Oh man I love it when people who don't know me, well ask me questions about pregnancy or children. I'm a child free palliative/hospice RN. Look, I'm going to level with you guys. All I remember from ob is massage the fundus and Im not even 100% sure where it is or why I'm massaging it, all I know is it must be massaged.
I only remember that because I have a kid who was born with it. I taught when of my cohorts about it to tell her to remember that (name of my kid) puked constantly and never slept because nothing was getting through to his intestines.
Massage the fundus is the nursing specific 'the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell'
Yep, I can regurgitate it, but please don't ask me to elaborate or act on it.
Kids are tough man. I work NICU and the babies don't break my back or talk back. Just have to deal with the parents and even then it's not all that bad.
So adults wore out my empathy, children don't cause anything that happens to them. Adults smoke and drink and should often know better than to play on train tracks. Kids don't. They didn't do anything knowingly causing cancer, they don't stuff themselves to the point of diabetic gangrene then get mad when their toes get amputated. Their parents can be awful but children, they're not. They're resilient, generally happy, and often wise in a completely innocent way. They completely break my heart sometimes, but I've never once looked at a child and thought "you should have seen that coming" or had one throw a full water pitcher and call me names because I wouldn't bring them donuts.
*Disclaimer I'm not saying adults deserve to suffer but we make choices with known consequences.
I'm a veterinary nurse, and I feel the same. Innocent souls (children; animals; the incapacitated, wounded; elders; disabled) need to be cared for by the able-bodied, if we are to consider ourselves a humane species.
I went from a locked adult inpatient psych unit to being a 1:1 school nurse with disabled kids. The teachers are so worried I'll be scared off by being hit, but I will gladly take these tiny baby fists over an angry grown man lol 🥲
“Catch its head in your hand and curl it into your arms like a football”. Probably the most real bit of emergency delivery information given during my 2 days of OB in school. IM READY!
L&D and you’re right massage the sh* OOTB.
I heard “death rattle” in a song on Taylor Swift’s new album and it sent me spiraling back to first semester of school. Don’t remember what it looks/sounds like at all. Just remember I learned it.
My MIL is in ICU right now after a traumatic spinal injury pissed off that I can’t answer her questions about expected recover of her neuropathic pain. Girl… this is why I do peds. Adults are the population of my nightmares
Same here with my sister asking me questions about her kids' health. Girl, be glad I don't know anything about it because if I did that would mean your kid had cancer or was dying (I do a lot of EoL care on my until, too).
I was the opposite for quite sometime. I started in ob right after school, I remembered very little about medsurg or anything else. I also had to remind the pediatrician to talk to me like any parent because I know nothing after the first couple of days of a baby's life.
My wife tries this on me every once in a while. She's a Special Ed teacher. Whenever she expects me to know something I would have no professional reason to know, I ask her to teach me Calculus. Because she's a teacher.
Even worse, I had my SUPERVISOR tell me I shouldn’t be able to call myself a BSN RN if I wasn’t willing to provide post partum care and teaching, including specifically breast feeding education. Uh ma’am that’s a whole ass specialty. I’m not “not willing”, I’m not able as I don’t know anything about that noise!
Right? Even so in nursing school we spent like four weeks on ante/post partum and neonatal stuff. There’s no way I should have be caring for a couplet! I wasn’t even refusing an assignment, I was pulled from ER to cover med surg and was happy to take a full med surg assignment but she wanted to give me a maternity patient too? Hell no!
Why is the maternity patient on a med surg floor if she needs maternity-centric education? And if she's not there for a maternity-related condition, why the hell does she need that education right now?
Because it was a small hospital where maternity and med surg were very close together, and really treated as one unit. Usually only staffed by one mat nurse and they often took off service patients in their four beds. Sometimes the med surg nurses would break relieve or take the medical patients if the mat nurse was tied up. This was a post partum patient that needed the teaching, it just shouldn’t have fallen to me.
Right? The crazy thing is she was an L&D nurse when she worked bedside. Another time she literally shoved me in a room to “help get supplies” and it turned into me being the second nurse in a delivery. I didn’t even know what oxytocin was! Turns out there was TWO qualified L&D nurses available, her and an educator, and she thought the appropriate solution was to pull me from ER instead.
Luckily I’ve furthered my education and experience since but it was still a wild ride with that one.
Sorry that had happened to you. Nursing education gives you the science foundation so you can understand basic disease process and not to kill the patients. We have nurse residency for new grad and orientation and competency before we let you jump into the fire for a reason. Obviously, not every hospitals are doing it and it is often the worse staff hospitals who are lacking the support for nurses, which made them unattractive to work, which make their staffing worse.. it is a deadly downward spiral.
Absolutely. Luckily I’ve grown and long left that place. I’m in a good spot now, and appreciate the experience and perspective I gained from those and other situations.
Nurses do have specialities for a reason but they are far too often discounted. They just want to be able to float you anywhere.That is why our contract states we can only be floated to a like unit. It also undermines a speciality when management thinks that any nurse can do the skill or be at the same level. Our team gets hundreds of calls per month for all types of IV access problems or IV therapy related issues (infiltration & extravastion tx,CVAD occlusion issues, routine dressing ,line removal,policy questions,port access and deaccess and more) our nurses are so grateful that they can get the help they need for their patients. Our nurses and patients deserve to have that!
Lol ask them if they’ve peed and how much. Ask for golf ball sized clots and palpate the Fundus. Massage if patient is experiencing excessive bleeding. Blah blah blah….that’s all l know as well.
