IAmA nurse who has worked in just about every specialty, AMA (unless it violates HIPAA)

Fast story about when my mom was in ICU. (Now - my mom had a wicked sense of humor so I know she'd appreciate this.) I lived about 60 miles from the hospital, while my older brother lived right in town. So he was the primary family contact. I didn't get to see her towards the end but maybe 3-4 times a week, while David was there 2-3 times a day. So this one Tuesday morning, I tell my wife I had kind've a bad feeling and we should go visit Mom. I bang out of work and we drive in. It's about 10:30. Mom's sleeping as she always was lately. Not in a coma, but just sleeping 18-20 hours a day. But it's good they say to talk to them. So I do:

"Mom, you're really looking better today." "You know, when you get outta here, we're taking you to Coney Island so you can ride the Cyclone again! Won't that be great? Just like when you were a kid!" "Mom, you have to see our garden this year!"

Just then a nurse pops her head in the door:

"Um... can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure."

(We step into the hall.)

"What's up? Is she ok?"

"Well... Your mother passed about 20 minutes ago. I'm sorry."

I could hear her laughing at me from Heaven! "You liar! I did not 'look better'!'"

Omg! I'm so sorry but I just laughed so hard at that! I'm glad your mom would have appreciated that :)

I love that story too! It's just like- "Well OF COURSE she looked like shit! OF COURSE I lied!"

Thanks for laughing along. I think I love you. God bless!

Hahahahahahhaaa!

Hahahahaha that's an awesome story. I'm glad you can find humour in a time of pain. Far too many people can't (not a dig, more...what's a word for me being sad that they can't do that ?)

I lost my missus in 2013 (4 year anniversary next week. Yay..), and the only thing that keeps me sane is making jokes. Also, it makes people super uncomfortable, which is just a bonus to me

I'm sorry for your loss. And from experience I get it. Sometimes humor is one of the best ways to deal with it.

OMG my first AMA request success ever!

OP: What nightmares do you have?

That depends on what kind you're taking about. Actual horrific nightmares are one thing. Nightmare stories omg there so many... The guy who pooped out of his penis, The guy with an erection lasting longer than 4 hours, Prostitutes propositioning me while kicking her feet to her ears and calling me her jelly bean queen, Alcohol intoxications, STDs like you wouldn't believe, Crazy parents threatening to kill me in the parking lot, Crazy sundowning elderly people...

Edit: a word and punctuation Edit 2: fixed a preposition

He.. pooped out his penis?

Omg yes! I about fell out of my chair in report. Took care of the guy a few separate times. Really nice guy young good-looking. Apparently he had like Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis I can't remember it's been too long. Basically what happened is this guy's immune system attacked his intestines to the point that a canal formed between his bowels and his bladder allowing both fecal matter and gas to travel into his bladder. Dude literally pooped and farted out of his penis and had a raging urinary infection.

I mean, that's terrible... but something makes me happy that dick farts are something that happen.

ME TOO! Any time I hate being a nurse I think of things like that to make me smile.

Do you ever role play with your husband as the "head" nurse?

Lol! Thought about it when I was a new nurse but it was kinda awkward. Now it's just work and when I'm home I don't even want to look at scrubs

Dick farts happen when you get a catheter removed, by the way. :)

They can buy that's more of a male queef I think.

Well the step up from fisting is fistula

Idk, I have "fisted" a lot of women and I don't think I ever made a fistula (God I hope not)

I should add that for some reason if somebody had a problem with their genitals I always ended up being their nurse. I was the crotch nurse.

Wait. In case anyone else was confused about this, he didn't "poop out his penis," he "pooped out OF his penis." Both very WTF, but pooping out your own penis would require that you had previously ingested said penis, right? Another story entirely. So that's why I was confused.

Okay okay true true totally different meaning without the preposition. Sorry I'm typing this fast on my phone

Ftfy

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be correcting your English. I'm just easily confused, and got a totally different mental image when I read it. Thanks for all the great work that you do, that would make squeamish people like me faint!

No not at all :) I realized it was confusing so I fixed it. And don't mention it.

The smells are probably the worst. Funny thing is I can't do poop, well grown up poop) it will make me vomit. So those are my worst experiences, but there is something to be said for walking into a room where someone has trichomonas and having to put your face down there to do a vaginal check. That's a nightmare

I am an Assistant in Nursing in an Australian aged care home and I can handle blood, bones sticking out or other things on the human body not being where they should be, urine, poop and mucus but I cannot handle vomit. Anyone vomits near me and I go out in sympathy! Colostomy bags would be right up there too. Do not want to deal with.

Most nurses in aged care where I am have said if they ever get dementia or other incurable diseases of old age they would commit suicide. Dealing with it on the daily makes you never want to be in the same position. How do you feel about that?

I absolutely can't do poop in any form. Colostomy bags are the worst. I have vomited in a patient's sink, in a patient's toilet, in a patient's trash can, and in the hallway on my way to the staff bathroom. Yuck. I was told when I was in school that it would get better but it did not. Aside from that I definitely would never want to live that way. I have seen some horrific cases when people are in Decline I am a huge advocate for a patient determined euthanasia. Living that way is no kind of life. I always tell people there's worse things than dying

Doctors are always told to treat the nurses really well. Be really nice to them. They'll help you if you need it and they basically run the place. I'm just wondering, are nurses told to treat doctors well the same way?

It honestly depends on what kind of Hospital you're at. We're taught to respect the doctors and to only act professionally with them, to never disagree in a way that seems insubordinate. That being said, when I worked at a magnet Hospital that was also a teaching Hospital, the doctors treated us with the utmost respect and worked alongside of us. They valued our opinions and included Us in the team and decision-making process. When I went to a regular Hospital it was kind of a shell shock when I began being treated like an idiot or a secretary by The Physician staff. I was even more horrified to find out that there are no real consequences for them in that type of environment. I have been screamed at, had my hands slapped in the OR, been talked to like a dog, had a Dr not treat the patient appropriately because I made them angry, had sexist comments. I still always treated them with respect for the benefit of the patient

/cracks knuckles/ time to one up this fecker!

