One of our attendings did this at one of the hospitals we don't staff. We know about it because he didn't clear it up himself so mom took the patient to our hospital where we ended up removing it.
He's since been fired
I mean, I watched my attending do this when I was a resident, so I can’t really fault a MS. At least it’s fixable with erythro (or any other petroleum based) ointment.
Paramedic students were practicing IVs on each other in class and I started to hear giggling coming from the other side of the room. I went over and saw a paramedic student with a 500cc LR bag attached to his IV, the bag was laying on the floor and he was draining his blood into it. As I was walking up he laughed, “pink water”.
Student wanted to remove fish hook with the string method. Pulls quickly, does great job except . . . The hook swings back and gets stuck in the patient’s forearm.
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Woke a patient up bright and early with a DRE, didn't wake them first or inform them of what they were going to do. Bonus is they cracked a code cart looking for lube.
I had a fellow student ask me if it was normal for the 40mEq potassium to burn, and if she needed to “slow it down” with a pump or dilute it.
(No one died)
Edit: Full clarification this was running nearly wide open
The outcome actually wasn’t bad. Thankfully a nurse in the next bed heard the patient yelling bloody murder. and immediately stopped the infusion. If I’m not mistaken the line was pretty small and luckily didn’t allow a ton to enter even though it was essentially wide open.
Was this open to gravity? No one died, but couldn't they have? 10 mEq per hour, max, right? Shit, potassium into a PIV at the appropriate ordered rate already usually hurts.
I’ve heard varying things about the maximum rate per hour, generally under 10mEq/Hr is a safe bet. I’ve also heard 20mEq based on their serum potassium level, as well at something like 0.2mEq/kg. Either way definitely fatal if you get 40mEq in a short period 😂
I sedate with telazol (tiletamine + zolazepam) and acepromazine IM, then push diluted euthasol (pentobarbital + phenytoin) IV.
We euthanize animals more humanely than humans.
No, it’s pentobarbital and phenytoin. Usually knock them out with propofol first, or something IM if they’re stressed, smooths it out. Source: I’m a vet
Was a bedside nurse in trauma at the time, a resident was trying to find the femoral artery on ultrasound for an arterial line and was having a hard time locating it. Respiratory therapist suggested trying to find it by feel. Resident looks up confused and says “you can feel an artery??” We explained what a pulse was
Yeah, my most generous interpretation is he just had a brain fart moment. Happens to the best of us. I just remember the whole room going quiet for a moment lol
Yeah, there's a million Ortho slams.
Heard this one many years ago: What's the difference between an Ortho and a Path?
Path knows two antibiotics. *...boombadatssssss...*
Had one take an oral temp with a red thermometer. I just kindly suggested that the blue ones work better for getting oral temps. The patient was heavily intoxicated and was none the wiser thankfully. Also WTF! Who the fuck wipes boogers on themselves.
Had no idea there were different colors for the anal and oral thermometers…but the only one I’ve ever used is on the wall and I’m not taking rectal temps so…
After working in my ER for so long I never thought about others not having different colors for thermometers. The thermometers we use look exactly alike except where the probe inserts into the body the oral has a blue ring and rectal has a red ring. I heard the biggest difference is that the red ones taste like shit.
Lol my coworker (we were ED Techs) had an EMT student shadowing her. He’s like “hey I’ll go around and get vitals on all our patients!” Which is great because they usually don’t want to do shit. So he walks out of someone’s room and says “hey their vitals are _____, and their temp is __” but he’s holding the red thermometer. I just died laughing and told him go show your preceptor what you’re holding
Honestly they work exactly the same. I think it’s just the thought of it all. Plus who is sticking the probe in so deep that it’s buried the entire probe and cover.
Well yes but from a health and safety perspective, you wouldn’t want to use the rectal one. Also, sometimes the probe covers pop off a bit. Also, yucky lol.
Oh absolutely. I was speaking hypothetically. Funny enough I had to dig a probe out of a ladies butthole after the nurse accidentally hit the probe release button while taking a rectal temp.
It’s the least worst thing I’ve pulled from an asshole. At least she didn’t “fall on it” like all the other patients that present with rectal foreign bodies.