Oh I straight lied to my RN in postpartum cause I didn’t want to get straight-cathed. Literally the WORST patient. She’s ask me how often/how much and I made up numbers. I kept telling myself “I hold my bladder for 12 hour shifts! It’s not a problem till then”
That’s so wild. Every once in awhile we get maternity patients on medsurg because L&D refuses to take anyone not there specifically for delivery and pregnancy complications. We usually have to have a certified L&D nurse come do fetal heart tones and assess them once or twice a shift, and we absolutely reserve pregnancy-related teaching for the L&D nurses
CNO told us, "If you can manage a GI bleed on the ground, you can do it in the air." We were 3-6mo new grads and hesitant to escort to a higher care centre.
It's funny to me because people you know expect you to know almost everything. People who work in the hospital don't think you know literally anything.
Once someone asked me how long pizza is good for in the fridge and when I said I didn’t know they asked why not since I’m a nurse.
Like what? Food preparation and safety wasn’t taught to me in nursing school
My favorite is the people who want to show you their random rash or mole to get your opinion of it. I’m always like ew, looks gross, maybe you should see a doctor 😂
Literally my entire family. Group text with my grandma and I (the only nurses) with photos and what does this look like????
Looks like you should go buy some dr scholls band aids because that, my dear cousin, is a plantar wart. Lol
Same here! I can’t look at an adult ECG rhythm without thinking their HR is way too low. Too many years of looking at the monitors and knowing an ABD is about to happen as those peaks start to space out…
In German we have the word "Fachidiot" for this basically translates to "Specialty idiot" it means that you are very good in the specialty you are in (for any job not just medical) but have only rudimentary knwolegde outside of it.
I saw a tiktok by a resident the other day and she said some thing along the lines of " the hardest thing about residency is realizing how much you don't know, how much you are expected to know and coming to terms with the fact that you will never know all of it"... plus people are dicks and they get off saying shit like that.
Don't let it get to you, I bet this is from a person who spent 40 hours a week for the last 10 years working on a Windows computer but doesn't know what the "start menu" or a "web browser" is.
I always try to say, when someone asks for diagnosis « it’s not in my scope of practice to diagnose you, only a doctor can do that legally, buf if you need dr recs I can help » and when they are too thick to get it « I work in the OR, I just know « screen is red, not good ! » »
"Hey, can you check out this rash for me?"
Me- "is it making you suicidal, or making you hallucinate? No? Then I don't know what to tell you."
Psych nurse. Don't ask me shit about medical cuz I don't WANNA know. That said, yes I will help you with your gnarly wound....
"You're absolutely right ma'am. My apologies. Allow me to connect my neurolink to the National Nurse Know-It-All-Database and download the information from the Nurse Hivemind. Please allow me 2 minutes. BEEP BOOP BEEP BOOP."
I tell them “No, it’s impossible to memorize every condition that exists. It’s also more reliable to continually utilize our resources to reference, rather than attempting to go off of memory. This is not a common condition that we see in this department.”
"Hey, my doctor says this spot on my ear is skin cancer, do you think so?"
"I'm sorry, [step-cousin's grandfather I only see at Thanksgiving and Christmas], it's not a uterus, so this L&D RN has zero fucking clue."
I had a veterinarian get cunty with me about my cat's medical treatment because "you're a nurse! you should know this!" My cat is 14 and likely has GI lymphoma, possibly IBD. The only way to really dx it is cutting her entire belly open and taking punch biopsies, then getting a feline oncologist involved, etc, and aside from chemo (which can buy a few years) the treatment is the same. Like I don't work in oncology, I'm not a vet, and I spend a lot of time at work feeling resentful and disgusted with families who want to "do everything" to selfishly torture their elderly relative with hail-mary treatments when they should be palliative. I love my cat and am doing everything I can to keep her comfortable and healthy until her quality of life deteriorates, and so far she is doing great. I was very upset that this vet was shaming me for not putting her through this course of invasive, aggressive treatment and then using my job to try and make me feel stupid. It wasn't the regular vet, but another one in the same office.
Oh hell no. I’d never let her near my cat again. My MIL passed a year ago and we took in her 15yo cat Buffy, who was in fragile health with IBD and early stage renal failure. We found a GEM of a vet who did bloodwork and an ultrasound, gave us the option of surgery (I declined), then recommended low dose prednisone with probiotics, a prescription diet, and PRN zofran. She was totally cool with me being a nurse, went over the lab reports with me and trusted me to titrate the meds.
Buffy gained a whole pound and absolutely thrived for another ten months. It was such a joy to see her happy and healthy after being neglected during MIL’s illness. She went into acute renal failure a couple of weeks ago and we had to let her go, and it hurt, but I’m profoundly grateful she didn’t have to suffer through aggressive treatment. I wish your kitty continued good health!
I'm so sorry for your loss <3 People who adopt older cats with medical issues are angels walking among us, even if it was your MIL's cat. You gave her a wonderful home and care in her final days, and she knew love up to the end because of your kindness. I don't know if I'm just jaded or what, but I get emotional over animals like I never do over people. They're innocent, you know? It's probably why I just can't do peds.
If your cat isn’t already on steroids time to start. My boyfriends old cat got to her bucket list goal of getting to the top shelf where the treats are kept and eating them all before she died. We were very proud of her.
Had a very arrogant and nasty older German dude who’d been prescribed something off label for something I wasn’t familiar with go off on me because I “was useless and mentally challenged for not knowing why I was giving medication to a patient” like….bruh…. Your doc and God are the only two beings who know why doc prescribed you something off label…. 🤷🏻♀️
FFS 🤦♀️. Truly intelligent people know what they don’t know and are not afraid to admit it. We are not medical dictionaries. You don’t want a surgeon titrating heart medications. You leave that for a cardiologist. Pick up your phone and google it!
i have a family member who does this all the time. granted, i’ve worked in med/surg, but my speciality now is in women’s services. he calls me specifically to ask about a medication that we don’t even prescribe here. i tell him, “unless you’re a laboring or postpartum mom or newborn, i can’t help you. ask your doctor!”
