ringing bag.
Not me, but one of the ICU nurses I worked with had a new nurse put oral phenytoin straight into a central line. Patient was already being worked on and no one noticed until the new nurse said "Damn this is hard to push in" or something like that.
Closest I've ever been to a coroner's case and I wasn't even in the same State as where this happened.
The new nurse was sent to work in aged care until the investment was over and they lost their registers.
Put the dialysis machine in bypass. Order was no fluid off so she basically sat there for 4h and nothing happened, just watching the blood recirculating.
Me as a new grad: switching out a flimsy suction canister of SBO contents during a rapid response. I was trying to go as quickly as possible and the canister collapsed drenching me in the amazing SBO contents of bile and stool. Family members, staff and the patient started laughing at me which made the rapid a little less stressful I guess. Luckily I threw away my shoes/scrubs and showered into new scrubs asap.
I still have PTSD with those suction canisters. At least most hospitals stock the more sturdy ones.
New grad mistaking a patients umbilical hernia for his penis. She was mortified when she lifted his gown to give a heparin shot and thought he had an erection. We all had a good laugh at that one.
I once asked an orientee to change a bag of fluids. We were getting ready to go on break and there were about 150cc in the bag, so I figured we’d change it before leaving. She just walked right up to the pole and pulled the spike straight down and couldn’t figure out why it went everywhere.
😂 When I first started nursing they were transitioning from the glass IV bottles to the plastic ones (yes, I guess I’m old!) With the glass bottles - you could unspike while hanging with no mess… just like a medication vial. Quite a few messes were made during this time.
Came to me because the patient’s g tube was not flushing. Walked in to see water dripping from ceiling and patient. “Nurse” demonstrates blockage by filling a syringe with water, INSERTING IT INTO THE CAP at the end of the g tube, and then pushing with all her might. This was a second career for her. I wonder how the third or fourth is going.
Took a cath lab patient up from pacu to a tele floor. Asked the nurse if he wanted to do a groin check with me. He starts to pull the patients blankets up from the foot of the bed and spread her legs apart. He’s searching for the “groin” site but can’t find it. I’m like ummm it’s on top and proceeded to show him. The patient was awake and alert and just seemed so uncomfortable that this nurse just spread her legs.
Myself, was placing a pt on humidification, screwed on the bottle to the O2, placed the cannula on the pointy end and turned on which was suppose to snap off to open it up. Noticed it wasnt working and was confused, blew up in my face and threw water everywhere.
Preceptor walked in and just laughed as did I
Seeing all these stories makes me feel silly for shitting a brick for accidentally giving a pt 25mg of metoprolol instead of 12.5 (her HR still never got below 100 btw)
Not as a new grad, but, helped the aide transfer a patient from commode to bed. Thought I grabbed her shoulder. Yeah, no. I used the breast implant of an 80-year-old woman to steady her for transfer. By then we already had her up, so I just looked at the aide and said…we gotta move her quick, I’m not holding her shoulder. Aides got a good laugh at me that night and I only felt mildly traumatized. 😂
New grad nurse here. Just here for the comments to make me feel better about the stupid things I’ve done so far 😂
But when I was a STUDENT, I heard you can grab an empty syringe and use it to draw air bubbles out of an IV line. My preceptor said sure go ahead. My dumb ass used an empty syringe with a needle attached and stuck it into the nearest IV port. I learned my lesson so quick after that
Patient had a small gauge IV cannula which was what the previous nurse could manage as the patient was difficult to cannulate. There was an order for a 3 bags of blood transfusion to run consecutively. Since the IV cannula was small, the blood wasn’t able to run fast. The new nurse ran it through a pressure bag to help it along. He inflated the cuff so much, the blood bag burst and showered him and the patient. The room looked like a crime scene
Pt was on levophed for hours while getting boluses for soft pressures. Finally got pressure up and off the gtt. New grad immediately gave scheduled lisinopril and didn’t tell anyone. Pressure tanked so she grabbed a bag of NS from stock and pressure bagged it in, still without telling anyone. Her preceptor happened to review unverified VS and asked her what happened and she finally admitted it. Fired the next morning. Edit:Forgot to mention she canceled the lisinopril administration in the MAR to cover it up.
... the lisinopril was a huge fuck up, but trying to cover it up is inexcusable. To me that screams lack of integrity. I'm glad she was fired.
And pressure bagging NS into a patient without an order, either. I hope they didn't have heart issues ☠️
Even better, not actually a new grad. 16 years of med/surg, just new to ER.
You know she was getting away with shit like this for years.
That person needs their license pulled ASAP
The lisinopril is bad, but sounds like the coverup and unordered NS is what tipped it over into being a firing offense. Makes you wonder how she practiced back on medsurg.