When my missus was admitted to the hospital 4 years ago, I hadn't heard from anyone in a while. When I asked a doc how she was he said.

SHE'S DEAD. D. E. A. D. DEAD. GOT IT ?

Then left in a huff. It really fucked with me. For a long time I contemplated going after him (I really hate typing that out, it sounds like online bravado, but, and this is gonna be more stupid bravado, but at that time in my life and my situation, it was a very valid avenue for me. I'm a better person now), but as the years have gone on I realised that his attitude and frustration was warranted. My missus died due to misadventure with drugs

Oh. My. God. I am so sorry this happened to you. That is terrible. That doctor had no right to treat you that way no matter what the circumstance. I'm so sorry

"Don't fuck with the people who's job is not only to save your life*, but who decide on how comfortable you are during it" feels apt.

Omg! I love that! Hahahahahahhaaa! It's so true. Although I will say any nurse worth anything will treat you the same no matter what. That doesn't mean they won't request a different assignment tomorrow though!

How can a child see a doctor alone when an emotionally abusive control freak parent accompanies them to the appointment? The child simply asking the parent to step out would only lead to hours of yelling once they left.

That's a tough one. If the doctor doesn't specifically ask then I would tell the child to try to signal the staff or the doctor there is something wrong. They could try to pass a note to the nurse or receptionist or even quietly call ahead before the appointment to give the staff a heads up if the parent is watching like a hawk during the visit

If there's anything I can help you with pm me

Any good stories of a patient who seems to “know more than you” because of the internet?

Yes! I had a woman come in complaining of contractions at about 32 weeks so I have to do labor check. I know what the problem is the second I hit the door. If you've ever smelled trichomonas you'll never forget it. So I put her on the monitor everything looks fine some contractions a little pattern nothing too scary mostly irritability. I do all the lab work tell the doctor to run a test for trichomonas it comes back super positive we get the prescription to treat her and the order to send her home after treatment with follow-up instructions. So I go back in and discreetly explain to her that she has trichomonas and it is causing her uterus to contract. She told me she's known about the trichomonas but she's refusing treatment because she saw online that it might hurt her baby and that she had researched it and that she didn't want to take any medicine. I calmly explain to her that at her stage in pregnancy the medication was safer than delivering her baby. She argued with me for a while so I went and print it out my own crap from the interwebs to convince her to treat her STD. The worst part was having to do a manual vag check. I'm short and my face was in there. Ugh

I'm a Medical Technologist in the lab and I love watching those little boogers tumble around! I hope I you've gotten into the lab to see! I always try and call any students over and now that in work in a free standing emergency room I'll call the nurses too. Fun stuff!

The lab is so cool! I always loved going to the lab! That's awesome that you include the new nurses so they have the opportunity to see how things work down there :)

Ok, well now I regret asking this question in a medical AMA. Loads different than an AMA at a mechanic shop or whatever.

Ha!

Which units do you find the most emotionally tough, physically tough, and toughest on your knowledge?

Emotionally difficult was peds oncology and peds bone marrow.. I loved the kids but that ended up killing me so I had to get out. Physically difficult was regular adult medical-surgical. I'm a small girl and I had to move some big people. Mentally challenging - I would say each had its own difficulties. General pediatrics is probably the most difficult die to a large part of the population but being able to speak or advocate for themselves. It takes a lot of background knowledge to know what you're looking for. And with general peds there are a lot of possible problems with a lot of different systems that I would need to know about and know what to look for with each different scenario.
Edit: a word

I am a new RN and working a post-op floor. My goal is to get to ER eventually. Any advice on what makes a good ER nurse?

Actually yes a little bit. One of my good friends that I trained as a GN years ago ended up making the change to emergency room. You will get a lot of good experience on a surgical floor. One thing I can tell you is that it is stressful you have to learn to prioritize and time manage which you'll get a lot of that to start in your new position. Do you remember that in the course of a career you will probably do a bunch of different nursing jobs if you go to emergency and don't like it it's okay you can always pick a new job. If you can get in at a magnet hospital or teaching Hospital that is the best experience you can get and you get a lot of support so that you're not just thrown in the deep end. Always remember to keep your boundaries advocate for yourself and your patient and in order to do emergency you're going to have to learn to be okay with a lot of really ugly things including children who had bad things happen

Thanks!

Of course :) also learn toet the crap roll off. If you're a girl, try not to be an angry crier (I am) the supply closet is a great place to collect yourself. If you're a guy, try to Keri the attitude in check. People will be jerks, drs will be assholes. The most important thing in that environment is learning to keep that straight face and remember to keep your eye on the patient. The rest will work itself out. It's a high stress environment and conflict will happen. Just work through it and engender the only thing in life you can control is yourself. Please don't be afraid to call pediatrics for help with IV sticks on fat babies if u need to. Remember iv sticks are hard at first but the I my way you'll get good is to try every single patient at least once. You'll blow some veins that's ok

Also congratulations! And don't worry when you go through the funk. We all do

What was it like the first time you witnessed a patient die? How about now? Does it just become another aspect of the job? I'd understand that I think.

The first time I saw somebody die was really difficult. My first job was in pediatric oncology and my patients died but I never was with them when it happened because we would send them up to ICU if they were going to die. Years later I still talk to a few of the parents and still cry on the anniversaries of some of their deaths. When I went into adult care I actually saw my first person died in front of me and it was really an odd experience. It felt kind of surreal like it wasn't really happening and I felt kind of disassociated from myself. I went home and cried after but we try to keep a strong face for the families. It doesn't ever get easier. I would still get scared at the bedside if a patient wasn't looking good I would still have problems and need to call in for mental health if somebody died even after years of Nursing. It does get easier to hide it from the family members while you're at work though. Maybe in emergency room or ICU it gets easier because they see it more but because I specialized primarily in children and labor death was especially hard

Oh, labor death must be one of the worst. I'm sorry you have to witness these things. You sound like such a sweetie I wanna hug you.

