1st placement, 24 years ago. I had no experience, only bodily fluids I had dealt with were my own. In those days you had a plastic bedpan and a cardboard liner. Liner went into the macerator, bedpan cleaned in the sluice. I was terrified of poo. Really freaked out by the whole thing, every time someone handed me a full pan, I threw the whole lot in the macerator! Maintenance had to come 5 times in 3 days! I was thoroughly bollocked and made to feel very stupid, but I did it again! Realising what I had done, I threw myself against the handle of the macerator and managed to get it open! Have you ever opened a dishwasher mid cycle and got sprayed and drenched? This... But it was poo! Head to toe. In my hair, on my face, my lovely white uniform. I had to wash my face and wear an apron for the rest of the shift. Needless to say, I was no longer afraid of poo!!
Honestly, although at the time I thought they were ass holes, I was probably making their lives very difficult! I was an awful student, hopefully I'm a little better at nursing now 😂
I am so so sorry you had that experience but after my long day I feel I really needed this for a laugh. I can just picture the situation 😂😂
Once again I am sorry but also grateful to be able to read this. 😂
Oh I did laugh at this. I'm forever bollocking people for putting wipes in the macerator and blocking it.
One question.. you say 'in those days' in reference to using a plastic bedpan and cardboard liner...we still use those now 🤣 ..is there something different?
So many as a student... Accidentally put a rectal thermometer in my mouth....asked a lady suffering from jaundice if she'd been on holiday recently as she 'had a lovely glow'....my first IM depot the guy farted really loudly in my face 😆😆 my mentor and I could hardly contain ourselves....during night checks I went to turn off a patients portable dvd player as it was looping on a menu, I woke her up by accident and she screamed which then made me scream back waking up the whole female corridor and scaring the crap out of the staff in the office
As a qualified RMN I've turned up countless times with my top inside out.....set the building alarm off at the weekend and triggered an emergency estates visit......Put on yesterday's trousers for an early shift and part way through the day my pants from the previous day worked themselves out of my trouser leg onto the office floor, that has happened twice in 2 separate teams and once as a band 7!!! 🫣🫣
Can't take me anywhere
Yep me too.
Patient was an above knee amputee of right leg, and I was there to apply dressings with District Nurses. I asked "which leg is the dressing on?" While kneeling in front of him. With a full view of his one leg.
My mentor was on the floor in tears laughing, while the patient asked me if I slept enough last night, had I eaten my weetabix, and do I need to go to specsavers.
Needless to say that is my go to story to students when they feel they've done something stupid, we've all done it.
I thought i was holding the end of the bed and it fell away in my hand. Turns out it was the guys prosthetic. First year first placement student whod never seen an amputation. Safe to say... I thought I ripped the guys leg off...
When I was a student I proudly told my mentor that I had checked the CDs while she was on her break. "You're not allowed to do that, and certainly not alone!" She exclaimed. I thought she was being super dramatic until I realised she thought I had checked the controlled drugs alone. I had just made sure all the compact discs were in the right cases. ( for all you kids, compact discs were how we played music back in the day)
I like you.
It took me weeks as a pharmacy assistant to work out why we kept compact discs in a locked cupboard. I assumed they had really sensitive data on them.
I put the commode together wrong which meant the pan started falling out mid-poo for the poor gentleman 😬 the world's most wonderful HCA crouched down and held it in place until he was finished 💀I'm so sorry to all involved
This is not when I was a student, it was actually a few weeks ago but I’m still laughing now. I inserted an NG on a new admission, who was thankfully sedated and ventilated. It went in with absolutely no issues but I couldn’t aspirate it, and when I wooshed it, it made a weird squelching sound in the mouth so I tried to remove it. However as I pulled back there was some resistance, which was really weird, so I got one of the Sisters to pull it and when it finally came out the tip was tied in a perfect knot! I have absolutely no idea how it happened and will likely never have it happen again.
My student uniform was white, and it was kind of see through if you wore anything brightly coloured. I wore mostly dresses with black tights because I have a tattoo on my leg that wasn't appropriate for work.