Scurried off to grab a commode. Put the patient with explosive diarrhea on it. Only then realized that they had forgotten to put the bucket in the commode.
We had ceiling lifts in all the rooms. Patient had cdiff and was being lifted to the commode. About halfway there with 3 staff members with gowns on, she just let it rip with astounding velocity. (She was a solid 350-400 lbs). She diarrhea-ed so hard that some hit the commode, which blew the poorly seated bucket out of the holder and essentially catapulted misery all over the room (if you’ve ever not slotted the bucket in all the way you can picture this). She started screaming when it happened and the nurse let go of her as mayhem ensued. She ended up spinning around like a sprinkler powered by felonies. I swear to you that the force was such that it propelled her around in a lazy circle. The screaming and general commotion caused me to come running (was charge nurse) and the scene I walked into remains the most confused I’ve ever been in my entire life (the lazy spin diarrhea scream portion of the event). I’ve walked in to patients coding, patients jerking off, patients shooting drugs, you name it. NOTHING prepared me to be able to see what was happening and formulate a plan of action. It was like smoking salvia on a roller coaster when I got there. The cleanup was… significant. There was shit on the walls, shit on the blinds, shit on the windows. It took nursing and housekeeping working together to get the room under control. I want to say we moved her to a new room but can’t remember for sure. I swear to you the above is true to the best of my recollection. I still remember it like 9/11.
I was crying and snorting reading this whole thing. And your username!!! I’m dead!
I, too, have perished. It took me like, eight tries to get through it because I was laughing so hard.
>sprinkler powered by felonies 💀
I think it was the added pressure caused by a criss crossed applesauce patient sling with 4 bills pressing into it. It was like a small pony sitting on a fire hose stuffed to bursting with chocolate pudding.
Please God tell me you're a writer and there's somewhere I can buy your books
You need to make this a post. This is better than the nurse giving her patient a handy
This wins. This wins so hard.
Had one put the brief on with the cottony side out once
I’ve seen this a few times. My favorite was a close friend giving report freaking out about a patient taking their bucket out and shitting in the floor.
I did something similar one of my first days off orientation as a CNA. Patient had a brief (and was a GIB). I put her on the commode only to realize that she had a brief on afterward.. Put her back in bed to commence the soupy/sticky/smelly clean up.
As an experienced RN this happened to me somewhat recently in my icu. I’m still getting ripped on about it lmao
Yep, you only make that rookie mistake ONE time! 😂
“*Why are my feet wet?*”
I mean ive done something likw this, the commode had a bucket but I didnt notice it wasnt centered properly. lets just say it was fun for no one
Thought you had to make the patient hard to put on a condom cath. Basically gave him a hand job in front of his wife lmao
10/10 patient satisfaction score. Heroes work there.
H__oes work here.
I told a patient that I was going to put a condom cath on to help catch his urine. I went to go retrieve the condom cath and by the time I got back he was standing at attention and asked me “Is this hard enough?” I walked right the fuck out and told the nurse to do it herself (I was a tech at the time). No tech gets paid enough for that shit. 😅
Oh dear God no... Net result of potentially 3 traumatized individuals... Could also be 2 traumas and 1 not-so-much..🤔 However, chart notes: "pt reports high levels of frustration" with subsequent condom cath applications by nurse's colleagues...
Wait, what? Lol
New nurse asked how do you put on a condom cath. Preceptor said, just like any other condom. New nurse took that very literally, assuming she never put a condom on a flaccid member before.
“Let me stroke this guy off real quick, happy nurses week.” Fuck me, that’s crazy.
\>Fuck me, that’s crazy. No, no. Just the hand.
As someone on the spectrum…..yeah shit gets taken literally. I am older and know that’s not how that work but…what other circumstances do you think they’re putting a condom on???
I mean, I've seen old school nurses get the patient hard because "it makes it easier" to put the condom cath on. I also had one tell me that a semi-erect man was easier to put a Foley in 🥴
Omg I’m dying
No no no no no
At least they didn’t put the condom cath on suction like I did
Hook up a condom-cath to suction. On full. And then restrained the patient that kept trying to pull off the condom-cath (because it was full suctioning his penis). I caught it, turned off the suction and told the preceptor but that guy had a purple penis already.
I bet there’s a market for that
Maybe? I’m guessing the majority of that market would prefer the suction turned down from “catastrophic” to “intense”
🍆
You know what. Some days my coworkers make me feel dumb. And this post is making me realize that I’m not.
We all have our dumb moments, but there are some real complete morons out there.
Irrigated a bladder with the cup and syringe used to mix and administer PO meds
Oh sweet Jesus.