Thankfully it's rare

Aww :) thank you. I try really hard not to be a jerk. It is really hard. People come in with so much happiness and hope for the little one. When things go badly, it's horrific.

Has the Filipino mafia accepted you into their circle yet?

Hahaha! Omg! No I was not accepted into the Phillipino mafia. Not many in my specialties or my area. I always saw them working in cardiac units. I do have one good friend from the Phillipines and she is an amazing nurse. Much better than me.

Hi, have you ever had an experience with a patient who has methemoglobinemia? I was surprised to learn that this condition can be deadly within a matter of minutes (happened to me) and that the 5 doctors I had to deal with had never heard of this.

Holy cow! I have never dealt with that. I'm glad you're ok! That's terrifying. I'm not surprised they didn't know about it what caused yours?

I was at the dentist having deep cleaning done and also pull 2 bad teeth. They used lidocaine gel to numb my gums for the cleaning, and in just a few minutes I started feeling dizzy. They said it was my nerves. When it was time for pulling teeth, the dentist did shots that were lidocaine (I think?) I immediately got dizzy, hot, heart racing, left side of body went numb, turned gray all over, oxygen level got to 79, shaking, was going in and out of consciousness. I kept screaming I didn't want to die. It seemed that many people were around me but I think it was only 3.

A lot of EMT's had to put a tarp under me and take me to a stretcher because the room was too small to bring a stretcher in. I then could tell I was dead weight, that's why so many carried me. For some reason I started feeling better once in the ambulance. All I can say is it was god. They kept talking to me, telling me to stay awake.

I got to ER at hospital, they give me steroid shot, nebulizer treatment and oxygen tube on nose. I dont' really remember any of it. My oxygen level wouldn't get past 85, so I had to stay overnight. I just kept getting better. But, I would feel weird and tired a lot.

About 4 days after I got out of hospital, dentist called me and said he found out about methemoglobinemia and said that sounds like what I had. I went to a hemotologist, but by the time I could make the appt, it was almost out of my system. Nothing could be done at that point. It took about 2 months for me to get completely well.

That dr. told me I was suppose to have been given methylene blue immediately. I just couldnt' believe that doctors, nurses, dentist don't know about this.

I started reading a lot about it and found out that babies die from orajel. And that some patients who die at hospitals have the wrong cause of death noted because doctor doesn't know about this and says they die from something else.

A couple of months ago, I found out about a 3 yr old girl who died at a dentist office. It was on the news, dentists said they didn't know how she died. I got in touch with a family member of this family through facebook and told them this could be the reason. I never heard back from them.

Omg yes. Orajel will do it. That's scary and yes you should have had the methylene blue. I wondered if it happened when you were little. I'm so glad you are ok. That's terrifying!

When my wife gives birth, if it’s not a cesarean, how long does it take for all the afterbirth to come out, generally?

It's usually pretty quick within a few minutes. If it didn't come out right away that might be a problem. Generally speaking it's almost immediate like within a minute or two of cutting the cord

Is that with synotcinon? Is third stage usually managed?

Yeah we'll leave the pitocin on through the whole thing and once the placenta comes out we open it full bore to clamp down the uterus. It will usually come out quickly either way. If it didn't come out within a reasonable amount of time they'd have to do a manual removal or maybe go to the or. As long as that placenta is up there the mom continues to bleed so they're highly motivated to get it out in a reasonable amount of time. If it doesn't come out within a few minutes of birth the doctor will start doing different things trying to help it along. We wouldn't give too much pitocin before it came out because we wouldn't want the uterus to clamp down with the placenta inside.

Are most labours managed with a pitocin drip? I live in a different country (NZ) where pitocin seems to be used less. With my two labours both progressed naturally then once baby was born I got a shot of syntocinon in the thigh.

A lot of doctors here (us) like to use pitocin even in a normally progressing labor to augment. The bag of pit after labor is pretty standard to help prevent hemorrhage. I think it's kinda ridiculous and it's used too much here but Dr's here don't want to give the moms a lot of time. Always want to speed things up. But hey what do I know I'm just a nurse :p

Funniest encounter with a patient? Also would you say you nurses have a dark sense of humor on the job?

Funniest encounter with a patient I guess there would be two. First would be the guy who had priapism and had to have surgery to help get the blood back out so he could retain function of his unit. Poor guy was early thirties attractive and well endowed. It didn't help that he had a continual raging boner. I had to do wound dressing changes on his penis head with my face down in his crotch while dressing his fully erect penis. Then I had to discuss milking exercises which were very similar to a masturbatory motion in order for him to move the blood from the penis. The second one would have to be the prostitute who was in for generalized abscesses from who knows what, some kind of MRSA. She at one point propositioned me, called me her Jelly Bean Queen, and then wanted me to look at something she was worried about near her vagina and proceeded to put her feet behind her head to show me yuck. And yeah nurses have a really dark sense of humor after doing the job for a couple years

Jelly Bean Queen?!?! I gotta remember that one!

Yeah idk about that one. I laughed pretty hard. I doubt I'll ever forget that

Firefighter/EMT here, how does it feel to do all work while the doctors take all the credit? Don't deny it happening, I know the pain...

Oh my God that's so true. I usually don't mind if it's a nice doctor but when the doctor is a dick it really just pisses me off and makes me miserable. I just keep my head down and do what I'm supposed to do but it really does suck. It's really nice when the patients realize who actually does all the hard work and who actually saved their life

I once pushed Narcan on an OD as we pulled into the hospital. Or came to in the hallway and asked what happened, before anyone could say a word some cocky new doctor swooped in to say that he had saved her life. Fortunately for me and the nurses he was short, which was unfortunate for him when he wanted anything including his chair that we stowed on top of some cabinets in the maintenance closet.