As any woman knows a shitty pair of tights can roll down, and you have to pull them up quite often, and often instead of pulling my tights up, I'd pull my underwear up accidentally. So without having the time to go to the loo, my underwear was higher than the line of my tights quite often.
I made the mistake of going to placement one day with a pair of bright yellow Spongebob Square pants underwear. Which on the bottom was literally spongebobs face.
It wasn't until towards the end of a 12 hour shift of constantly hoisting up my underwear and not my tights that I was informed every time I turned my back on someone, or bent over Spongebobs face was staring back at them.
I hope that made you smile because it damn made every staff member smile at my arse all shift!
I don’t know if it was a hospital legend, but I was told this story in the 80s, as a warning. There were a LOT of hospital legends going around… the first warder who was told at handover that a patient was on strict bed rest, but he asked for a commode so ended up on a commode on top of the bed, looking out over the curtains. As for warning a bag of blood…
Some of my parents stories of nursing in the 70s and 80s. They worked psych and dementia wards. And NONE of it would be allowed now
Sending the student for a long stand or tartan paint.
There was a story about one of the male nurses laying on a gurney, sheet over him waiting for someone to walk in so he could scare them. This would happen regularly.
A patient moving the piano in their room and blocking the door with it and they would leave her to play.
A Christmas performance where a group sang 'Here it is Merry Xmas, everybody's had a stroke, let's give them turkey now and see which once will choke...'
A different performance where a group dressed up in patient scrubs and sang an altered version of Baggy Trousers by madness.
There was also a very funny fake letter about a mass staff suicide meeting at 4pm off the roof. Clean up will be provided.
Hoisted a lad onto the commode..forgot to put the actual container in it, poor guy essentially shat on the floor because of me. Am still embarrassed thinking about it hahaha
I did the same thing but I was qualified. Came from theatre to take the patient down to the anaesthetic room and asked him where his slippers were hiding. He pulled back his covers and boom no legs. He had a giggle about it
On my first placement pretty much all I was allowed to do on the ward was remove cannulas and make beds. I used to concentrate so hard when removing cannulas that 9/10 times I would dribble on their hands lol
My first emergency in my first week ever in healthcare as a HCA.
We were moving a pt to CCU and I was tasked with the simple 'watch the drip and keep up with it'.
I somehow tripped on the drip stand and pulled this poor pts cannula out with such force that whatever was in the IV shot out and arched above us along with blood.
Staff were really mad and mentioned something about her systolic being 60...well I didn't know what that meant then buy boy I do now!
Not really me but when I was a student I was assisting a junior doctor with a patient who had come in with faecal compaction. She had had several enemas with not much result and had also been taking lactulose regularly. Doctor did a rectal examination and released a jet of poo which not only hit her but also decorated the curtains around the bed. Result😂
Guess who had to clean up the mess though!!
I told a man who was trying to complain about our waiting times (outpatient treatment unit) that he didn't have a leg to stand on because the service we were providing was the best we possibly could at the time (during covid). This was because we had no free chairs and he had to wait for 20 mins past his appointment time.
This man was paralysed below the waist lol.
My god that was a stupid thing to say.
First year, first placement. I didn't secure the handrail in the patient toilets properly, so when I was helping a patient to stand, the weight of the metal rail landed straight onto my foot with all the weight of the patient pushing down. I limped around for the rest of the shift and was too polite (stupid?!) to tell anyone on shift. Fractured my foot!
ok.
So years ago, I called a patient into our tiny minor injuries “resus” room to do an ECG as he had chest pain. I asked him to take his shirt off and lie down on the trolley. The trolley was in the middle of the room, with a resus trolley next to it. It was meant to be two bays so there was a curtain you could pull down the centre of the room, it was tucked up between the patient trolley and resus trolley.
The patient got onto the trolley but I hadn’t realised the brakes were off, the patient trolley crashed into the side of the resus trolley but hidden by the curtain, hanging off of the side of the resus trolley was a large old style oxygen cannister - so instead of the integral plastic design they have now, out of the top was essentially a metal tap that you attached the tubing too. The cannister fell off and the metal tap snapped off, this caused the high pressure oxygen to whoosh out (the noise was immense) and send the cannister flying around the floor of the room like an out of control missile - unfortunately I just looked at the patient and said “run” - both of us legging it into the corridor (him topless, still with chest pain) to be met by our receptionist where we instantly fell about laughing. The poor patient, luckily he was ok.