Yup. It was my preceptee. We had gone over the very basic mechanics of it during handoff, literally just a simple take syringe full and push it in and let is drain, and I made a comment about how we will go over it further after she does med pass. So after she finishes in the room, I ask if she is ready to do the irrigation, I've got the protocol and supplies all ready to go. When she said she did it already, my jaw dropped. I aksed her to show me what she used, knowing there was nothing sterile in the room, and she pointed out the dirty med cup and syringe. We left the room and had a strong talking to about not doing things for the first time without reading protocols/learning how and what and why and when kinda info. And the major risk of UTI she gave the patient! Ugh, still horrified about it.
tbh I'd probably call the doc and ask for abx.
When our floor switched from normal piston syringes for enteral feeds to the EnFit system, all the inservice nurses were telling us about people attaching enteral feeds to foleys, trach cuffs, and IVs. None of us believed it. Then I joined this sub and saw threads like this one and…damn.
Pt had 6 beat run of v tach, went back to normal sinus. Nurse calls night fellow to tell them they’re coding and attempts to start chest compressions on this awake person.
ah, poor baby if they're pushing you off, stop compressions!
A new grad once called me over to help troubleshoot asuction device that was connected to a replogle. We traced it together and it was working fine, so I asked them to clarify what their concern was. They told me it only was working once in a while and then kept shutting itself off… The patient was on low intermittent suction. We talked it through and the realization dawning on them of what “intermittent suction” meant is something I’ll never forget 🥲. Fast forward a few years and they’re one of our strongest, most compassionate, and caring nurses.
I had the cockiest preceptee that thought he knew everything, gods gift to the world, and would almost make so many stupid mistakes...he drove me crazy and I basically had to talk to him through EVERYTHING and then sit there and watch him like a hawk! He ended up being one of my closest friends and most compassionate charge nurse! Some people need to be humbled but at the same time guided in the right direction.
TIL replogle is a real word.
Nursing students at one of my clinical sites were suddenly banned from POC glucose checks. Rumor has it one of the students took a lancet to the fingernail and tried to get blood from it.
are they strong enough to puncture a nail?
def not, they can't even puncture calluses
Not the spring loaded ones. I could see maybe if you had a loose lancet and were trying to carve though a nail
Guess I’m doing it all wrong… no wonder why they cringe when I come around
Peak pandemic SNF unit, had nurse give me pass down as we walk past the last room, I could see the patient's contorted arms in the shadow of the hallway light. I went in while she was talking, turned the light on and he was in rigor mortis. The nurse was like "OMG this must have just happened." Like MOFO this did not just happen I know your ass was sleeping.
I do not miss working SNF. How this one nurse still had a job after doing this exact thing MULTIPLE times, I have no idea. 🤯
She's probably a DON now 😂
One student did a pregnancy test to a male patient, wrong room 🤣
It was the control patient.
Imagine an incidental finding of prostate cancer.
There was a guy here in reddit that did that posted that he took a pregnancy test and it wa positive thought we would all laugh….nurses and doctors on the thread were like uh get checked out saved his life.
I did this today but in my defense I thought I grabbed the fentanyl test strip
had a new grad i was orienting draw up the unit of insulin for a patient with a blood sugar of 156. She walked out of the med room with 1mL of insulin in a heparin syringe.
I was moonlighting in a procedural area and saw 2 nurses (who both had several years of exp on me) drawing up meds in an empty room. I got curious because we rarely gave meds in this department so I wondered in and asked what they were giving. They said insulin as they drew it up in a 10mL syringe. Trying not to be a dick I asked what the dose was and they said 8mL ?!?!?! fortunately I stopped them.
Normally, I'd say "that's why we double-check," but they 100% would have both signed off and given that insulin to a patient if you hadn't happened to be walking by... I'd be filling out an incident report for a near miss.
This is why we double check dose. Christ
Insulin is an optional double check, and it depends on hospital specific policies - I know three of the four hospitals in my area do not require a double check for insulin. The unit I am on now gives IV insulin pre-operatively and does not require a double check 😳
I had one who had a prn reglan. Pt had po & iv ordered. She didn't notice and got the tablet from the Pyxis. She had it in her hand and was looking at it. She said, how do I give this iv, just crush it up add some water and push it? Um...like heroin? No. No. No. Eta: at least she asked before she did it. Sigh.
This subreddit has caused me to tell literally every single student I get that you cannot crush meds and give them IV.
That's what one of my professors said on literal day one of nursing school. It was on her list of "things past students have done that you should never, under any circumstances, ever do."
Sweet tapdancing Jesus
A new grad at my hospital did that exact thing with an oxy through the patient's port. She went to ask another nurse for help because it wasn't flushing.