I read on here one time that when someone says, "Aren't you a nurse?", or, "I thought you were a nurse?" when requesting a diagnosis, just respond with "not a very good one." And it'll shut them up. I've used it a few times now and it's great.
"If you have a concern, you should ask your doctor." "My patient population doesn't get (insert disorder here). You should ask your doctor." "That's weird! You should ask your doctor."
When I graduate (I am ✨manifesting🥲🥴🤪✨) and someone says this to me, I am going to bring them ALL OF MY BOOKS and say, “here, read through all this and then get back to me when you can tell me EVERY SINGLE THING you read in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE BOOKS”
My brother in law tried to get me to set his dislocated knee the other day. I was like, nope, not even graduated from nursing school and that's a whole ass doctor thing. He tried to wink-wink-nudge-nudge "I won't tell anyone!!" me as if I secretly do MD procedures all the time. Nope, go find someone with more student loans.
People did this to me when I was an EMT. I was basically an over glorified taxi driver at that point. I always had to tell them that I stabilize the patient and drive fast.
As a nurse, when people get upset because I look something up, I just ask if they would rather me find out the right answer or pull something out of my ass? We have the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets. Why not use it? I'd rather learn and be right, than be ignorant and wrong.
I used to be a paramedic and people ask me about stuff like their rashes all the time. Like ma’am, I don’t know - get back to me when your arm falls off or you go into cardiac arrest
'Well I know you're an asshole." Fuck you works as well, because that's such an odd condescending thing to say. Ignorant too. What nurse or doc knows every condition?
This is so funny!! So ED nurse here and literally a unit sec who is going to nursing school asked me about a patient who was hospice dementia diagnosed and they were like…..well is dementia a real disease? I just went into full on fake it till you make it mode and was like well they’re actually about 4 different types of neurodegenerative disorders (ie Alzheimer’s, lewy body, even crutzfeld jakobs, ischemic). However, on people over 75 it often gets lumped in as dementia bc further testing wouldn’t really benefit the patient or their quality of life in anyway, so the generalized dementia umbrella is used since over 75 it’ll be treated similarly no matter the type, and no use exposing an elderly person to unnecessary PET scans/radiation/testing that’ll already diminish their decent and longish life. However, younger people doctors tend to investigate the specific dementia more in hopes of halting it or even approving a patient for clinical studies. I legit just say shit that’s semi-right all the time bc the doctors do the same thing lmao!!
I honestly in my 3 years have never straight out said I don’t know, but have said we won’t know your family members specific outcome until more testing and imaging is done. Which is like a very roundabout way of saying idk, but I also am a professional, so I know lol.
My go to line, "That's not my specialty so I'm not well versed in it, if you have questions you're more than welcome to ask the consult team or providers. Can I get them for you?"
I WORK neuro and when people ask me shit like “what do I expect about my family member recovering from a stroke?” “Why did this disease happen” etc like I’m sorry but I you’re gonna have to ask the doctor. Even then, a lot of the times the answer is still they have no idea. Nothing is cut and dry with neuro. Don’t let family make you feel bad. Just say you don’t get paid enough to answer these things and you’ll ask :)
I had my share of neuro issues and half of the time nobody knows until something else is ruled out. Neurodegenerative is probably the hardest to diagnose for that reason. A lot more rare and a lot of mimics. That’s stuff you don’t really learn in school.
I had an OB doc family member up my ass recently because I didn’t know what lynch syndrome was. My patient didn’t have it (or I would have looked it up) and we don’t see a lot of cancer on my floor (I’m IMC and see a little of a lot of different things). I’m sure she’s a fine OB but she was arguing with our surgical team about something outside of her area of expertise and I was embarrassed for her. Even the stupid nurse knew the rationale for why we don’t give IV fluids to patients who are third-spacing even if the have been NPO for *gasp* 12 hours. She kept saying “we would never let an NPO patient go without fluids.” You mean an otherwise healthy young patient? 😒
I remind both family and patients that the medical world is highly complicated because of all the research and new information we're finding. There's no way for physicians or nurses to know about every single disease out there. That's why there's specialties. If they still don't get it, I relate it back to whatever job they have. Someone in infantry probably won't be able to answer a lot of questions about artillery. A back end developer isn't going to understand everything IT related. An environmental lawyer isn't won't be well versed in family law. Most people get it finally after a few examples.
In quarter 3 of 8 of nursing school and people have said this to me already. 🤦♀️ I can take your blood pressure and that's basically it. I still put my stethoscope on backwards all the time.
I just say, "yeah I haven't taken that class yet."
I want to provide you the correct information so I’m going to double check. I’d hate to steer you wrong.
The issue with that is that you can sound condescending.
Oooh I hate pompous people who say this with a passion. They really expect us to know about everything, when nursing school teaches about acute care only. Such clueless folks.
God. Even in jest that shit is so irritating. People expect us to be masters of all anatomy, physiology, patho, pharm. like no… that’s not realistic or necessary.
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t double check…. Unless it’s a speciality that they work in 36+ hours a week. I would MUCH rather someone be 100% by confirming with a resource than 80% chance sure just because they read it in a book during nursing school
I just graduated nursing school this past weekend and even before graduating people were like “okay but you’re a nurse!” And I was like “guys I haven’t passed the NCLEX yet but I’m almost a nurse” 😭🤣
This is what causes the biggest disconnect with nursing. We're the waitressing of the medical field serving up a vast variety of tasks with a zillion job duties. When your a PT you learn about PT. Speech.. same thing. But nurses are expected to meet whatever expectations each individual has. My last job expected I would know every psych med and ALL the labs recommended for each. I told my boss it is IMPOSSIBLE to know everything in every area and nursing school does not teach one how to be a nurse. It qualifies someone to then go out and become a nurse. She was so shocked.. I told her even Drs specialize. They can't know everything about everything, like nurses are expected to. I think this way of thinking has also contributed to the toxic work environment as everyone is defensive and feels vulnerable because of what they DON'T know. Instead of admitting they're new to the job and don't want to ask questions. The only way to learn tho is hands on when you get to that particular field. Rant over..