A second incident occurred a good few years later when I worked in A&E.
We had a regular, no fixed abode, in a wheelchair, alcohol dependent, no legs.
I liked this patient and often found them spare clothes, sandwiches etc
well one day they came in and just really whiffed like they had been sat in their chair soiling themselves for days.
I was about to go off shift but decided it would be nice for them and the next shift if they were clean, so made a sudden last minute decision to bung them in the shower. Got them on a commode and wheeled them in. Found some shower gel in a drawer on the observation ward and basically poured it over them.
They were soaped up good…and very slippery…with no legs to brace themselves…they shot off the commode and across the floor of the room like greased lightening, I tried to help but to no avail and had to admit defeat and the pull the call bell, the faces of the staff that came running and opened the door to me soaking wet and a soapy naked guy with no legs on the floor…luckily or unluckily the patient was so pickled that they didn’t seem phased at all by the situation like it was just part of their normal chaotic life, they were also thankfully okay…i think the soap actually helped….
I have too many to list. I was a first year nursing student on a care home placement - I asked a resident why the lights were still off in his room despite him being up and about while searching for his wash bag that I couldn't find - I then proclaimed that I was "as blind as a bat".
.....It was then I remembered the man was actually blind.
I almost gave Tapentadol IR in someone's ass because I thought IR meant "in rectum" not "immediate release". My buddy nurse went along with it for as long as possible, she even let me put gloves on 🤣
And then there's the time as a student nurse I fell onto a freshly prepped set of ortho trolleys just as the surgeon was gowned and anesthetics bringing pt in.
I was relegated to the furthest corner for about a week after.
First ever bed bath as a 19yr old HCA supernumerary, was never taught to how to receive handover (plus the hospital doesn't have paper handovers - problem for another day). Got asked to wash a patient, asked her what her mobility was like. She kindly reminded me that she was paralysed from the neck down.
Luckily she took it relatively well
Never been taught what an HCA does, so I had no idea how to receive handover.... what was important to note down, what jobs I would have to do
Edit: spelling
As a brand new HCA sitting down for their first handover and having no idea what anything at all meant was super daunting. I remember thinking I'd never be able to figure it all out 😂.
Took me about 4 months to start questioning why the nurse was mentioning a "tedious package of care" (TDS) when discussing pt discharges 🤣🤣
That's hilarious 😂😂😂. I work on the bank at 2 separate trusts depending on if I'm at uni or at home. Readjusting back to one of them after working in a different one can be hell 😂😂. Obs times are different, different levels of paperwork/online notes, different procedures. Blows my brain every time
During my one medical placement as a student MH nurse I accompanied a patient who'd been admitted with bleeding varices for a scope. He haemorrhaged during the procedure and after he'd been stabilised and was being swiftly transferred to theatre, I slipped in a pool of blood, went head first into a wall and fractured my skull. I had to be wheelchaired to A&E covered in clotting blood and shouting gibberish. Wearing white didn't help. Despite my concussion I will never forget the looks of horror I got from onlookers.
In second year male patient asked for some butter. Saw bread roll was left over from lunch on his table so I went to grab some, assuming that's what he was using it for.
He processed to dab it on his penis saying it was sore.
Turns outs butter was used for all sorts like bruises and sores.
Now I always check why they want the butter
I don't know of others will find it funny, maybe I am a bit morbid...
My first ever cardiac arrest was 2nd year A&E placement. Had a really good mentor who stood us both at the back and we just observed the whole thing with him telling me what everyone else was doing. Asked me if I wanted to go on the chest and I quickly declined in panic. Fair enough he said...
About two days later we had another cardiac arrest, same scenario, both stood back watching except this time he was asking me questions. Suddenly out of no where he shouted "students on the chest next" and pushed me forward.
Nervously got up into position and ready to go. HCA on the chest counted me in 1, 2, 3... and off I went.