What an ass :(

Also you guys are freaking Heroes and make my job look easy

Not heroes, just doing our job like you do yours.

I don't know I pulled somebody out of a motorcycle wreck once and realized that there is no way in hell I could ever do your job. Scared the shit out of me

Scares me every time too. But we are wired the same, doesn't matter our personal hang ups, how disgusting it is, or how scared we are. We do our respective jobs because someone else needs our help.

Of course thanks to that attitude and the job in general, I suffer from PTSD but it's alright, I have my wife and my niece to make sure that I always make it home.

I'm so sorry to hear that. How long have you been in the job? All I could think was what the hell am I going to do, why did I stop, when is EMS going to get here, why isn't anyone helping, and please tell me I'm not going to be cracking ribs on the highway. It's terrifying.

10 years. But the first year is the one that keeps me up at night. I lost 20 patients and 9 of them were under 18 of those 9, 6 never saw high school. It really fucked (pardon the language) with me to have to tell so many parents that I failed. God, I can still see their faces....

:( omg that is so sad. You've lasted a long time. I had to get away from the bedside. Ever thought of moving to education or management?

Nah, I will just keep doing my job and hopefully fade off into obscurity as one of the old guys who is lucky enough to retire.

Side note, love the reference to Death Note in your username. Excited for the Netflix adaptation?

:D omg YES! I'm dying! I can't wait to see WD as Ryuk!

You didn't fail them :(

Yes I did, in the sense that they wanted me to make everything alright. I did everything I could obviously but that wasn't enough. It doesn't matter though, it's the past and it can't be changed. Just learn from it and move on.

That's hard. I'm sorry.

What do you think of the other professionals (respiratory tech, X-ray tech etc) you work alongside? I'm interested because I work in veterinary medicine and we just don't have much of that level of specialty.

I love my RTs they are awesome. I don't work to much with imaging but when I du they are always cool. Super nice people in imaging who never get upset when is can turn in at 3 am for a stat ultrasound. Most other staff that works with nursing is amazing and usually all work together as a team. Sometimes lab gets annoying when they try to tell me a sample is hemolyzed. Like really? You spilled it, just admit it! Lol!

Ever have a black child born from two white patents?

I had one that got bruised and dad thought it was black, lost his mind. Nor just white with bruises. I had a Spanish baby to two white parents. Dad was in denial.

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Link didn't work

I'm thinking of going to school for respiratory therapy. Observed any reason I shouldn't? What's the working relationship with nurses like?

Respiratory therapy is awesome! I absolutely love my RTs! Respiratory and nursing get along great. Smart nurses know to take care of their therapists because they're the ones that save her ass when things go downhill. It is a really cool job but it can be very stressful because RT gets called for all the codes including NICU C-section room. So respiratory sees some bad things. I know a few who've gone into nursing for the pay. The demand isn't as high as for nursing and a lot of my therapist friends had to have multiple jobs working part-time at different places. All in all I still think it's better than being a nurse.

Thanks for the reply. I'm a 35 year old recovering addict and I'd like to find a career path that I can start soon, help people and makes decent money. The program where I am only accepts 16 people a year so I pretty much have to go all in.

I am so happy to hear that you're in recovery! Congratulations and I know it's a really hard Road. I really think you'll like it. If you want something less hectic and frantic look into speech therapy occupational therapy or physical therapy. It's a little calmer and school doesn't take long. You can help a lot of people doing that too.

RT is the only associates program offered where I am aside from physical therapy, but being a college football town, there are plenty of those.

I think you will do amazing!

Hello. Are you retired or still practicing? I'm a retired military RN. I had a bunch of similar experiences, as we all do. I am only 50 yrs old, but military ages one very quick in a shorter period of time. Now I'm left with the aching body. I wouldn't trade my experiences at all, but know that I couldn't do another night shift in an ICU anymore or another long deployment. When I worked, the RNs did everything, no nurse's aides! We had the enlisted (they are great), but never enough of them. Now I'm studying to be a mechanic, my childhood passion. I guess it's a guy thing. I'll be getting my hands dirty with grease instead of "shit"! We are a special breed, the people who help the sick. I've never regretted the practice. I still keep the license active, just in case. ⚓️🇺🇸

Oh wow! That's amazing. I am still practicing. I moved into management but hated it. Now I do case management for medically fragile children making sure they get nursing services. In working on my masters in nursing education and am planning on teaching in the future. It is a true calling but it takes all you have body and soul for sure. I was always very careful with my back but have since shoulder issues from lifting and holding. Still worth it

Good luck being a mechanic! I think that would be a cool ass job. I always loved helping my dad work on cars

Hi! Just wondering, how long were your shifts normally? And did you work 5 days out of the week, or was it less?

Thank you!

I worked 3-12 hours shifts in the hospital. With report and all it would be 7 to like 7:30-8. I worked overnights forever. I would usually have a call shift every few weeks for 12 hours and would occasionally pick up extra. After going to management I went 8-5 a week and now i work from home and in the field .my hours are still 8-5 but that varies depending on what i need to do

OK, so have you had a creepiest patient? Wanna see if it beats my creepiest call!

Ok so this one was waaayyy back in nursing school during my psych rotation. There was this kid in the unit. He was about 10. He was in for attempted suicide (tried to hang himself with a belt) he was creepy as fuck. He was completely flat in affect and just calmly told me about how he tried to kill himself and how he was going to kill his mom. The next day was this grown man wit cuts all over his arms in for suicide attempt. He got upset about a board game and grabbed my arm HARD when I went to move a piece on the board. He never said anything but stared at me with glaring eyes. I almost peed my pants and decided I wanted nothing to do with psych nursing

Oh wow, a 10 y/o??? Holy crap! Yeah, i was always uncomfortable around psych patients after one went from calm to pining me down in the back the unit. So i can about imagine having someone put a death grip on your arm and give you the look. Have to go look for my creepiest.