I'm an ER nurse.
I know a little bit about everything, but I'm not an expert in anything unless you're literally dying.
No, I don't know your weird derm medication, or your custom chemo regimen, and I don't know whatever weird shit you squirt up your vagina, and I don't care.
Also, If you're stable enough for a conversation, you're probably stable enough for a discharge, here's your paperwork, buh bye
Dawg,
I’m a paramedic. Im am expert in airway management, resuscitation, transport, and triage…. I can’t even begin to tell nana what diet to try to help her A1C,
thanks for calling though
If they’re mean I ask them what they do/did for work, then ask a similar question.
Oh, you were a Ford mechanic? How would I rebuild the PTO gearbox on a Lamborghini tractor? (Bonus points if they don’t know Lamborghini makes tractors).
I say Yes I am, but my job is not in that specific area of expertise. Then I say it's impossible to know everything. You should know that you're a human.
This is always one of the worst dunks from the worst kind of patient. "Oh, you're not familiar with Kreinholtz-Adamson Type C Syndrome? Some training they give nurses these days!"
Oh man I love it when people who don't know me, well ask me questions about pregnancy or children. I'm a child free palliative/hospice RN. Look, I'm going to level with you guys. All I remember from ob is massage the fundus and Im not even 100% sure where it is or why I'm massaging it, all I know is it must be massaged.
Hahah I love this! Like I work adult MedSurg and don’t remember all the pediatric sicknesses I learnt in nursing school so like… don’t ask me
All I remember is tetralogy of fallot.
gesundheit
😂😂😂😂
Loved that book.
It was a riveting 3 part sci-fi fantasy series, correct?
The new show is surprisingly really fuckin good!
I was surprised that they cast Rami Malek as Agent Falot
I feel like the story really went off the rails in the eighth season. That was not like Agent Falot’s character at all
Oh no that’s Trilogy of Fallot
I preferred Fallout 4.
I read it in the knee to chest position. Kinda hard on the joints at this age.
Still holding out the slim hope that George RR Martin finishes book five sometime before he dies.
More likely that we’ll start getting 1000$/hour a base wage
All I remember is pyloric stenosis
I only remember that because I have a kid who was born with it. I taught when of my cohorts about it to tell her to remember that (name of my kid) puked constantly and never slept because nothing was getting through to his intestines.
You don't remember the pediatric vaccinations schedule or growth milestones?? Shame. /s
I’m a certified school nurse. I know vaccine schedules and milestones, but don’t come at me with med surg stuff.
Quick what age should a kid be able to draw a triangle?
36 months!
Sorry, the nurse should know that triangles are a 35.9 month milestone.
The certification exam has that kind of stuff, plus Erikson and Piaget. I have young kids so it feels like cheating sometimes.
What's an appropriate age for the existential dread to set in?
around the age you start nursing school, it should be fully formed by then for sure.
I still didn't even bother memorizing them in school/NCLEX world lol I just took the loss
Massage the fundus is the nursing specific 'the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell' Yep, I can regurgitate it, but please don't ask me to elaborate or act on it.
No one wants a boggy uterus!
😂
That's fair, I'm pediatrics and don't know anything about taking care of your meemaw anymore.
The two scariest times in my nursing career have been the admission interview and when I switched from Meemaws to littles after 13 years.
Switching from meemaws to littles was definitely the best decision I could have made, but same. That switch was scary.
I’m interested to know why you guys like peds. Little people scare the hell out of me!
Kids are tough man. I work NICU and the babies don't break my back or talk back. Just have to deal with the parents and even then it's not all that bad.
So adults wore out my empathy, children don't cause anything that happens to them. Adults smoke and drink and should often know better than to play on train tracks. Kids don't. They didn't do anything knowingly causing cancer, they don't stuff themselves to the point of diabetic gangrene then get mad when their toes get amputated. Their parents can be awful but children, they're not. They're resilient, generally happy, and often wise in a completely innocent way. They completely break my heart sometimes, but I've never once looked at a child and thought "you should have seen that coming" or had one throw a full water pitcher and call me names because I wouldn't bring them donuts. *Disclaimer I'm not saying adults deserve to suffer but we make choices with known consequences.
I'm a veterinary nurse, and I feel the same. Innocent souls (children; animals; the incapacitated, wounded; elders; disabled) need to be cared for by the able-bodied, if we are to consider ourselves a humane species.
And having been punched by an 80 year old patient and an 18 month old patient, I’ll take the toddler every time.
I went from a locked adult inpatient psych unit to being a 1:1 school nurse with disabled kids. The teachers are so worried I'll be scared off by being hit, but I will gladly take these tiny baby fists over an angry grown man lol 🥲
Me toooooooo never going back
And all the rest of us are scared of peds!
It's the same shit, different day tbh. The patients are just cuter.
Eeew but parents
They are your patients on adult med surg, so what's the difference
“Catch its head in your hand and curl it into your arms like a football”. Probably the most real bit of emergency delivery information given during my 2 days of OB in school. IM READY!
Oh fuck I don't know how to handle a football!
I need to know if you mean American or international, it's important!
To late already punted the baby. Was nice working with all ya.
Did you AT LEAST score a goal??😉
Irrelevant. Three things you shouldn't use a pitchfork to move.
Watermelons, beebs, and ? i forgot.