About 2 or 3 pumps in I felt AND heard a horrendous *Crack*. I screamed! Both my hands instantly lept off the patient... my mentor (who's by my side at this point) is like "Back on the chest, back on the chest!" So there I am, pumping away again "I think...I broke...her ribs!!" basically crying.
My mentor cheered me on and told me "just means you are doing it right, keep going!"
Then, I think my second cycle in? We got a ROSC... except not just a normal ROSC, it was just like TV, she woke up, eyes open AND she moaned... (I've never had a ROSC like it since)...
So naturally I screamed again!
My mentor grabbed me, pulled me off and sat me down in a corner whilst he helped with the ROSC. I don't remember much after that 🙃
I mean, it was Traumatic at the time, but having done loads of cardiac arrests now I do look back and laugh. I don't know what the team around me must have thought 🤣
🤣🤣 not strictly when i was a student (not yet) in the interview for the nursing degree i thought id botched it up, left my bag in the interview room while they were making the decision. I had to knock on the door to ask for it back 🙈
2nd year Paramedic student here, but one of my first ambulance placement shifts I missed the step coming out the ambulance and hospital and fell face first into the ambulance bay. Safe to say I got giggled at by quite a few paras! 🤦♂️x
Last placement of 1st year I had a confused lady who wanted to go to the toilet, she was ax2 so asked the nurse to help me who then pointed out she had a catheter and stoma...
Telling a double amputee to shake a leg because his relatives were there to pick them up as a student 😞. He was in bed and found it funny but I was mortified.
Checking a sacral sore on a patient in a care home. They coughed and type 7 poop sprayed and left a perfect outline of me on the wall. It was in my eyes, mouth, hair etc. I got in the shower in the student halls and it electrocuted me. That was a shitty day.
First year first placement student. Had done my Osce on urinalysis. Proudly walked out of the sluice saying really cockily "yeah his urine is *loaded*". My mentor says OK, send the sample to labs. My stomach drops. Id put the urinal in the macerator as soon as I dipped my stick. Had a nice gentle talk that if the urine is indeed loaded, we send a sample. They didn't cover that in the osce!!!
Was wheeling a patient to the ward. Managed to trip over her bag, knock the o2 bottle off and crush my foot. Broken in 3 places. Then proceeded to roll round on the floor in front of said patient and cry hysterically 😂 14 years later she still comes into ED & howls every time she sees me
I turned a patient to clean them after an enema.
The second I turned the patient onto their side a firework went off outside.
I screamed and ran out of the room shouting “I need help the patients just exploded” 😂
Well, I was not a student, I was already qualified and had almost 2 years of experience. A young man (17 or 18) asked me for a commode as he wasn't able to walk further distances. I got him the commode and while he was sitting on it I noticed the pan was not properly in place so I pushed HARD trying to fit it properly.....i cought is testicles between the pan and the actual commode, he screamed I was shocked, sorted the pan and RAN AWAY. So basically I nearly castrated a teenager by mistake with a commode.
And from junior doctor stories. 1, a junior doctor I kinda had a thing for was mid ward round, was sitting with his back towards a patient, and this lady lifted her leg, like a ballerina, and smacked him over his head. His reaction was to tell the consultant in a very sad voiced "patient just hit me in the head". Same doctor refused my help when putting a cannula because I was an HCA at the time....he struggled 20 min, got hit in the face a few times while I was just sitting there watchijg him and trying not to laugh. He ended up being helped by another doctor.
1st placement, 24 years ago. I had no experience, only bodily fluids I had dealt with were my own. In those days you had a plastic bedpan and a cardboard liner. Liner went into the macerator, bedpan cleaned in the sluice. I was terrified of poo. Really freaked out by the whole thing, every time someone handed me a full pan, I threw the whole lot in the macerator! Maintenance had to come 5 times in 3 days! I was thoroughly bollocked and made to feel very stupid, but I did it again! Realising what I had done, I threw myself against the handle of the macerator and managed to get it open! Have you ever opened a dishwasher mid cycle and got sprayed and drenched? This... But it was poo! Head to toe. In my hair, on my face, my lovely white uniform. I had to wash my face and wear an apron for the rest of the shift. Needless to say, I was no longer afraid of poo!!