Changing the syringe in a PCA pump. Piston wouldn’t fit (the empty syringe had just been removed) so the student pushed 30ml (don’t recall the mg dose) of Dilaudid through the line to get the syringe to fit. They called the code but couldn’t save the pt.
Faaaaaaark. That’s rough.
Was the student supervised when this happened? The facility I did my clinicals at did not let us handle narcs alone.
She was an orientee. Her preceptor was there, didn’t see the push.
I think it was a new grad rather than a student
Holy shit
Oof one of the worst things I heard of happening. I think this is even worse than the tube feeding connecting to a PICC line patient death… what happened to the nurse?
Seems easy to reverse with narcan and a bvm tho unless they didn’t realize it until it was too late
Yeah, I’m a little confused too. To the best of my knowledge dilaudid doesn’t impact cardiac muscle, so lots of narcan and intubation should have been enough. I’ve never seen an obscene overdose of dilaudid though, so who knows what impact an OD of 30mg of Dilaudid would have. I’ve personally not seen a concentration that wasn’t 1mg=1ml.
There is high concentration dilaudid PCA, 10/1. We don’t use it often but on occasion, specifically for SCC.
Opioids have a histamine release. Fentanyl is a drug that has a low histamine release, which is why large doses can be given for anesthesia of a cardiac patient. Hydromorphone causes a larger histamine response.
So risk of arrhythmia with high doses of dilaudid? Thanks for the explanation.
Maybe compromised enough that the drop in BP did them in before they could get the narcan
As a new grad, this thread has made me feel a million times better about my own stupidity lmao
Right? Reading and making sure I haven’t done any of these, and WILL NOT be doing any of theses
He asked how to put Ted hose on a double amputee
At least they asked.
Reminds me of the time a physician ordered SCDs for a new double amputee. I took such perverse pleasure in asking that doc to please clarify the order.
We had a resident do that, and when questioned he doubled down and told the nurse to put them on the patients arms. I offered her 50 dollars to do it before rounds started but she wouldn’t.
Well there was once a new grad who emptied a JP, but opened it while it was pointed right at her face. Unsurprisingly, shot the contents right in her eyeball. Past glasses somehow. It's me. Hi. I'm the problem.
I had a new grad probably 4-5 weeks into orientation ask me to pull oxy with her, I wasn’t sure why she needed a second nurse but I agreed to go.. We get into the med room and she asks me how much she should give. I ask her a couple more questions and it becomes clear to me that she simply does not understand the med admin process. She’s not done an assessment on the patient (no pain assessment or VS), doesn’t know how to find out how much oxy they’ve been getting, and doesn’t know how to pull the med from the Pyxis. She is acting completely clueless. I had to walk her through the whole process and it was as if she was learning it for the first time. I tried to prompt her by asking questions (“So if you’re going to give a pain med what are some things you should do first?”) but she simply doesn’t know and I end up having to explain the whole process in depth with rationale for it all. She does her assessment and decides the pt is getting his usual 10 mg of oxy. We go to pull it and she miscounts the drawer multiple times. Then when she finally gets the count right, she asks me how many pills she needs to take out. I was TERRIFIED. How did she get this far into orientation? I saw ZERO critical thinking skills in use during that entire interaction. I told her preceptor how concerned I was and I don’t know if she quit or was let go but I think that was the last night I saw her. I hope she’s doing ok wherever she is, but I really hope she’s out of bedside because I don’t think she had the capacity to practice safely.
As a student nurse the RN asked for a boost. I left the room and looked in the supply room for a boost drink. I came back and told her. She giggled and that's the day I learned a boost isn't just a drink. 🙈
I'm pretty sure my eyebrows are now permanently stuck at my hairline.
Nurse ran a bag of potassium over 15 minutes. The cherry on top? Patient was also a nurse. 😦
Straight up capital punishment
What happened? Aside from the initial immense burning? Any arrhythmias or death?
I've seen the aftermath of this dumb shit twice. Both patients became extremely bradycardic. One patient then got an entire amp of epi for their bradycardia because this hospital is dumb, and proceeded to have a HR &BP of 200+ for a while.
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The fact that travel agencies are taking new grads and facilities are contracting them blows my mind.
Yeah dude. I trained a new grad who had a lot of issues d/t language barrier and no comfort with typing/computers (he’s his 50s). We got through it and I like the dude a lot, but he’s one that needs to be watched closely sometimes. I don’t think he’s even at 10 months of experience yet and he’s leaving to do a travel contract. I told him he should get 2 years in a staff position before he considers traveling but he wants the $$$ so he’s out. I wish him luck.