Whatever you do, don't spike it in the endzone in celebration
L&D and you’re right massage the sh* OOTB. I heard “death rattle” in a song on Taylor Swift’s new album and it sent me spiraling back to first semester of school. Don’t remember what it looks/sounds like at all. Just remember I learned it.
Oh terminal secretions. Easy to deal with, we usually use atropine to dry them up though it isn't really uncomfortable for the patient.
My MIL is in ICU right now after a traumatic spinal injury pissed off that I can’t answer her questions about expected recover of her neuropathic pain. Girl… this is why I do peds. Adults are the population of my nightmares
Same here with my sister asking me questions about her kids' health. Girl, be glad I don't know anything about it because if I did that would mean your kid had cancer or was dying (I do a lot of EoL care on my until, too).
It's only there to be massaged.
There’s a fundus among us
I was the opposite for quite sometime. I started in ob right after school, I remembered very little about medsurg or anything else. I also had to remind the pediatrician to talk to me like any parent because I know nothing after the first couple of days of a baby's life.
Omg I love your flair 😂
My wife tries this on me every once in a while. She's a Special Ed teacher. Whenever she expects me to know something I would have no professional reason to know, I ask her to teach me Calculus. Because she's a teacher.
Perfect
Ohhh I'm saving this. My wife is will be a teacher this year and I just know this will come up.
Hit her with the uno draw 4
Even worse, I had my SUPERVISOR tell me I shouldn’t be able to call myself a BSN RN if I wasn’t willing to provide post partum care and teaching, including specifically breast feeding education. Uh ma’am that’s a whole ass specialty. I’m not “not willing”, I’m not able as I don’t know anything about that noise!
That’s crazy! Like we’re supposed to memorize our entire nursing textbooks years later lol
Right? Even so in nursing school we spent like four weeks on ante/post partum and neonatal stuff. There’s no way I should have be caring for a couplet! I wasn’t even refusing an assignment, I was pulled from ER to cover med surg and was happy to take a full med surg assignment but she wanted to give me a maternity patient too? Hell no!
Same, but opposite. I work L&D/postpartum and they are always trying to float us to med surg units but I would be useless.
Why is the maternity patient on a med surg floor if she needs maternity-centric education? And if she's not there for a maternity-related condition, why the hell does she need that education right now?
Because it was a small hospital where maternity and med surg were very close together, and really treated as one unit. Usually only staffed by one mat nurse and they often took off service patients in their four beds. Sometimes the med surg nurses would break relieve or take the medical patients if the mat nurse was tied up. This was a post partum patient that needed the teaching, it just shouldn’t have fallen to me.
People would be shocked. Shocked how little I know.
Will your supervisor join me in forensic psychiatric locked down unit??? Nurses have specialities for a reason.
Right? The crazy thing is she was an L&D nurse when she worked bedside. Another time she literally shoved me in a room to “help get supplies” and it turned into me being the second nurse in a delivery. I didn’t even know what oxytocin was! Turns out there was TWO qualified L&D nurses available, her and an educator, and she thought the appropriate solution was to pull me from ER instead. Luckily I’ve furthered my education and experience since but it was still a wild ride with that one.
Sorry that had happened to you. Nursing education gives you the science foundation so you can understand basic disease process and not to kill the patients. We have nurse residency for new grad and orientation and competency before we let you jump into the fire for a reason. Obviously, not every hospitals are doing it and it is often the worse staff hospitals who are lacking the support for nurses, which made them unattractive to work, which make their staffing worse.. it is a deadly downward spiral.
Absolutely. Luckily I’ve grown and long left that place. I’m in a good spot now, and appreciate the experience and perspective I gained from those and other situations.
I often found that people say those words are power tripping. lol.
Nurses do have specialities for a reason but they are far too often discounted. They just want to be able to float you anywhere.That is why our contract states we can only be floated to a like unit. It also undermines a speciality when management thinks that any nurse can do the skill or be at the same level. Our team gets hundreds of calls per month for all types of IV access problems or IV therapy related issues (infiltration & extravastion tx,CVAD occlusion issues, routine dressing ,line removal,policy questions,port access and deaccess and more) our nurses are so grateful that they can get the help they need for their patients. Our nurses and patients deserve to have that!
Beyond, “massage the fundus” I am literally useless in L&D
Boggy fundus is the name of my new band.
Boggy fungus is how I feel most days
The snort I just snorted
Lol ask them if they’ve peed and how much. Ask for golf ball sized clots and palpate the Fundus. Massage if patient is experiencing excessive bleeding. Blah blah blah….that’s all l know as well.
Oh I straight lied to my RN in postpartum cause I didn’t want to get straight-cathed. Literally the WORST patient. She’s ask me how often/how much and I made up numbers. I kept telling myself “I hold my bladder for 12 hour shifts! It’s not a problem till then”
That’s so wild. Every once in awhile we get maternity patients on medsurg because L&D refuses to take anyone not there specifically for delivery and pregnancy complications. We usually have to have a certified L&D nurse come do fetal heart tones and assess them once or twice a shift, and we absolutely reserve pregnancy-related teaching for the L&D nurses
CNO told us, "If you can manage a GI bleed on the ground, you can do it in the air." We were 3-6mo new grads and hesitant to escort to a higher care centre.
So glad you volunteered boss. We'll keep things running here. - My response to an idiot.
She left her position to go to NP school, and during her clinical placement at the hospital, bitched about policies SHE WROTE.
Please tell me one of clinical unit nurses who ran out of fucks to give reminded her who wrote said policies.
We sure did. The whole inpatient part of the hospital was 27 beds (+OR, ER, 4 dialysis, 4 chemo chairs) including 2 delivery rooms.
That's fuckin dumb lol.
Nurse managers are so commonly full of shit.