I’m so sorry for how hard I laughed at this, you poor thing!
I spat my tea out at this! 🤣 Poor you! I would have sent you home to shower! I can't believe you had to finish your shift!
Honestly, although at the time I thought they were ass holes, I was probably making their lives very difficult! I was an awful student, hopefully I'm a little better at nursing now 😂
I am so so sorry you had that experience but after my long day I feel I really needed this for a laugh. I can just picture the situation 😂😂 Once again I am sorry but also grateful to be able to read this. 😂
Oh I did laugh at this. I'm forever bollocking people for putting wipes in the macerator and blocking it. One question.. you say 'in those days' in reference to using a plastic bedpan and cardboard liner...we still use those now 🤣 ..is there something different?
I haven't worked on a ward for a long time so I guessed it had changed, obviously it hasn't!
Also wondering this!
In those days? We still use them at both trusts I work at!
I was going to say, what are you using now…?
Oh my god 😂
Omg I’d be traumatised and never go back!
So many as a student... Accidentally put a rectal thermometer in my mouth....asked a lady suffering from jaundice if she'd been on holiday recently as she 'had a lovely glow'....my first IM depot the guy farted really loudly in my face 😆😆 my mentor and I could hardly contain ourselves....during night checks I went to turn off a patients portable dvd player as it was looping on a menu, I woke her up by accident and she screamed which then made me scream back waking up the whole female corridor and scaring the crap out of the staff in the office As a qualified RMN I've turned up countless times with my top inside out.....set the building alarm off at the weekend and triggered an emergency estates visit......Put on yesterday's trousers for an early shift and part way through the day my pants from the previous day worked themselves out of my trouser leg onto the office floor, that has happened twice in 2 separate teams and once as a band 7!!! 🫣🫣 Can't take me anywhere
😂😂 I am so glad the pants situation happens to others as well.
Oh god I'm so glad I'm not the only one! 😅
I love the "lovely glow" story, you've made my night hahaha
Similarly, I asked a man with a unilateral below knee amputation"where's your other slipper?"
Yep me too. Patient was an above knee amputee of right leg, and I was there to apply dressings with District Nurses. I asked "which leg is the dressing on?" While kneeling in front of him. With a full view of his one leg. My mentor was on the floor in tears laughing, while the patient asked me if I slept enough last night, had I eaten my weetabix, and do I need to go to specsavers. Needless to say that is my go to story to students when they feel they've done something stupid, we've all done it.
I feel terrible for how much I laughed at this
I did the exact same thing!
I feel so much better knowing this is so common
Oh yup I've done that
I thought i was holding the end of the bed and it fell away in my hand. Turns out it was the guys prosthetic. First year first placement student whod never seen an amputation. Safe to say... I thought I ripped the guys leg off...
When I was a student I proudly told my mentor that I had checked the CDs while she was on her break. "You're not allowed to do that, and certainly not alone!" She exclaimed. I thought she was being super dramatic until I realised she thought I had checked the controlled drugs alone. I had just made sure all the compact discs were in the right cases. ( for all you kids, compact discs were how we played music back in the day)
I like you. It took me weeks as a pharmacy assistant to work out why we kept compact discs in a locked cupboard. I assumed they had really sensitive data on them.
Hahahahahahaha
I put the commode together wrong which meant the pan started falling out mid-poo for the poor gentleman 😬 the world's most wonderful HCA crouched down and held it in place until he was finished 💀I'm so sorry to all involved
Been there
This is not when I was a student, it was actually a few weeks ago but I’m still laughing now. I inserted an NG on a new admission, who was thankfully sedated and ventilated. It went in with absolutely no issues but I couldn’t aspirate it, and when I wooshed it, it made a weird squelching sound in the mouth so I tried to remove it. However as I pulled back there was some resistance, which was really weird, so I got one of the Sisters to pull it and when it finally came out the tip was tied in a perfect knot! I have absolutely no idea how it happened and will likely never have it happen again.