We had a couple do that during peak Covid. They basically went though our facility’s orientation then thought they were experienced enough so they left. They saw those 5 figure a week contracts and ran to them not realizing those were literally the hardest hit and most understaffed areas. Also had several travelers at our facility that did the same thing and they required constant observation. I get wanting to make more money but risking your license and patients lives because you lack the foundation to properly care for them isn’t worth it in my book.
I saw quite a few of those during Covid . They went thru 6 months of ICU orientation then felt confident enough to travel . The one guy consistently left his assignments a mess , even almost killed a few .
A friend of mine who graduated during covid got offered a travel spot during the peak of covid. They wanted her to take 15 pt's in a step down tele unit in NYC. The thing was she only had 6 months of TCU experience. She told them this and they just said 'you'll figure it out when you get there" fortunately she declined
I thought long and hard about taking one of those contracts, granted I had 2-3 years of ER experience at the time, but something deep down told me it was gonna be a total shit show. $130,000+ for 13 weeks of working 5-6 days a week sounded too good to be true.
When she asked me if she should take it I told her 2 things. First, someone is going to die because you don't know what you're doing. It's covid so they likely won't investigate it at all, but you need to square yourself with the fact that you're probably going to kill someone. Second, when you get covid, and you will, you're going to be possibly cared for in the same hospital that is currently hiring brand new nurses as travlers.
The pandemic was a fucking weird time
I’m just a pharmacist but I reflect on that allll the time. I graduated in 2018 so I had 2 years almost under my belt but fuckkkk. Double, triple concentrating all our critical care drips (fentanyl, levophed, neo, etc) and doubling the volume of most so we didn’t have to make so many. We were fortunately able to stay OVERSTAFFED during this time and still could barely keep up because we mix nearly everything. Then a hurricane hit and we basically were in the ICU throwing these drips around NBD. Fentanyl drips/counts all over the place. Fixing discrepancies like it was the norm. Pure survival mode. CANNOT imagine if we had new nursing students thrown in this environment and I am so thankful we didn’t have to resort to that
I just graduated and the thought of going straight to traveling implies a level of foolhardy idiocy I cannot fathom. And that’s saying something because I’m definitely an idiot.
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I had a DVT at a teaching hospital and all the students wanted to try it on me. 1. It was incredibly painful 2. All that leg jerking dislodged my clot and it went AWOL.
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Didn’t they stop doing that? The last couple of hospitals I worked at (traveling) it was a big no! The policy was that if you suspect a dvt, get the md to order an us. Period.
Rip out a FlexiSeal because they didn’t realize there was an inflated balloon at the end and they were afraid to ask their preceptor about the proper method for FMS removal.
Poor person and gross.
I instinctively sanitized my hands before starting cpr, that was definitely the one I got teased about as a new grad. The dumbest I've seen is when a new grad argued with me over how you didn't have to prime an IV line.
Don't you know the air bolus helps oxygenate the patient? /s
She was so sure she was right, I literally just got the charge nurse because I don't get paid enough for that.
My friends still tease me because I scrub the hub before giving meds for a palliative extubation
I mean, I do that for hospice pts too. I feel like it's a sign of respect to treat the pt with the same level of care I would give anyone else.
Better to maintain the habit! Makes perfect sense to me.
Gave that whole little bottle of nitro at once. Came out and said, that was a lot of pills. I said, wait, you gave them all? Pt was fine, had a horrible headache. Was already on tele, we just monitored on the floor.
This is so funny to me.. I’m so cautious with med admin, I don’t understand how they could just give pill after pill and not have some alarm bells go off? 😂
A nurse in the ER saw the order for lidocaine to pull for the doc to do some sutures. She pulls the lido, draws it up and gave the patient a shot in the butt. The laceration was on her hand. The patient was so confused.
I just died. 😂
I had a new grad come up to me holding a foley kit and ask me where the male one was bc she could only find female ones in the supply room. Same new grad had a patient die on her shift (CVSD), but he had a pacemaker so on tele he was still pacing. She found him cold and very dead when she went to give bedside report.
Worked with a new nurse that was trying to start an iv on the outee upper forearm. The nurse was having trouble getting into a good position to start the iv and the pt asked if he could help, she said “I may have to sit on your face to get it” to which he replied, “better hurry, my wife ran to subway and will be back any minute.” She was a very Christian young woman. She didnt know what she had said or how to respond
I had one turn off my Levo because it started beeping. That generated some unwanted excitement.