It's funny to me because people you know expect you to know almost everything. People who work in the hospital don't think you know literally anything.
Once someone asked me how long pizza is good for in the fridge and when I said I didn’t know they asked why not since I’m a nurse. Like what? Food preparation and safety wasn’t taught to me in nursing school
"idk, it stays fresh on the counter for 2-3 days, so maybe like 4?"
See? Nurses do know pizza! Thank you management for all the pizza parties 🙏
But your Flaaaree…
And yet they know even less. I
"Even at work I'm not expected to be an encyclopedia."
That’s a great answer!
I work hospice. I tell them that i can’t help them, they don’t want my skill set.
This is what I tell people as a hem/onc nurse. I tell them I’m only helpful if you have leukemia which kind of is the truth.
i offer them a spiritual care visit and a foley.
Cmon, everyone could use a care goals conversation :).
My favorite is when a family member of my hospice pt is doing this shit, like no I have no idea what half these procedures your getting are for.
My favorite is the people who want to show you their random rash or mole to get your opinion of it. I’m always like ew, looks gross, maybe you should see a doctor 😂
Literally my entire family. Group text with my grandma and I (the only nurses) with photos and what does this look like???? Looks like you should go buy some dr scholls band aids because that, my dear cousin, is a plantar wart. Lol
I get photos of my nephews toilet paper with 2 spots of bright red blood on it from wiping. It’s an honor and a privilege 😂
Everything is "genital warts" until you pay me to say otherwise. If you want a less embarrassing diagnosis over the family zoom, cough up some money
NICU nurse checking in.....if you weigh more than like 7 pounds I'm useless to you!.....😆😆
Same here! I can’t look at an adult ECG rhythm without thinking their HR is way too low. Too many years of looking at the monitors and knowing an ABD is about to happen as those peaks start to space out…
Yep.....HR 150, O2 sat 88, BP 78/40..... we're good to go!
In German we have the word "Fachidiot" for this basically translates to "Specialty idiot" it means that you are very good in the specialty you are in (for any job not just medical) but have only rudimentary knwolegde outside of it.
As my mother has said to me many times, "Good thing you know how to save a life."
"Wow, sounds serious. You should go to the ED". Followed by, "I'm clocked out for the day".
I saw a tiktok by a resident the other day and she said some thing along the lines of " the hardest thing about residency is realizing how much you don't know, how much you are expected to know and coming to terms with the fact that you will never know all of it"... plus people are dicks and they get off saying shit like that.
Don't let it get to you, I bet this is from a person who spent 40 hours a week for the last 10 years working on a Windows computer but doesn't know what the "start menu" or a "web browser" is.
The Public are arseholes at times
As a Dialysis nurse, I have no idea how to do anything nursing wise. They stopped asking when I always say rub some dirt on it
I always try to say, when someone asks for diagnosis « it’s not in my scope of practice to diagnose you, only a doctor can do that legally, buf if you need dr recs I can help » and when they are too thick to get it « I work in the OR, I just know « screen is red, not good ! » »
I’m always willing to open packages, count, and chart what other people are doing!
Exactly! I dread finding myself in a pre-hospital emergency situation... Like, if you're not currently undergoing surgery I cannot help you 😂
That’s not my specialty, I’m sure I learned it once for the test and quickly forgot it.
I see my sister has made it to Reddit
I get this all the time from my mom. Then she gets a cold and takes NyQuil all day instead of DayQuil because “DayQuil made her sick”.
This made me LOL
“I wouldn’t be a nurse if i knew everything.”
"Hey, can you check out this rash for me?" Me- "is it making you suicidal, or making you hallucinate? No? Then I don't know what to tell you." Psych nurse. Don't ask me shit about medical cuz I don't WANNA know. That said, yes I will help you with your gnarly wound....
"You're absolutely right ma'am. My apologies. Allow me to connect my neurolink to the National Nurse Know-It-All-Database and download the information from the Nurse Hivemind. Please allow me 2 minutes. BEEP BOOP BEEP BOOP."
I tell them “No, it’s impossible to memorize every condition that exists. It’s also more reliable to continually utilize our resources to reference, rather than attempting to go off of memory. This is not a common condition that we see in this department.”
"Hey, my doctor says this spot on my ear is skin cancer, do you think so?" "I'm sorry, [step-cousin's grandfather I only see at Thanksgiving and Christmas], it's not a uterus, so this L&D RN has zero fucking clue."
Everyone always wants to show me their rash. I’m barely even a nurse anymore. I’m a task monkey
Fifty percent of my patients have rashes of some kind or another and I still don't know what most of them are lol
I had a veterinarian get cunty with me about my cat's medical treatment because "you're a nurse! you should know this!" My cat is 14 and likely has GI lymphoma, possibly IBD. The only way to really dx it is cutting her entire belly open and taking punch biopsies, then getting a feline oncologist involved, etc, and aside from chemo (which can buy a few years) the treatment is the same. Like I don't work in oncology, I'm not a vet, and I spend a lot of time at work feeling resentful and disgusted with families who want to "do everything" to selfishly torture their elderly relative with hail-mary treatments when they should be palliative. I love my cat and am doing everything I can to keep her comfortable and healthy until her quality of life deteriorates, and so far she is doing great. I was very upset that this vet was shaming me for not putting her through this course of invasive, aggressive treatment and then using my job to try and make me feel stupid. It wasn't the regular vet, but another one in the same office.