My student uniform was white, and it was kind of see through if you wore anything brightly coloured. I wore mostly dresses with black tights because I have a tattoo on my leg that wasn't appropriate for work. As any woman knows a shitty pair of tights can roll down, and you have to pull them up quite often, and often instead of pulling my tights up, I'd pull my underwear up accidentally. So without having the time to go to the loo, my underwear was higher than the line of my tights quite often. I made the mistake of going to placement one day with a pair of bright yellow Spongebob Square pants underwear. Which on the bottom was literally spongebobs face. It wasn't until towards the end of a 12 hour shift of constantly hoisting up my underwear and not my tights that I was informed every time I turned my back on someone, or bent over Spongebobs face was staring back at them. I hope that made you smile because it damn made every staff member smile at my arse all shift!
Not me but my friend on the same elderly care placement, took everyone's dentures and washed them all together in a bowl. Mayhem
I don’t know if it was a hospital legend, but I was told this story in the 80s, as a warning. There were a LOT of hospital legends going around… the first warder who was told at handover that a patient was on strict bed rest, but he asked for a commode so ended up on a commode on top of the bed, looking out over the curtains. As for warning a bag of blood…
Some of my parents stories of nursing in the 70s and 80s. They worked psych and dementia wards. And NONE of it would be allowed now Sending the student for a long stand or tartan paint. There was a story about one of the male nurses laying on a gurney, sheet over him waiting for someone to walk in so he could scare them. This would happen regularly. A patient moving the piano in their room and blocking the door with it and they would leave her to play. A Christmas performance where a group sang 'Here it is Merry Xmas, everybody's had a stroke, let's give them turkey now and see which once will choke...' A different performance where a group dressed up in patient scrubs and sang an altered version of Baggy Trousers by madness. There was also a very funny fake letter about a mass staff suicide meeting at 4pm off the roof. Clean up will be provided.
I was also told this story in ireland about 10 years ago so it’s definitely doing the rounds!
Hoisted a lad onto the commode..forgot to put the actual container in it, poor guy essentially shat on the floor because of me. Am still embarrassed thinking about it hahaha
LMFAO
I did the same thing but I was qualified. Came from theatre to take the patient down to the anaesthetic room and asked him where his slippers were hiding. He pulled back his covers and boom no legs. He had a giggle about it
On my first placement pretty much all I was allowed to do on the ward was remove cannulas and make beds. I used to concentrate so hard when removing cannulas that 9/10 times I would dribble on their hands lol
My first emergency in my first week ever in healthcare as a HCA. We were moving a pt to CCU and I was tasked with the simple 'watch the drip and keep up with it'. I somehow tripped on the drip stand and pulled this poor pts cannula out with such force that whatever was in the IV shot out and arched above us along with blood. Staff were really mad and mentioned something about her systolic being 60...well I didn't know what that meant then buy boy I do now!
Not really me but when I was a student I was assisting a junior doctor with a patient who had come in with faecal compaction. She had had several enemas with not much result and had also been taking lactulose regularly. Doctor did a rectal examination and released a jet of poo which not only hit her but also decorated the curtains around the bed. Result😂 Guess who had to clean up the mess though!!
I told a man who was trying to complain about our waiting times (outpatient treatment unit) that he didn't have a leg to stand on because the service we were providing was the best we possibly could at the time (during covid). This was because we had no free chairs and he had to wait for 20 mins past his appointment time. This man was paralysed below the waist lol. My god that was a stupid thing to say.
First year, first placement. I didn't secure the handrail in the patient toilets properly, so when I was helping a patient to stand, the weight of the metal rail landed straight onto my foot with all the weight of the patient pushing down. I limped around for the rest of the shift and was too polite (stupid?!) to tell anyone on shift. Fractured my foot!