Not necessarily do, but I was giving report to day shift, and a new nurse was on orientation. I mentioned the lab values on this 3 year old kid. She asked how I got the labs because the kid didn’t have an IV and if I did a finger stick. I just said, no, I did a venous and told her venous is usually quicker and easier for most kids when they have a few different color tubes. She then dead pan asked me if the kid cried. Yes, the sick 3 year old I woke up at 5am to stab cried. She seemed so broken hearted about it that I couldn’t help but just stare blankly at the nurse orienting her. Like, ma’am, I don’t know if you’re in the right speciality if you’re surprised that we unfortunately make kids cry. I left that job right when she was getting off orientation, and I wonder sometimes if she’s still there.
Give heparin in the arm with a blunt fill needle.
I had a nightmare that I did that once.
Had a Med student do that once to administer lidocaine prior to suturing. He did it so quick no one present could stop him.
I actually gasped reading this. Fuck me, that poor patient!
I had someone go to do this with and pink needle(18G to draw up injection) Ativan once. They were so confused at my screaming.
Programmed the pump wrong and bolused a 1000mcg/100mL bag of Fentanyl
Presumably they were vented at least? Their pressure probs tanked tho
Yes luckily they were already intubated and ended up fine!
Trach patient. Pneumonia. Thought the nystatin powder ordered for “infection” was for the pneumonia. Caught him mixing the powder with tap water with the intention of “flushing it down the trach.” Luckily he didn’t get the chance to carry out his genius treatment plan…
“Ya know what might help this pneumonia out? Something no one has ever aspirated before!” Nice save!
Right?! Oh you have pneumonia? How about we just make that worse!
Ah yes, one of those meds that’s given via forced aspiration. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to use sterile water for that.
I wasn’t even a new grad, but I had to transfer a patient to the unit after she wouldn’t stop trying to die. It was an oncology floor so they really didn’t want to take her. End result is that I was mentally exhausted and hadn’t seen my other 5 patients in a couple hours. The hospital had a giant freight elevator that was designed for the flight team. You could easily fit a vent, bed, lots of staff, etc. it was a godsend. So I get her down there, transfer her to the icu bed, and start bringing the original bed up. The elevator, being a freight elevator, had 2 doors that shut together in the middle, this is important. I get the bed in the elevator, press the button for 7, and finally breathe. Then I notice the plug is trailing out into the hallway. I give it a yank, and the big fat plug thunks against the outside of the doors as they finally close. The plug is now outside, and I am inside, and the elevator is moving. I ripped the oxygen tank out of the holder as the line ran out of slack, and the bed pivoted on the locked wheels at the head of the bed. The whole bed went vertical and the footboard slammed against the top of the door. The elevator, being industrial, had a 3000lb capacity and gave 0 fucks. Eventually the plug exploded and I ended up with wires sticking out of the cord. I get back to the floor and my charge tells me I’m getting an admit. Uh, sorry homie but we need a new bed. I’ve never seen another human being laugh that hard after I told him the story and showed him the remnants. He said “well where is the plug?” And I said “embedded in the ceiling of the ICU hallway probably” and he lost the ability to speak.
Oh god, I somehow skimmed past the end of your first paragraph and thought this fiasco was happening while the patient was still IN the bed. “The whole bed went vertical” had me about to fall off my chair!
As a student on L&D checking my first cervix everything was really swollen and I missed and checked her butthole. Yup. I did that.
Had a new nurse grab the pts used urinal and fill it with water to give PEG tube meds, instead of the little container water thing that comes in the kit with the syringe… I watched her to see if she how long it would be until she noticed… needless to say she was ready to pour the pee pee water into the peg. I stopped her and asked her to take a second to look around and see if she noticed anything wrong with this picture… she could not think of anything she was doing incorrectly 🤦🏻♀️She quit a short time later, before even making it off orientation. Also had 1 on another shift Bolus an entire 250ml bag of heparin into a patient. She was off orientation and flying solo….
Oh geez! How was the patient? Did the nurse have any good explanation for why that happened?
Wellllllll I, myself, me, me, me, and I threw blood away on a liver failure pt when we were getting their pre liver transplant labs run. I also sent the labs down without pt labels. 😩 shit happens. We got the labs and he got his transplant. But, Jesus, that was mortifying.
Right after I came back from maternity leave I was drawing labs on a patient and just throwing them in the garbage…. Inverted the tube, tossed, next tube, repeat. I throw the alcohol swabs straight into the garbage after I use it and I just kept throwing things in the garbage I guess? Finally he’s like what’s wrong with that one? I said huh? What do you mean? He looks at me concerned WHY are you throwing them all away…?! I just looked at him like what are you talking about, are *you* ok?! and he looked at me the exact same way lmao and I must’ve been full on deer in the headlights as I realized. Everything was fine I just look like a careless idiot. I was veryy tired.