Yeah scary crap. The kid was way scarier than the adult I swear he's a future serial killer

I just gave birth on Thursday and I have to say that the labor and delivery nurses are amazing. I'm sure it's the case with a lot of departments but the nurses were definitely the true heros of my stay there.

What was your favorite department to work in?

I'm so glad you had a good experience and congratulations on the little one! I'm truly happy for you. I loved labor and delivery /postpartum but my heart is pediatrics. I have a soft spot for kiddos. I love all pediatrics but my specialty is oncology. I love my bald kids. Just can't keep watching them die. I get too attached.

How many patients have died due to administration related understaffing?

That's a really good question. None that I've taken care of but I am very protective of my license and will go toe to toe with management because I know my nurse practice acts. I have known a few nurses that it happened to. Adverse events are much more common and unsafe staffing at some hospitals is nearly constant. I'm a big advocate for legislation regarding nursing ratios. I have walked into some cluster fucks and upper management is only worried about numbers, not safety.

Are there any nursing jobs that don't deal with gross stuff?

Also is it true that hospitals are requiring a BSN degree instead of just the associates now?

Yes there are. Pediatrics isn't too gross. OR /pacu isn't bad either. If you want to move totally away from that kind of thing them community health (like health dept or clinic work) is very nice and can be very interesting especially working with communicable disease populations. Case management is very nice as well as nursing education.

I apologize I forget to address the BSN v ASN. The push is for BSN and many hospitals are starting to require it. The thing is, i made as much with an asn as I do with my bsn. The BSN did make me a better nurse though. Histograms that actually are requesting bsn will almost all hire asn nurses with the agreement that the nurse will enroll for their bsn within a certain amount of time

My mom was on welfare. We were living at my grandmothers house. She was taking nursing classes at the local community college back in the early 90s. After she graduated with her ASN, we went from poverty to middle class. It was this massive shift I've ever experienced. Random story I thought I would share.

That must have been incredibly difficult for your family. Your mom sounds like a really strong woman. She really did a lot to make life better for you all. Amazing. Similar to me in a way I guess. I left college initially at 20 to be a stay at home mom. My ex was a cop and things were going really badly. I had 2 young daughters and needed to find a career i could support them with in order to even think about leaving. I went to nursing school and one month before I graduated it hit the fan. We were destitute for a couple months but as soon as I started working our lives were so much better than before.

What was the most unexpected case that you've come across? Something you never could have imagined ever happening

Oh man, had a mom who had been in a few times for labor checks. Prenatal care no red flags everything looked good, everything measuring to dates no worries. Saw her one night checked her and sent her home. The next week she came in again, still a bit early I expected to check her and send her home. It her in the monitor and it was bad. Really bad. Call the Dr, he won't come. Call the Dr he won't come. Finally after like 4 hours he comes dicks around then calls a stat section. I'm circulating, baby comes out, is not good and is tiny, like 4 lbs smaller than expected. Skin and bones. Baby codes. I'm doing compressions while nicu bags so RT can get ready to intubate. Baby came through, we shipped. I never saw that one coming.

Another time of man who can't walk suddenly can run like a damn jungle cat (sundowned-demented old people can go crazy once it's dark ) I mean this guy can't even get to a bed side toilet without help and he's like springing down the hall. Had to chase him down and get him in bed with an alarm. No one warned me the guy got super powers at night!

Another time I had a woman, hard swoosh over abdomen on assessment worried over aortic aneurysm call the dr. It was her pace maker triggering her diaphragm. Wtf. She had been there for days with complaint of shortness of breath when I got her. Fixed the pace maker and she went home

I ama nursing student. Which specialty is best for a new grad? I am thinking going into med surg first would be great because it would allow me to practice the essential skills before something more specialized. What do you think?

I would never discourage a new grad from doing med/surg to start. It helps you a TON. You'll learn a lot about all kinds of different disease processes. It teaches you time management. It's a rock solid foundation. That being said it is very stressful and training isn't as extendable in a lot of these units because they dont have the luxury of giving up a nurse to precept a GN for months. There can be a lot of eating the young mentality (which I HATE about nursing) and you can get thrown in to swim before you're ready. If you are planning on specializing there is no reason not to go into the specialty straight out of school if you are certain it's what you want or close to what you want. (I went into peds hemeonc a double specialty straight out of school which was ok because I knew I could use those skills to do general peds, nursery and nicu, adult oncology or back track to medsurg) if you specialize straight out of school the best place to go is a teaching hospital or magnet hospital. Just keep in mind you need to do at the bare minimum 6 months better a year at your first job and now places are doing GN contracts. Be careful with the first job and remember you don't have to take the first one

Hi! I was wondering which specialty had the best residents that you've encountered? Do you have any funny stories of interns/residents you've worked with? Thanks for doing this AMA.

Omg the peds bmtu. They were the best. They were on the ball but still respected nursing because we knew our shit better than they did for the population. One time I had a 1st year try to prescribe ibuprofen for a kid who came in with fever neutropenia. I politely took her aside once we left the room and we amended the order. We were bad sometimes. In the days before ofirmev we would see if we could get orders for iv Tylenol :p we once got an order written for I. B. Proten... It was just silly and fun.

Do you mind sharing your educational background?

I’ve been thinking about getting a nursing degree and I’m curious the schooling.

Of course. I got my ASN (RN) at Santa Fe (community) College in Gainesville. Then I got my BSN through UCF. I'm now working on my MSN Ed. Through UCF as well. I pretty much made the same as an ASN as a BSN maybe just like 50 cents less per hour. The BSN is worth it if you want to progress but the ASN is great and you can work making good money while you get the BSN. Most hospitals with bsn requirement will hire with an ASN and give you a year to begin classes.