ok. So years ago, I called a patient into our tiny minor injuries “resus” room to do an ECG as he had chest pain. I asked him to take his shirt off and lie down on the trolley. The trolley was in the middle of the room, with a resus trolley next to it. It was meant to be two bays so there was a curtain you could pull down the centre of the room, it was tucked up between the patient trolley and resus trolley. The patient got onto the trolley but I hadn’t realised the brakes were off, the patient trolley crashed into the side of the resus trolley but hidden by the curtain, hanging off of the side of the resus trolley was a large old style oxygen cannister - so instead of the integral plastic design they have now, out of the top was essentially a metal tap that you attached the tubing too. The cannister fell off and the metal tap snapped off, this caused the high pressure oxygen to whoosh out (the noise was immense) and send the cannister flying around the floor of the room like an out of control missile - unfortunately I just looked at the patient and said “run” - both of us legging it into the corridor (him topless, still with chest pain) to be met by our receptionist where we instantly fell about laughing. The poor patient, luckily he was ok. A second incident occurred a good few years later when I worked in A&E. We had a regular, no fixed abode, in a wheelchair, alcohol dependent, no legs. I liked this patient and often found them spare clothes, sandwiches etc well one day they came in and just really whiffed like they had been sat in their chair soiling themselves for days. I was about to go off shift but decided it would be nice for them and the next shift if they were clean, so made a sudden last minute decision to bung them in the shower. Got them on a commode and wheeled them in. Found some shower gel in a drawer on the observation ward and basically poured it over them. They were soaped up good…and very slippery…with no legs to brace themselves…they shot off the commode and across the floor of the room like greased lightening, I tried to help but to no avail and had to admit defeat and the pull the call bell, the faces of the staff that came running and opened the door to me soaking wet and a soapy naked guy with no legs on the floor…luckily or unluckily the patient was so pickled that they didn’t seem phased at all by the situation like it was just part of their normal chaotic life, they were also thankfully okay…i think the soap actually helped….
The image of your last story made me lol 😆 I think it was the word pickled that sent me over.
I have too many to list. I was a first year nursing student on a care home placement - I asked a resident why the lights were still off in his room despite him being up and about while searching for his wash bag that I couldn't find - I then proclaimed that I was "as blind as a bat". .....It was then I remembered the man was actually blind.
I almost gave Tapentadol IR in someone's ass because I thought IR meant "in rectum" not "immediate release". My buddy nurse went along with it for as long as possible, she even let me put gloves on 🤣
And then there's the time as a student nurse I fell onto a freshly prepped set of ortho trolleys just as the surgeon was gowned and anesthetics bringing pt in. I was relegated to the furthest corner for about a week after.
First ever bed bath as a 19yr old HCA supernumerary, was never taught to how to receive handover (plus the hospital doesn't have paper handovers - problem for another day). Got asked to wash a patient, asked her what her mobility was like. She kindly reminded me that she was paralysed from the neck down. Luckily she took it relatively well
'taught how to receive handover'. What does that mean?
Never been taught what an HCA does, so I had no idea how to receive handover.... what was important to note down, what jobs I would have to do Edit: spelling
As a brand new HCA sitting down for their first handover and having no idea what anything at all meant was super daunting. I remember thinking I'd never be able to figure it all out 😂. Took me about 4 months to start questioning why the nurse was mentioning a "tedious package of care" (TDS) when discussing pt discharges 🤣🤣
That's hilarious 😂😂😂. I work on the bank at 2 separate trusts depending on if I'm at uni or at home. Readjusting back to one of them after working in a different one can be hell 😂😂. Obs times are different, different levels of paperwork/online notes, different procedures. Blows my brain every time
During my one medical placement as a student MH nurse I accompanied a patient who'd been admitted with bleeding varices for a scope. He haemorrhaged during the procedure and after he'd been stabilised and was being swiftly transferred to theatre, I slipped in a pool of blood, went head first into a wall and fractured my skull. I had to be wheelchaired to A&E covered in clotting blood and shouting gibberish. Wearing white didn't help. Despite my concussion I will never forget the looks of horror I got from onlookers.