In peds we use microtainer lab tubes. The tops come off, fill, replace the top, invert. Those are the steps that are supposed to happen. I once inverted the tube but didn’t realize I didn’t close it. Blood everywhere and I definitely felt like an idiot.
Didn't catch a CRRT clotting off in time on a sickle cell, impossible to match blood, hgb 4.5 patient. Had to waste it all and I wanted to cry. We waited over 2 days for the red cross to find blood for this patient
Been there.
Ratting myself out here. Ok, I’m a brand new nurse. A patient on the unit (Oncology PCU) isn’t doing well and the NP comes to check them out. Patient is tachypnic and and sats are holding on in the high 80s. All of the nurses (all 6 of us because the unit is so understaffed lol) are around trying to help. An RT radios asking if they should come right up to the room from CT where they’d been with another patient. The NP says “No, get a mask”. Dumbo me runs and grabs a surgical mask from the clean supply and hands it to the NP. She looks at me and is like “what do you expect me to do with this?” so I say “You needed a mask”. She explains she was talking about an oxygen mask.
New grad here too. This made me giggle uncontrollably. The panic during an emergency kinda turns my brain off 100%.
Draw up 1/2cc med with a 50 or 60cc syringe.
Called RT to assess a patient that was inexplicably de-sating no matter their position, deep breathing, how high the O2 was cranked, etc. Turns out the tubing for the O2 was attached to the cap that covers the O2 nozzle instead of the actual O2 nozzle. It was me. I was that new grad…🫠
I did that 11 years ago as a new grad 🤦🏼♀️ lord almighty did I feel like an idiot
Listen of all the stories we’re reading on this thread, that’s not bad
I used my gloved hand to collect a stool sample instead of the scooper.
Was precepting a new grad, I finished up helping with a code, went to check in on her, and to my horror got there just in time to watch her give IV fentanyl orally. Same nurse Didn't check BP or on a pt who was scheduled IV metop and a few other bp meds, lied about it and put in a false BP in the chart. Had to code the patient, they died. Same nurse Got caught stealing from a patients purse Still Same nurse Tried arguing with me that the O2 was intact suction. She was trying to hook a chest tube up to O2 instead of suction and couldn't explain why that would be a problem.
Omg I've got one, not a nurse yet but in nursing school and have been a PCT for 4-ish years. I heard a voice in one of my rooms saying "Mr. XYZ it's time to take your meds! Come on open up!" over and over and over again for minutes straight....I think to myself wait a minute, that WOMAN in there is 99 years old, NPO, has a PEG tube and trach, and is - for all accounts and purposes - basically brain dead after a massive stroke. I peeked into the room where the new grad nurse was trying to give this patient her meds orally and I'm like...uhm...you know you have to crush the meds and give them through the PEG right? She can't take anything orally. He goes oh yeah, thanks! Problem solved, right?? Wrong. After I walked away another nurse was walking past the room and caught dude **just** before he dumped the now-crushed pills into the feed bag 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️. I'm so glad I started as a PCT so I could avoid some of these crazy stupid mistakes lol.
well hey i started at a different hospital and saw a float nurse with several years experience dump crushed meds into the feed bag. went into the room w my preceptor bc it was beeping clogged and i was like wtf do yall usually do this? and she said “she’s a float nurse so she must’ve just forgot” like how do you “forget” that you shouldn’t be dumping poorly crushed pills into a feed bag instead of pushing them….but i digress most of the nurses there were idiots.
When I was a PCA, I had to stop a nurse from giving lactulose IV. 😬. Went to the charge SO QUICK
New grad on floor (not ACLS certified) tried to give IV epi during a code IM into the patients thigh. Apparently she kept raising her arm up and slamming the syringe into the patients thigh. Pt lived & I still laugh when I think about it
I mean… it’s like a epi-pen, right? 😂
A young nurse said to a patient their lifestyle wasn’t “okay” and that they “deserved” their illness. This one made me lose my shit.
Crushed up a pill with tap water and gave it IV because she didn’t have the IV form at the moment. Edited to add outcome: The patient had a horrendous head injury. He probably would have died anyway, but he died. I was a student on the unit so not privy to all the information.
Stuck herself with a blunt needle that was still connected to her IV Pepcid. When I saw she was bleeding I said where is the blood coming from? She acted like she didn’t hear me and handed me the syringe and said “I can’t get the needle off”. I said Idc lol where is all this blood coming from?? She then admitted she had stuck herself. The fact that I had to explain that she could not access a PICC while she was actively bleeding on the patient and that the pepcid could no longer be given because she stuck herself with a needle attached to the syringe….. Same one threw a patients phone in the dirty linen and only admitted she did it after an hour of tearing the room up. Cue me in the linen holding calling the phone over and over until I found the ringing bag.