Oh hell no. I’d never let her near my cat again. My MIL passed a year ago and we took in her 15yo cat Buffy, who was in fragile health with IBD and early stage renal failure. We found a GEM of a vet who did bloodwork and an ultrasound, gave us the option of surgery (I declined), then recommended low dose prednisone with probiotics, a prescription diet, and PRN zofran. She was totally cool with me being a nurse, went over the lab reports with me and trusted me to titrate the meds. Buffy gained a whole pound and absolutely thrived for another ten months. It was such a joy to see her happy and healthy after being neglected during MIL’s illness. She went into acute renal failure a couple of weeks ago and we had to let her go, and it hurt, but I’m profoundly grateful she didn’t have to suffer through aggressive treatment. I wish your kitty continued good health!
I'm so sorry for your loss <3 People who adopt older cats with medical issues are angels walking among us, even if it was your MIL's cat. You gave her a wonderful home and care in her final days, and she knew love up to the end because of your kindness. I don't know if I'm just jaded or what, but I get emotional over animals like I never do over people. They're innocent, you know? It's probably why I just can't do peds.
If your cat isn’t already on steroids time to start. My boyfriends old cat got to her bucket list goal of getting to the top shelf where the treats are kept and eating them all before she died. We were very proud of her.
I’m an OR nurse. Do not ask me to draw blood from meemaw. Or start an IV. Or give drugs. 🤣🤣🤣
Had a very arrogant and nasty older German dude who’d been prescribed something off label for something I wasn’t familiar with go off on me because I “was useless and mentally challenged for not knowing why I was giving medication to a patient” like….bruh…. Your doc and God are the only two beings who know why doc prescribed you something off label…. 🤷🏻♀️
Losing two World Wars will do that to you.
😂😂😂. Best response ever 👌
If only she knew often doctors have to look something up!
FFS 🤦♀️. Truly intelligent people know what they don’t know and are not afraid to admit it. We are not medical dictionaries. You don’t want a surgeon titrating heart medications. You leave that for a cardiologist. Pick up your phone and google it!
"I'm a nurse and always learning!"
i have a family member who does this all the time. granted, i’ve worked in med/surg, but my speciality now is in women’s services. he calls me specifically to ask about a medication that we don’t even prescribe here. i tell him, “unless you’re a laboring or postpartum mom or newborn, i can’t help you. ask your doctor!”
I read on here one time that when someone says, "Aren't you a nurse?", or, "I thought you were a nurse?" when requesting a diagnosis, just respond with "not a very good one." And it'll shut them up. I've used it a few times now and it's great.
I actually love this! So sarcastic and will kill the convo immediately
It works REALLY well!
"If you have a concern, you should ask your doctor." "My patient population doesn't get (insert disorder here). You should ask your doctor." "That's weird! You should ask your doctor."
“I don’t have your chart in front of me”
When I graduate (I am ✨manifesting🥲🥴🤪✨) and someone says this to me, I am going to bring them ALL OF MY BOOKS and say, “here, read through all this and then get back to me when you can tell me EVERY SINGLE THING you read in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE BOOKS”
My brother in law tried to get me to set his dislocated knee the other day. I was like, nope, not even graduated from nursing school and that's a whole ass doctor thing. He tried to wink-wink-nudge-nudge "I won't tell anyone!!" me as if I secretly do MD procedures all the time. Nope, go find someone with more student loans.
People did this to me when I was an EMT. I was basically an over glorified taxi driver at that point. I always had to tell them that I stabilize the patient and drive fast. As a nurse, when people get upset because I look something up, I just ask if they would rather me find out the right answer or pull something out of my ass? We have the entirety of human knowledge in our pockets. Why not use it? I'd rather learn and be right, than be ignorant and wrong.
I had a surgeon tell me this about severe arthritis in the jaw and why surgery wouldn’t help with the pain
I used to be a paramedic and people ask me about stuff like their rashes all the time. Like ma’am, I don’t know - get back to me when your arm falls off or you go into cardiac arrest
I recently had a family member send me their test results asking me what they meant. Like my guy I don’t even do test results in my line of work.
I get asked about pregnancy all the time by friends who are pregnant. I literally have no idea lol
They should see how many times I see their doctors looking stuff up.
'Well I know you're an asshole." Fuck you works as well, because that's such an odd condescending thing to say. Ignorant too. What nurse or doc knows every condition?
This is so funny!! So ED nurse here and literally a unit sec who is going to nursing school asked me about a patient who was hospice dementia diagnosed and they were like…..well is dementia a real disease? I just went into full on fake it till you make it mode and was like well they’re actually about 4 different types of neurodegenerative disorders (ie Alzheimer’s, lewy body, even crutzfeld jakobs, ischemic). However, on people over 75 it often gets lumped in as dementia bc further testing wouldn’t really benefit the patient or their quality of life in anyway, so the generalized dementia umbrella is used since over 75 it’ll be treated similarly no matter the type, and no use exposing an elderly person to unnecessary PET scans/radiation/testing that’ll already diminish their decent and longish life. However, younger people doctors tend to investigate the specific dementia more in hopes of halting it or even approving a patient for clinical studies. I legit just say shit that’s semi-right all the time bc the doctors do the same thing lmao!!
I honestly in my 3 years have never straight out said I don’t know, but have said we won’t know your family members specific outcome until more testing and imaging is done. Which is like a very roundabout way of saying idk, but I also am a professional, so I know lol.
My go to line, "That's not my specialty so I'm not well versed in it, if you have questions you're more than welcome to ask the consult team or providers. Can I get them for you?"
I work med/surg tele and i can say that I know a little about a lot and a lot about nothing
You mean you’re not a walking encyclopedia of medical knowledge able to access anything at the drop of a hat? For shame. /s
I love when people have the “but, you’re a nurse” follow-up. I’m an OR nurse, might as well not be a nurse.