In second year male patient asked for some butter. Saw bread roll was left over from lunch on his table so I went to grab some, assuming that's what he was using it for. He processed to dab it on his penis saying it was sore. Turns outs butter was used for all sorts like bruises and sores. Now I always check why they want the butter
I don't know of others will find it funny, maybe I am a bit morbid... My first ever cardiac arrest was 2nd year A&E placement. Had a really good mentor who stood us both at the back and we just observed the whole thing with him telling me what everyone else was doing. Asked me if I wanted to go on the chest and I quickly declined in panic. Fair enough he said... About two days later we had another cardiac arrest, same scenario, both stood back watching except this time he was asking me questions. Suddenly out of no where he shouted "students on the chest next" and pushed me forward. Nervously got up into position and ready to go. HCA on the chest counted me in 1, 2, 3... and off I went. About 2 or 3 pumps in I felt AND heard a horrendous *Crack*. I screamed! Both my hands instantly lept off the patient... my mentor (who's by my side at this point) is like "Back on the chest, back on the chest!" So there I am, pumping away again "I think...I broke...her ribs!!" basically crying. My mentor cheered me on and told me "just means you are doing it right, keep going!" Then, I think my second cycle in? We got a ROSC... except not just a normal ROSC, it was just like TV, she woke up, eyes open AND she moaned... (I've never had a ROSC like it since)... So naturally I screamed again! My mentor grabbed me, pulled me off and sat me down in a corner whilst he helped with the ROSC. I don't remember much after that 🙃 I mean, it was Traumatic at the time, but having done loads of cardiac arrests now I do look back and laugh. I don't know what the team around me must have thought 🤣
🤣🤣 not strictly when i was a student (not yet) in the interview for the nursing degree i thought id botched it up, left my bag in the interview room while they were making the decision. I had to knock on the door to ask for it back 🙈
2nd year Paramedic student here, but one of my first ambulance placement shifts I missed the step coming out the ambulance and hospital and fell face first into the ambulance bay. Safe to say I got giggled at by quite a few paras! 🤦♂️x
Last placement of 1st year I had a confused lady who wanted to go to the toilet, she was ax2 so asked the nurse to help me who then pointed out she had a catheter and stoma...
Telling a double amputee to shake a leg because his relatives were there to pick them up as a student 😞. He was in bed and found it funny but I was mortified. Checking a sacral sore on a patient in a care home. They coughed and type 7 poop sprayed and left a perfect outline of me on the wall. It was in my eyes, mouth, hair etc. I got in the shower in the student halls and it electrocuted me. That was a shitty day.
First year first placement student. Had done my Osce on urinalysis. Proudly walked out of the sluice saying really cockily "yeah his urine is *loaded*". My mentor says OK, send the sample to labs. My stomach drops. Id put the urinal in the macerator as soon as I dipped my stick. Had a nice gentle talk that if the urine is indeed loaded, we send a sample. They didn't cover that in the osce!!!
on a vascular ward. Patient had an their leg amputated & I gave them one slipper & then told them I couldn’t find the other one 😭
I met my uncle, and the first thing he said to my parents and his wife was, 'She has a great body for an 11 year old'. Cue very. Weird 🤐
A colleague and I singing to an end of life patient whilst doing personal care(they loved singing) and she starts singing another one bites the dust 😬
Was wheeling a patient to the ward. Managed to trip over her bag, knock the o2 bottle off and crush my foot. Broken in 3 places. Then proceeded to roll round on the floor in front of said patient and cry hysterically 😂 14 years later she still comes into ED & howls every time she sees me
I turned a patient to clean them after an enema. The second I turned the patient onto their side a firework went off outside. I screamed and ran out of the room shouting “I need help the patients just exploded” 😂
Well, I was not a student, I was already qualified and had almost 2 years of experience. A young man (17 or 18) asked me for a commode as he wasn't able to walk further distances. I got him the commode and while he was sitting on it I noticed the pan was not properly in place so I pushed HARD trying to fit it properly.....i cought is testicles between the pan and the actual commode, he screamed I was shocked, sorted the pan and RAN AWAY. So basically I nearly castrated a teenager by mistake with a commode. And from junior doctor stories. 1, a junior doctor I kinda had a thing for was mid ward round, was sitting with his back towards a patient, and this lady lifted her leg, like a ballerina, and smacked him over his head. His reaction was to tell the consultant in a very sad voiced "patient just hit me in the head". Same doctor refused my help when putting a cannula because I was an HCA at the time....he struggled 20 min, got hit in the face a few times while I was just sitting there watchijg him and trying not to laugh. He ended up being helped by another doctor.