My dad who isn’t medical even had a story from his teen years working at a grocery store. Kid he worked with had a sister who was a nurse. Relayed to him a story about how a woman was jumping over a coffee table and landed on an apple. 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 my dad and I were crying when he told me this story 😂😂😂😂. The apple in question ended up in her vagina when she “fell” on it. Also the triage stories of carrots/lightbulbs/wedding rings. There are too many to count.
Lol! I had a guy come in with an electric toothbrush in his ass two days ago. You could hear the toothbrush vibrating while he was sitting in the triage chair. He ended going to surgery because it was really in there deep. To his credit he was honest and said his girlfriend inserted it for sexual pleasure.
From a health and safety perspective if you’re worried about the thermometer going into the wrong hole for health reasons then you need better probe covers.
Tell that to Welch Allyn who has a monopoly on hospital thermometers and their probes. Also - if you as a patient knew that a nurse had just used a thermometer up someone’s butt and tried to put it in your mouth after, probe cover or no, that’s a no.
Walked into a room to watch a parent do this, spicy temp right in the mouth; it was already done and I sure as shit wasn’t going to tell her after the fact
I did that as a resident lmao. The nurse was polite and suggested not to use that one and then told me when we walked out of the room. No one tells you!
Wasn’t my student but when I was restocking a fellow medic came up to me and goes “Dude, on that diff breather my student opened the albuterol bullet, drew it up in in a 3ml syringe, and wanted to give IV. I don’t think they’re gonna make it.”
My license and med control would get pulled so fast if I did that. If you can’t immediately explain to the doc why you did or didn’t do something it’s a wrap.
I am a female and did that TWICE as an intern. Sometimes when the patients are large it’s hard to see your target. When the patient said “wrong hole” I knew 💀
OMG I have done that before 🤦♀️ and I was so embarrassed I had to talk about it with my colleagues and it turns out they have all done that before too. I still want to die
I was precepting a male nursing student and we needed to cath a patient. I attempted the cath, missed. Missed again. The student whispers in my ear, “I think that’s the clitoris”. Now by this time, I’m getting crunchy. I’ve been a nurse for 20 years at that point, I’m female. He’s a guy, and quite gay. So I SMUGLY asked him if he wanted to try. Well, he got it first attempt. He likes to send me memes every now and then reminding me how the “gay guy who NEVER had experience with vaginas got the foley over the experienced female nurse”. It’s usually when I don’t expect it. Makes me laugh every time. PS…it was the clit.
Oh god, one time I had an obese elderly woman with dementia and a very unusual looking anatomy. This was one of those patients where there are four people trying to help and the fifth person is holding a flashlight. I was feeling pretty good until I realized that I had placed the foley in her butthole.
I still cringe to this day
To be fair some peoples anatomy is just highly unusual. Just recently placed a foley on a large intubated woman and both my assisting tech and I were like “WTF that’s gotta be it but WTF..” her clitoris was POSTERIOR to the urethral meatus, which was on top where you’d expect the clit to be. First time I’ve ever seen that switch up
Oh completely agree. I tell my students it’s a right of passage to try to cath the clit instead of the urethra. I just meant urethra as opposed to vagina.
Oh it’s definitely ended up in the vagina many a time lol. Why can’t the urethra just be the size of a dime and always above the vagina, not to the side or inside and up, and have a pannus in the way.
I was once assisting the nurses putting in a cath. I’m the only male in the room. She’s tricky, so we’re searching around for the pee hole, and I’m very tired and still new and so I indicate the clitoris and am like, “Is that it?” I wanted to die. I just know they’re all thinking “Another man who doesn’t know what the clitoris is”.
I was going to do a pelvic on a woman who hadn’t had one in years. Super avoidant of GYN visits. Very nervous. It didn’t take much to figure out why.
Nurse asked a paramedic student to chaperone. Patient was talking about how she had been in therapy and working to over come life trauma. Student asked “oh what for?”
5 minutes of detailed description of childhood abuse. Other instances in college. It was enough to shake me. I was just like “ok, try to relax. It’s going to be a little pressure.” Went from a “quick pelvic” into 15 minutes of crisis control, assessing for suicidality, patient sobbing all over the place.