My associates took 3 years, (there's a lot of prerequisite courses). The BSN took 1 more year, the MSN takes just over 2

My husband will finish up Nursing school in May of next year. Any advice for a new nurse that I can pass on to him?

Oh man. Being a GN is tough. Very through the first year and you'll be good. Everyone has it tough at first it gets easier. Everyone is terrified they are going to kill someone for the first 6 months or so that's normal and it gets better! Try to let it roll off your back if your preceptor is a bitch. Nurses eat their young. Just keep it up, you'll get it! And when you go through the funk keep something good in mind. Everyone goes through the period of hating nursing that's normal too! It always gets easier and better!

I have always heard there is a stigma against male nurses and a culture akin to a female being in a traditionally male workplace. What changes have you seen for good and bad on this?

Male nurses are becoming very widely accepted. I think it is a wonderful thing. Men seem to gravitate towards certain fields like ED, PACU, ICU and many times they really do well in the high pressure situations. I have known Pediatric male nurses that were just as caring and nurturing as Any female nurse. I think it's strange that it is fine for a male to be an obgyn but it is still seen as strange to have a male labor nurse. I hope that the culture continues to change for the better. I love having male nurses in the field. They act differently and think differently. I don't want to sound negative towards my gender in any way but sometimes it helps to break up the drama in the hen house. I hope that men in nursing becomes a non issue during my career and that more males start to look at nursing as a career. Maybe one day the numbers of males and females will be equal :)

Do you ever interact with infection prevention teams? I am studying hospital epidemiology in grad school and am curious what actual interactions look like.

Because I worked nights I had very little interaction with them. It was usually when I would be leaving and they would come to the unit to discuss things. Day shift would have a lot of interaction with infection control though. Usually the infection control nurse would get reports of all patients with any precautions and would review each case with nursing and physician staff to develop a plan moving forward. On night shift we would just put precautions in place if there was any questuin and let the infection team develop a plan when they came in. That being said, many of the units I worked in were considered clean units and many times any infection risks were transferred if at all possible to prevent cross contamination. I'm seeing great things coming out of infection control. Lots of new practices like only 1 cystic fibrosis patient per nurse or RT. It's a great field

Everytime I read about violating HIPAA I can't help but imagine a poor hippo who just had the worst handler...

ANYWAY:

What's the funniest birth you've witnessed ?

Lmbo! Omg that poor poor hippo. Hopefully it starts standing up for itself!

Let's see, the craziest birth... That's been a few. There was one I didn't witness where poor dad delivered the baby with EMS on the phone and cans in shell shocked. He did awesome by the way... Even had a local news article about it

There was this one night where I swear every pregnant woman decided to give birth at one and there were only 3 of us in staff. We called in nurses from other units just for extra hands. We would be delivering 1 and another was on the perineum (crowning) then we had a stat section and had to do that in between deliveries. EMS just kept bringing them in. We went from empty to full that night. I think the craziest was when we had a mom come in with twins at about 34 weeks. She was complete and ready to push. Twin was head down. Dr was on his way. We were calling everyone we needed and then We rushed the room to start ivs get assessment etc. Started prepping the OR. Dr took forever but made it in time for pushing. He kept calling us and telling to get her to the or and we were trying to explain we couldn't move her due to the baby coming out. Baby was delivered no problem. We were trying to ultrasound other twin to check lie and it was transverse (sideways) so we rush her to the or thank God anesthesia made it just in time out it could have been ugly. Baby was fine and both did great. It wasn't anything super abnormal it just felt like a 3 ring circus with the calls and yelling. All this happened in about 30 minutes from the time she hit the door. There's other crazy deliveries but I don't like those stories

I am absolutely batshit terrified of needles. How much do you hate me? And what can I do to make necessary medical visits easier on myself, and the people that have to care for me?

Not at all. I used to cry when I had to get stuck. Remember the needle is tiny and is only there very briefly. Let the person know you are scared of needles. We understand. Look away and he's the important part BREATHE AND RELAX. Clamping down or tensing up makes it hurt and bruise more and makes us miss. Whatever you do DON'T MOVE or you will probably have to get a second one. Drink plenty of water to plump the veins if you can and let us know if there are particularly good it bad ones from the past :) if you can relax and focus on something else sometimes you won't even feel it.

Which group was the most sociopathic? In all my experience, I've gotta nominate the OR crew or the ER crew. I'm leaning towards ER

Hahaha! I agree, or are they more narcissistic?

Not sure if you're still answering, but I hope you write back!

My wife will have our first boy in a few weeks. He has a birth defect that causes his bladder to be really full. We have two different diagnosis possibilities, Prune Belly Syndrome and Posterior Urethral Valve.

Any advice on how to help my wife through delivery and his diagnosis? Any experience with these in defects in your career?

So is there oligohydramnios? The valve is more likely. I've never seen prune belly in person. All you can do is be there, help her with recovery and be supportive. You'll need some support as well. This is a stressful time. Don't be afraid to ask for support when you need it. The prognosis and treatments will depend on what is going on and how bad the disease is. Both have good treatment options but surgery is likely for either and little one will probably be in NICU for a while. Sirens as much time as you can bonding with the little one. Take some FMLA if you can to support mom and for yourself as well. We'll get be scheduling a c section? I hope you're going to a regional hospital with a big nicu and peds department. I'm sorry you're going through this. I know it is difficult. Try to stay positive for mom and baby.

Thanks for writing back and the congrats! Fortunately, the amniotic fluid level is still good at 32 weeks. It measured 14.3 on Friday. The kidneys aren't bright at all and are measuring about 7ish. No visible megaureters, either. He had a patent urachus that was filling with urine until this last ultrasound on Friday. The abdominal wall is wavy, though.

She's hoping for natural birth and if he holds until 37 weeks, she's going to try to induce. If he needs to get out sooner, she will have the c-section.