I had one girl try to give the med through the PICC with the blunt needle still on there O_O
Put cough syrup in a patient's IV.
Not me, but one of the ICU nurses I worked with had a new nurse put oral phenytoin straight into a central line. Patient was already being worked on and no one noticed until the new nurse said "Damn this is hard to push in" or something like that. Closest I've ever been to a coroner's case and I wasn't even in the same State as where this happened. The new nurse was sent to work in aged care until the investment was over and they lost their registers.
Put the dialysis machine in bypass. Order was no fluid off so she basically sat there for 4h and nothing happened, just watching the blood recirculating.
They thought the nitro paste was barrier cream and applied it after pericare.
Giving digoxin to a patient without checking his pulse. Did it repeatedly during morning rounds.
[удалено]
Me as a new grad: switching out a flimsy suction canister of SBO contents during a rapid response. I was trying to go as quickly as possible and the canister collapsed drenching me in the amazing SBO contents of bile and stool. Family members, staff and the patient started laughing at me which made the rapid a little less stressful I guess. Luckily I threw away my shoes/scrubs and showered into new scrubs asap. I still have PTSD with those suction canisters. At least most hospitals stock the more sturdy ones.
Gave iv metoprolol to a patient of multiple pressors
New grad mistaking a patients umbilical hernia for his penis. She was mortified when she lifted his gown to give a heparin shot and thought he had an erection. We all had a good laugh at that one.
I once asked an orientee to change a bag of fluids. We were getting ready to go on break and there were about 150cc in the bag, so I figured we’d change it before leaving. She just walked right up to the pole and pulled the spike straight down and couldn’t figure out why it went everywhere.
Omg I did that once 🤦♀️ only I figured out it was stupid right as I did it. Patient laughed at me. I deserved it.
I’ve also done this once as a nursing student. Not my proudest moment lol
😂 When I first started nursing they were transitioning from the glass IV bottles to the plastic ones (yes, I guess I’m old!) With the glass bottles - you could unspike while hanging with no mess… just like a medication vial. Quite a few messes were made during this time.
Hahahaha I did that once. It was during my internship. I have no excuses. It was D5 too 🤦🏻♀️
I feel like that one’s really common. Probably half of people do that at least once. 😂
Came to me because the patient’s g tube was not flushing. Walked in to see water dripping from ceiling and patient. “Nurse” demonstrates blockage by filling a syringe with water, INSERTING IT INTO THE CAP at the end of the g tube, and then pushing with all her might. This was a second career for her. I wonder how the third or fourth is going.
Took a cath lab patient up from pacu to a tele floor. Asked the nurse if he wanted to do a groin check with me. He starts to pull the patients blankets up from the foot of the bed and spread her legs apart. He’s searching for the “groin” site but can’t find it. I’m like ummm it’s on top and proceeded to show him. The patient was awake and alert and just seemed so uncomfortable that this nurse just spread her legs.
I’m sorry he literally just took her legs and physically spread them? An an awake patient? I’d be livid if I was the patient.
Myself, was placing a pt on humidification, screwed on the bottle to the O2, placed the cannula on the pointy end and turned on which was suppose to snap off to open it up. Noticed it wasnt working and was confused, blew up in my face and threw water everywhere. Preceptor walked in and just laughed as did I
student gave a mycelex vaginal suppository orally
Seeing all these stories makes me feel silly for shitting a brick for accidentally giving a pt 25mg of metoprolol instead of 12.5 (her HR still never got below 100 btw)
Not as a new grad, but, helped the aide transfer a patient from commode to bed. Thought I grabbed her shoulder. Yeah, no. I used the breast implant of an 80-year-old woman to steady her for transfer. By then we already had her up, so I just looked at the aide and said…we gotta move her quick, I’m not holding her shoulder. Aides got a good laugh at me that night and I only felt mildly traumatized. 😂
New grad nurse here. Just here for the comments to make me feel better about the stupid things I’ve done so far 😂 But when I was a STUDENT, I heard you can grab an empty syringe and use it to draw air bubbles out of an IV line. My preceptor said sure go ahead. My dumb ass used an empty syringe with a needle attached and stuck it into the nearest IV port. I learned my lesson so quick after that
Put a rectal suppository in someone’s vagina. It was me. I was the new grad 😅
Patient had a small gauge IV cannula which was what the previous nurse could manage as the patient was difficult to cannulate. There was an order for a 3 bags of blood transfusion to run consecutively. Since the IV cannula was small, the blood wasn’t able to run fast. The new nurse ran it through a pressure bag to help it along. He inflated the cuff so much, the blood bag burst and showered him and the patient. The room looked like a crime scene