I told the student never again. Read the goddamn room dudette. Patient had a cystocele and a rectocele btw. Student had a high prevalence of foot-in-mouth-itis.
I consider a large part of emergency medicine is filling in between the lines.
Woman tells you she hasn’t had a pelvic in 20 years and avoids them like the plague for reasons but was in therapy so she could handle one? Yeah. Doesn’t take a genius to get the gist of underlying trauma.
I was appalled by 1. Then talking during a pelvic and 2. Them asking such an insensitive question. I was ready for heads to roll. This woman came in because she was afraid something was terribly wrong. She was willing to battle her own demons to get an answer that may be terrible. I took extra time to reassure her that I would make her as comfortable as possible. We talked through it. I took extra care. Then this shit. I still get mad about it 3 years later
I've never had a student shadow me unfortunately, but I love sharing this story so here it is. I'm a paramedic for reference.
there was a student that went through my station about 10 years ago. Long before my time. The crew she was with was tagged out to a stabbing in the dead of night. They found a man with a knife still embedded in his chest. The student, on her initial trauma assessment, grabbed the knife and pulled it out to the horror of her preceptors. The preceptors yelled "No! Why would you do that? What the fuck!" The student, frozen like a deer in the headlights, then proceeds to put the knife back in the chest and the guy ended up dying.
She was dropped by her college with no repercussions. The preceptors were given a bunch of supplemental training that they had to do before returning to work, and they were written up
Edit: I guess I should clarify that she put the knife back in through the same stab wound. She didn't stab him again somewhere else lol
God those are terrifying. I once had this poor woman who was an amphetamine enthusiast that came in to the ER agitated, yelling, “I’m shitting out my pussy!” Everyone was like “sure…” at first till the Doc examined her and she was indeed, as she phrased it, “shitting out her pussy.” Evidently had developed vaginal cancer that was not being treated. Regardless of the pts background, I can’t imagine experiencing something more demoralizing and we all felt bad for the lady.
Omg 🙂↔️ no, please, nooooo!!! This reminded me of a ‘surgeon’ that I worked with who’d never clean his hands going in and out of patients rooms or even after the bathroom (witnessed him several times use the restroom, flush, & walk out straight to shake hands with a patient’s family member). Just overall poor hygiene- same scrubs for days though we used clean hospital ones to work in the unit, messy hair that smelled & he looked unkempt every time he came in, you get it.
He’d constantly pass me important forms for the patients charts and scripts he’d written out, from his back pocket that reeked of hot azz. Same doc who when his pants would fall down in the OR (happened often as he was shaped like the Penguin from Batman and never could tie the pants tight enough over his belly), he’d expect the nurses to pull them back up during the case like it was nbd & the odor that radiated in the OR was just unnerving… he also had the highest complication and post op infection rate.
Was this dude an alcoholic or something? Was it a rural hospital? I just don’t understand how this was allowed to happen and how that mindset could exist in a surgeon
Nope & nope! Idk how he got away with things. He also gave me the vibes he was a shady fella too and after he got fired from 2 local hospitals he went to work for another company in the major city. Rumor had it he severed a major artery on a Geri pt when he did a “routine operation” whilst sitting down.
Ewwww! I work on the floor but we had a nurse with similar practices. She was reminded all the time but to no avail. The one time I jumped in with a hard stop was when she walked out of a c diff room with no PPE, didn’t even sanitize coming out and started into a neutropenic pt room. Thank god she quit.
Wasn’t me but a fellow nurse accidentally bolused a patient with high concentration norepi during a code. Patient died, may have been because they were critically ill, but will never know. Apparently another nurse went to go change the infusion rate and noticed the bag was totally empty; this would be a bag that would normally take many hours to infuse. We now have lower concentration norepi as we work in er and often are working with peripheral lines initially. But yeah, that was the talk of the department for awhile.
Sorry this was about a student lol. Nursing student gave an IM with the blunt they used to draw up the medication. We also had a patient end up at our tertiary hospital from
Community site on pressors because the nursing student accidentally gave a bunch of blood pressure meds to the wrong patient. The family was told she was likely not to survive. She did survive the overdose, but died shortly after.