Our hospital has about 50 beds in the NICU. Our city had a great surgeon for these issues, but and his entire team was poached and moved to Dallas. We have been consulting with him and will travel to his hospital after he is born.

I'm trying to stay positive. It's been a rollercoaster. At diagnosis, we thought it was going to be lethal. Then the urachus showed up and helped his condition. On Friday, his urachus was empty and the bladder was completely full. The doctor saw the flabby abdomen and now isn't so sure that it's PUV and is open to Prune Belly.

I'm just sad that this wonderful experience will probably be overshadowed by his immediate diagnosis. :/

It sounds trite but as someone who has worked with many sick kiddos, try not to let the diagnosis overshadow the joy of your little one. He's perfect however he is. Give him lots of love. I'll be thinking of you all.

Yeah the wavy abdomen is suspicious for prune belly. Well they be directly transferring him to the other Dr or will that be after discharge? I'm glad the AFI is good that's a blessing. I hope for a natural birth for her sake. C sections are tough. Well they let you room in for a time if she's going to breast feed or is it immediate discharge? You might ask to receive that's a possibility

Also congratulations on your baby boy!

Has there been moments where you just wanted to quit from stress?

Oh my god yes. There was a year where I cried every day going to work. My search results had all varieties of what do I do with a nursing degree if I hate nursing. Lol! I have almost walked out before, only stayed for the patients. Usually when I would have to go against upper management regarding unsafe staffing. I have to say nursing is good in that if a job is really bad there always another job somewhere.

What was the craziest foreign object you had to get out of someone else's body and where was it?

I didn't get it out (that will be the doctor's job) but there was a lady we had to call on. She was elderly and preoccupied with her bowel movements. She insisted she had a fecal impaction and lost a spoon from her dinner tray into her rectum trying to get her poop out. Needless to say, she had finger food on her trays after that.

LOL, well I guess so!!!! I'm a retired paramedic, mind if I add my most interesting object having to be removed by a doc from a pt i transported?

Omg please do

Posted this recently to a similar question..... Former paramedic so i transported said patient to the E.R. was actually a legit patient but dumb as all hell. Was a brand new paramedic and got dispatched to a call of abdominal pain of a 33 y/o male. The location we were dispatched to was actually on a street corner. (Before cell phones, patient called from a payphone). Sure enough their was a guy standing there on the street corner and he didn't appear to be in any distress. He said he was having abdominal pain that started about 45 minutes prior to our arrival. He had no medical history, said there was no trauma involved and then he quit answering questions and said to just bring him to the E.R. We put him on the stretcher in the back of the unit and my pard went to feel his stomach for anything out the ordinary. As soon as his hand touched the patient, my pard literally jumped back and said something along the lines of WTF. Asked him what happened and he told me to feel the guys stomach. Even knowing something was up, as soon as I touched the patient I jumped back. Wasn't sure exactly what I felt. Guy refused to answer any more questions so we hauled him to the E.R. He was very uncooperative and wouldn't answer any of the nurses questions, so they just sent him straight to x-ray. A few minutes later when the x-ray tech was bringing the film's to the E.R he was laughing his ass off. So a whole group of us gathered around as the x-ray tech put the film on the lighted board. The entire group let out a collective gasp and we all looked at each other before we all just busted out laughing. There as plain as day was an 8" long dildo stuck so far up his ass it was in his abdominal cavity, and by the way his stomach felt it was obviously on the highest setting. The only way the docs were going to be able to get it out was to operate. They first had to wait for the batteries to die before they could bring him to the O.R. It was about 8:30 PM when we left the E.R. We transported another patient to the hospital about 6:30A.M and ole boy was still waiting in the E.R. for the batteries to die. Next shift we worked and transported someone to that hospital we asked the E.R. nurses what time ole boy finally made it to surgery, it wasn't until noon! And they said "ya know what the best part was?" She said they were Duracell batteries!!! I think that would make an awesome commercial for Duracell!

Omg! Lmbo! We had a guy (not mine) with a similar surgical removal only his was fashioned from a pool noodle. Yours takes the win with the batteries!

A pool noodle????? Now that is a one of a kind!!!!! So I hope anyway!!!

Thank God it's the only one I've heard of!

Sounds like a HIPAA violation by the x-ray tech.

Just a little

Well unless you count babies as foreign objects

Have to leave for a bit, but if you'd like me to share with you my call of the appendix let me know, kinda long and I don't have a tl:dr, so understand if you don't want, but def saving this thread. Have you ever found yourself in a funny situation on the job?

I'd love to hear it :)

And a few funny situations, let's see the time I laughed the hardest was when I had a lazy come in and literally poop her baby out. She legit tried to poop the baby out in the trash can which was farther from the bed than the bathroom (no clue there) she ended up spraying the whole room with poop including the walls, my equipment, and just about everything. It was a precipitous delivery so I didn't have a lot of time, I threw down bath blankets to cover the poop so we could catch the baby. The funny part was when I had to call one of my best friends who worked in housekeeping to clean my room stat and told him on the phone that I needed to speak to him before he went into the room to explain what happened. He still gives me grief about it to this day and Banned Me from ever delivering a baby in that room again after he slapped my hand. I had tears from laughing so hard when I had to explain to him why he had to clean the closet