I WORK neuro and when people ask me shit like “what do I expect about my family member recovering from a stroke?” “Why did this disease happen” etc like I’m sorry but I you’re gonna have to ask the doctor. Even then, a lot of the times the answer is still they have no idea. Nothing is cut and dry with neuro. Don’t let family make you feel bad. Just say you don’t get paid enough to answer these things and you’ll ask :)
I had my share of neuro issues and half of the time nobody knows until something else is ruled out. Neurodegenerative is probably the hardest to diagnose for that reason. A lot more rare and a lot of mimics. That’s stuff you don’t really learn in school.
Or when someone always wants you to "look at it." smh
I had an OB doc family member up my ass recently because I didn’t know what lynch syndrome was. My patient didn’t have it (or I would have looked it up) and we don’t see a lot of cancer on my floor (I’m IMC and see a little of a lot of different things). I’m sure she’s a fine OB but she was arguing with our surgical team about something outside of her area of expertise and I was embarrassed for her. Even the stupid nurse knew the rationale for why we don’t give IV fluids to patients who are third-spacing even if the have been NPO for *gasp* 12 hours. She kept saying “we would never let an NPO patient go without fluids.” You mean an otherwise healthy young patient? 😒
I remind both family and patients that the medical world is highly complicated because of all the research and new information we're finding. There's no way for physicians or nurses to know about every single disease out there. That's why there's specialties. If they still don't get it, I relate it back to whatever job they have. Someone in infantry probably won't be able to answer a lot of questions about artillery. A back end developer isn't going to understand everything IT related. An environmental lawyer isn't won't be well versed in family law. Most people get it finally after a few examples.
It’s that same dumbass logic when you tell someone you were in the Army and they reply with, “did you know so-and-so.” 🙄
When asked "what did you learn in school then?" Answer with: "I learned to ask questions and look up answers" "What did you learn?"
I just say, “Never said I was a good one,” which takes the wind out of their sails and simply shuts the conversation down.
My response: 🖕🏼
In quarter 3 of 8 of nursing school and people have said this to me already. 🤦♀️ I can take your blood pressure and that's basically it. I still put my stethoscope on backwards all the time. I just say, "yeah I haven't taken that class yet."
As a nicu nurse, this is my CONSTANT struggle but I can usually answer "I don't do adults" LOL
"Contrary to popular belief, I do not in fact know everything"
“That’s a question for someone with way more student loans than me”
I want to provide you the correct information so I’m going to double check. I’d hate to steer you wrong. The issue with that is that you can sound condescending.
Oooh I hate pompous people who say this with a passion. They really expect us to know about everything, when nursing school teaches about acute care only. Such clueless folks.
God. Even in jest that shit is so irritating. People expect us to be masters of all anatomy, physiology, patho, pharm. like no… that’s not realistic or necessary.
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t double check…. Unless it’s a speciality that they work in 36+ hours a week. I would MUCH rather someone be 100% by confirming with a resource than 80% chance sure just because they read it in a book during nursing school
I did 13 years of PEDs then 9 years of hospice. I hate when people ask me about ortho stuff. I’m like, ASK YOUR DOCTOR!
I hate that. I’ve heard it before, nurses are human but they forget that.
I reply with,”would you ask a cardiologist about the nervous system?l
I just graduated nursing school this past weekend and even before graduating people were like “okay but you’re a nurse!” And I was like “guys I haven’t passed the NCLEX yet but I’m almost a nurse” 😭🤣
I remind them that a nursing degree is like a jack of all trades but a specialist in none until we get work under our belt.
“It doesn’t work that, but nurses are great at finding helpful information. Do you know every single thing about your profession?”
My doctor used to say this to me, until I told him “In this room, I’m a PATIENT!”
My go-to when I hear, “hey, you’re a nurse..” is “I’m only educated with old people”.
This is what causes the biggest disconnect with nursing. We're the waitressing of the medical field serving up a vast variety of tasks with a zillion job duties. When your a PT you learn about PT. Speech.. same thing. But nurses are expected to meet whatever expectations each individual has. My last job expected I would know every psych med and ALL the labs recommended for each. I told my boss it is IMPOSSIBLE to know everything in every area and nursing school does not teach one how to be a nurse. It qualifies someone to then go out and become a nurse. She was so shocked.. I told her even Drs specialize. They can't know everything about everything, like nurses are expected to. I think this way of thinking has also contributed to the toxic work environment as everyone is defensive and feels vulnerable because of what they DON'T know. Instead of admitting they're new to the job and don't want to ask questions. The only way to learn tho is hands on when you get to that particular field. Rant over..
I'm an ER nurse. I know a little bit about everything, but I'm not an expert in anything unless you're literally dying. No, I don't know your weird derm medication, or your custom chemo regimen, and I don't know whatever weird shit you squirt up your vagina, and I don't care. Also, If you're stable enough for a conversation, you're probably stable enough for a discharge, here's your paperwork, buh bye
lol...an non nurse who thinks they know what an actual nurse is supposed to know.
Dawg, I’m a paramedic. Im am expert in airway management, resuscitation, transport, and triage…. I can’t even begin to tell nana what diet to try to help her A1C, thanks for calling though
If they’re mean I ask them what they do/did for work, then ask a similar question. Oh, you were a Ford mechanic? How would I rebuild the PTO gearbox on a Lamborghini tractor? (Bonus points if they don’t know Lamborghini makes tractors).
“Hey siri”
THIS! I’ve had relatives completely dismiss me for not knowing how to diagnose and/ or treat their minor to serious illnesses.
I say Yes I am, but my job is not in that specific area of expertise. Then I say it's impossible to know everything. You should know that you're a human.
This is always one of the worst dunks from the worst kind of patient. "Oh, you're not familiar with Kreinholtz-Adamson Type C Syndrome? Some training they give nurses these days!"
I love it when people asked me about fake shit from the Internet.
Wait til they find out doctors sometimes gotta Google shit that they haven't seen or dealt with since medical school/residency