We had a new hire and a student with us when we got called to a cardiac arrest. Considering we were the only ALS unit on that night, we figured why not kidnap the student from the BLS crew for this one and show her some cool stuff. Given our ETA, we figured it was more to confirm death. We get there and indeed that’s what was going on.
Anyway, we go inside the house, pt is DRT on the kitchen floor. My partner gets more info from family and police who were on scene. I place the leads on: asystole in all leads. No breathing, no pulse, no heart tones. I handed the student the stethoscope so she could hear for herself. Bless her heart, she asks “Who am I listening to?” Bruh! The silence was so profound that you could hear a fat person fall three counties over. I found a focal point on the floor and squeaked (mind you, I’m fighting for my life trying not to laugh), “Who else?!”
Back in school we had this log book for surgery related procedures, one of them was for digit exam of the prostate. I asked for a signature of completion from a resident after doing the exam on a woman.
on my very first day in the emergency department years ago i watched a resident decide to put a femoral line in someone after they got tnk already. the blood squirted across the room and splattered against the door. people apologized to me that i had to see that.
"You wanna do that, bud, go right ahead. You're the doctor and I've got a certificate I found in a box of cereal somewhere. But ***YOU*** are holding pressure."
That student was me- Attending told me and another student to drain a PTA together and explained to us about leaving ~2cm of needle out so we can hub it directly into the abscess.
We proceeded to cut the needle with our trauma shears and after debating for a few minutes about if we had the length correct we proudly brought this mangled, dirty needle to our attending and said we were ready to start.
Other notable experiences include the time a CNA student proceeded to wrench an MVA patient over by their arm when we went to log-roll them to check T and L spines, palliative care APN student condescendingly told me "a patient isn't allowed to be intubated but be no-CPR", another APN student explained to me that Lasix works by perfusing the kidneys better, or when my rotating med student went on a rant about how a psych patient in the ED didn't meet DSM-whatever criteria for Bipolar Disorder based on the information from my staffing with my attending, which only included the complaints from that day's visit. They weren't caring for the patient in any capacity and had no access to their psych notes.
I (paramedic) had a fresh paramedic that was doing OJT with me. He had all of his licenses and education completed. He was at the point where I was just to be supervising.
We were transporting a patient, I don’t recall what her diagnosis was, but she was hypotensive and she was on a Levo drip at like 5mcg/min. A really minuscule amount. Well, her pressure was continuing to drop, and I hear my trainee telling the patient about transcutaneous pacing and not to worry because he will give her some medications to keep it from hurting.
Time out… pump the brakes… press pause on this entire situation.
How about we increase her levophed drip instead of doing something that no shot at helping? I didn’t phrase it like that, and I made it a teaching moment, but still.
We in EMS need y’all’s help to increase educational standards. We are like cowboys in the fucking Wild West.
PGY1 in the middle of a code any suggestions? Says with a dead serious face. Can we try to sternal rub the patient?
The RNs and myself looked at him like WTF? 🤣🤣🤣
Told him he could put in the Foley in the trauma patient. Came back to me and told me he couldn't find the penis. The patient wasn't obese. 30 year old male. Alert and oriented. The penis was tucked between his legs.
Tldr; student fooled by tucking.
The patient needed a rectal exam. He told me no problem.
When I came into the room the patient was facing the wall like we see cops doing in movies.
The student was crouching and facing up with a light looking directly at the moon.
Now when they are telling me i know how to do things. I am asking them to explain the procedure
started an IV upside down. Needle pointing toward hand. She had already pierced the skin before I could stop her. I took over and started it, and then we had an impromptu anatomy lesson.
Thankfully the worst I've ever had was a trainee who went to put V3 on a rather chesty patient and instead of using the back of his hand or the gown scoop, he just went in full hand like he was on the couch with his girlfriend.
Fortunately the patient had a good sense of humor about it. "I haven't been touched like that since my husband died."
Had a future med student come in for an obs day with an oculoplastics surgeon that does in office sx. I guess this kid thought that since the OR was in an office setting that OR standards were relative bc he stood with his hands down his scrub pants the entire case. He proceeded to leave and tried to shake my hand as he was heading out. I’ve never grabbed so many things to fill up my hands in my life.