Former Paramedic.Dispatched to abdominal pain of a 14 year old female and when we got there the fire dept was already on scene and had evaluated the patient. So i walk in the bedroom with my pard and ask the capt what we had while looking at this girl on the bed who is obviously full term and gonna be spitting a baby out at any moment, and her mom is standing next to the bed. The capt replied 14 y/o female that has a ruptured appendix. Me and my pard both looked at the capt like he'd been hitting the Crack pipe. I said dude...seriously? Come on man, you can't tell she is obviously 9 months pregnant? Everything happened at once as I was saying that to the capt. He had turned to me where the mom couldn't see his face and was trying to mouth to me to shut up. As he's doing that the other 3 firefighters jumped back to avoid getting barreled over by the mom as she lunged at me and started pounding on me screaming she's not pregnant, she's only 14!!! (Yeah, like that's a deterrent). Can't you tell her appendix is rupturing.??? Anyway, mom is losing her shit hitting on me while the capt is trying to pull her away and continually screaming that I'm a fool and I can't even tell her daughter's appendix is rupturing. And while all this is going on my pard and the other 3 firefighters are laughing their asses off. So while all this is going on the patient begins having a contraction and starts screaming in pain. Which gets mom to screaming louder that we aren't doing anything about her daughter's appendix rupturing!!! So the contraction ends and no one is screaming anymore and my pard just couldn't help himself as he tells me where everyone else in the room could hear, geez pard, you can't tell that obviously her appendix is rupturing, I better medic on this call. Man, when I looked at him...if looks could kill he'd have been in his grave. So as I'm giving him the look he's backing away saying "i think I'll go get the stretcher." So we get her loaded up and while brining her to the unit she has another contraction and starts screaming again giving a good show to all the neighbors who had gathered around the yard. Get her loaded up and get mom seat belted in, in the front passenger seat. Our unit has a walk thru to get from the front to the back. As I hop in the drivers seat my pard tells me from the back that her amniotic sac (water bag) has just ruptured. So i take off for the hospital code 3 and am hauling ass because the last thing you wanna have to do is deliver a baby in the back of the unit. (Blood and bodily fluids literally get everywhere and it is a pain in the ass to clean up). So whenever the patient would have a contraction she would start screaming (we are not allowed to give anything for pain, all our deliveries are natural child birth). Then mom would start screaming for her not to die to hang on. All this noise along with the siren on i have to jack the volume up on the radio to be able to hear it. Normally the medic in the back calls in to the hospital to let them know we are coming in and give them patient info. Well my pard had his hands full so i am talking to the doc on the front radio using medical terminology to tell them we were coming in with a full term female fixing to deliver. I was doing a great job but then I fucked up and said patient has not received any pre natal care. Obviously mom knew what that meant because before I could react she reached over with both hands grabbing the mic and squeezing my hand so tight I couldn't unkey the mic. She started screaming into the mic my baby ain't pregnant, she's only 14, her appendix is rupturing. So i am driving code 3 down the road with one hand while fighting to pull my hand and mic away from the mom. While all this is going on my pard is delivering the baby. So everything went smoothly and next thing ya know the baby is screaming his little lungs out. (He will obviously fit in well with the rest of this screaming ass family!!!) We get to the E.R. ramp at the hospital and I go around and help mom out and then we go to the back of the unit. My pard has already clamped and cut the cord, cleared the airway and cleaned up the infant and had him wrapped up in a blanket. He walks to the back of the unit and hands me the screaming infant so he can hop out of the unit. So mom looks at the baby and says to me(i shit you not, her exact words, screaming at me of course) " Where in the hell did y'all get THAT thing"??? I couldn't resist, i just looked at her and said congratulations grandma...this is your new baby boy appendix. Or should it be appendi??? Anyway, mom wigs out screaming about wanting to know where in the hell we got that baby from? So we roll patient and infant in the ER and get her situated in a hospital bed. As me and my pard are rolling the stretcher out to go and start cleaning it and the unit, we hear mom going off on the nurse that her daughter is only 14, can't you tell her appendix is rupturing?

Oh holy shit! Parents are the worst sometimes smh. I would have kicked that bitch out of my unit! Also I had laughed so hard my drink shot up my nose!

Please tell me that social services was contacted.

Labor nurses would call in my area due to the age. It's a mandatory call here for anyone under 16

Geezzz, I can only imagine! I'll bet 99% of the people not in the medical field have no freakin idea how messy delivering a baby is!

Is definitely messy! Labor and delivery live in fluids

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Probably not ;)

Hi! I'm starting nursing school in about a month for my BSN. What is something about nursing that truly makes you say "I really picked the right job" ?

When I get a hug from a kiddo, see a mommy I delivered that remembers me, or truly help a patient /family. It feels very rewarding

Good luck with the BSN! It's definitely the way to go

I used to know a nurse and had a lot of stories of druggies who would turn the iv up they ended up having to lock the iv knob. Is this a common thing in other hospitals?

Oh yeah. The key is kept locked up and there are secret codes to the pump. IVDA is rampant here. I've had them trying to get stuff out of the sharps container sigh

Why have you not worked in the emergency?

I've done some floating to emergency and it's just not my thing. I am fine with codes and emergencies but the people in ed are hard core. Also I hate dealing with old guy butt/balls etc. I'm happy staying with kiddos and moms.

So having dealt with all sorts, do you think there are some people just too dumb to ever help?

Once in a while you meet one. Had a few that liked to fake seizures to get Ativan. One girl was so committed to the act that she faked a seizure and urinated on herself to make it "believable" sigh another one faked a seizure but I had an order to discharge no matter what. (the Dr was expecting him to act up at discharge and ordered accordingly) I yelled that it was a code and we needed to intubate, he stopped "seizing" jerk almost hit his pregnant girlfriend in the belly thrashing. I put his ass in the wheelchair and sent him home.

Obviously, you wouldn't. But have you ever fantasized about murdering a patient and why?

Omg yes. It's usually the IV drug abusers who wanted to waste my time and go on long sob stories about the brown recluse that bit them and how much pain they are in. Omfg I know it's a needle site infection, I know there are no brown recuse in Florida. If they want the damned pain med just say so and I'll get it because I don't really care and I'm not going to judge but for Christ sake don't waste my time because I have other people who are really sick and need that 20 minutes I just spent listening to lies. Sigh. And then act like a baby when I need to start an IV. Really? They stick themselves with needles every day but then I come in to help (the needle queen-the one they called in when no one else can get an IV because there are no veins) and then they get scared of needles?!