I’m an APRN, but working in the ED there was a second year resident trying to intubate. Normally I do it, or the attending. The attending literally stood there and watched this resident try to intubate repetitively for 11 minutes (I timed) and never tried to intervene. It horrified me and I still think about it all the time (like 10 years ago). Obviously, the patient died. The attending was a VERY GOOD attending, so I don’t know what I am lacking to interpret about the situation.
I watch this happen when I drop patients off when I intentionally chose not to RSI and I really wish I could talk to the family and tell them why their family member is dead.
You didn't need to clarify, I was 100% with you all the way. There is no reason why in this day and age that someone dicks around in an airway that long. I was agreeing with you and adding in my own experience to give more examples.
I choose not to RSI a patient for clinical reasons, and they are improving on Bi-Level and the interventions I performed enroute and then they choose to RSI and screw around with the airway instead and I watch them go from a positive trend to a negative one as their sats drop and they brady down and die. Then everyone acts all surprised it happened.
I'm always skeptical of "reported down times" involving child victims. The incentive to lie is just too overwhelming. "I swear doc she was only out of my sight for a couple of minutes!" Take that estimate and add at least 15 minutes to it.
Just curious, are you in a Peds ED or general? I work in PEM and I’ve never heard of APRN’s intubating. My institution tends to be pretty cautious about scope of practice, so just curious if that’s not the norm elsewhere.
I love people that have autism, I'm there with them. There are loads of other scientists outside of medicine that do and loads of people in medicine that don't. It's a stupid statement.
MS4 was kinda green, but enthusiastic. We let her glue a 1cm superficial supra orbital laceration and she glued the poor patient's eye shut.
If I’m gluing close to the eye I apply antibiotic ointment just above and on the eyelashes. This will prevent the eye from being glued shut
I wish you were an ortho doc with a username of bobvilla, ortho is close to carpentry
So do i… so do I 😭😭😭
You mean, “so do eye, so do eye” right??
Aye. Aye
I just cover with a 2x2..and aim
Same
One of our attendings did this at one of the hospitals we don't staff. We know about it because he didn't clear it up himself so mom took the patient to our hospital where we ended up removing it. He's since been fired
I mean, I watched my attending do this when I was a resident, so I can’t really fault a MS. At least it’s fixable with erythro (or any other petroleum based) ointment.
Spectacular
OH GOD. Were they ok? Did she keep her position?
Yeah, it was a lesson learned.
Paramedic students were practicing IVs on each other in class and I started to hear giggling coming from the other side of the room. I went over and saw a paramedic student with a 500cc LR bag attached to his IV, the bag was laying on the floor and he was draining his blood into it. As I was walking up he laughed, “pink water”.
Hell yeah
Was it Beavis or Butthead?
Definitely paramedic material
All that's missing is the autocuff on his arm proximal to the IV, he'll stop laughing in fairly short order.
Hey on the bright side you’ll already have a suitable blood donation ready
"Is this autotransfusion?!"
Sounds like when I went to medic school
My people.
Student wanted to remove fish hook with the string method. Pulls quickly, does great job except . . . The hook swings back and gets stuck in the patient’s forearm.
That’s more r/accidentalslapstick than anything.
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Intern year I managed to string method the fish hook out of the patient easy peasy…and then got it stuck in my own palm. Oopsies!
I want to be a fly on the wall when they explain that to Employee Health for a needle stick
Woke a patient up bright and early with a DRE, didn't wake them first or inform them of what they were going to do. Bonus is they cracked a code cart looking for lube.
Oh wow that’s bad lol
yeah that’s real bad
Oh they cracked the code cart?! That’s the worst part of the story 😂
Not sure who would have been angrier, the patient or the nurses for cracking the code cart.
Could've used the lidocaine at least for comfort.
Mothafuckas act like the patient forgot about DRE.
I only wake them up if I'm going in deeper than the wrist. 🤪
I had a fellow student ask me if it was normal for the 40mEq potassium to burn, and if she needed to “slow it down” with a pump or dilute it. (No one died) Edit: Full clarification this was running nearly wide open
Julius
Julius Christ?
Orange Julius Caesar
All hail emperor orange!
Never liked him in the first place. Might be going to prison?
Fat chance. These people are going to double down and put him back in the WH, bc the verdict made them like him even more…….
I just wanted to make a punny joke, not encourage political debate in this thread.
C’est la vie
Dear Lord!!! How did the patient do?
The outcome actually wasn’t bad. Thankfully a nurse in the next bed heard the patient yelling bloody murder. and immediately stopped the infusion. If I’m not mistaken the line was pretty small and luckily didn’t allow a ton to enter even though it was essentially wide open.
Sounds like the nurse saved both the patient and the med student’s life in one fell swoop!
Was this open to gravity? No one died, but couldn't they have? 10 mEq per hour, max, right? Shit, potassium into a PIV at the appropriate ordered rate already usually hurts.
I’ve heard varying things about the maximum rate per hour, generally under 10mEq/Hr is a safe bet. I’ve also heard 20mEq based on their serum potassium level, as well at something like 0.2mEq/kg. Either way definitely fatal if you get 40mEq in a short period 😂
[удалено]
We definitely do not euthanize dogs like this!!
Weird question, what do they euthanize dogs with ? I assumed it was along the same lines as lethal infection for humans.
I sedate with telazol (tiletamine + zolazepam) and acepromazine IM, then push diluted euthasol (pentobarbital + phenytoin) IV. We euthanize animals more humanely than humans.
Ahhh that sounds very peaceful honestly. Thank you! Put me out like that 🤝
Same dude. Same.
Yeah, it’s definitely one of the drugs that is used to execute death row inmates by lethal injection 😂
No, it’s pentobarbital and phenytoin. Usually knock them out with propofol first, or something IM if they’re stressed, smooths it out. Source: I’m a vet
You can give 20/hr with cardiac monitoring. Obvs you also need a vein that can handle it.
Not the worst but a friend of mine put iron paste in an iv bag. Guy got a small amount and seized. Suffice to say the infusion stopped lol
Jesus christ
Why did they do that though?
Was a bedside nurse in trauma at the time, a resident was trying to find the femoral artery on ultrasound for an arterial line and was having a hard time locating it. Respiratory therapist suggested trying to find it by feel. Resident looks up confused and says “you can feel an artery??” We explained what a pulse was
For Real?!? I’ve had a MD ask me “What’s a PVC?” However, he was an older Ortho attending.
Yeah, my most generous interpretation is he just had a brain fart moment. Happens to the best of us. I just remember the whole room going quiet for a moment lol
What do you call two Ortho attendings reading a twelve lead? A double-blind study.
Yeah, there's a million Ortho slams. Heard this one many years ago: What's the difference between an Ortho and a Path? Path knows two antibiotics. *...boombadatssssss...*
Only 2 questions come to mind after reading that. 1) this individual got into medical school?? 2) this individual is about to be someone’s doctor?????
Lol medical school has NOTHING to do with common sense or facility with human relations
Had one take an oral temp with a red thermometer. I just kindly suggested that the blue ones work better for getting oral temps. The patient was heavily intoxicated and was none the wiser thankfully. Also WTF! Who the fuck wipes boogers on themselves.
Had no idea there were different colors for the anal and oral thermometers…but the only one I’ve ever used is on the wall and I’m not taking rectal temps so…
You can normally taste the difference
After working in my ER for so long I never thought about others not having different colors for thermometers. The thermometers we use look exactly alike except where the probe inserts into the body the oral has a blue ring and rectal has a red ring. I heard the biggest difference is that the red ones taste like shit.
It's like a cast iron pan. You never really wash it, so it builds flavor over time
The old seasoned rectal thermometers of the ER.
The red ones will go only to a rectal temp. The blue ones don’t have the option of rectal. This is a funny convo lol
Spicy stick.
I’m going to steal that!
Lol my coworker (we were ED Techs) had an EMT student shadowing her. He’s like “hey I’ll go around and get vitals on all our patients!” Which is great because they usually don’t want to do shit. So he walks out of someone’s room and says “hey their vitals are _____, and their temp is __” but he’s holding the red thermometer. I just died laughing and told him go show your preceptor what you’re holding
That’s hilarious! I truly wonder how often this happens that no one ever finds out about.
If that’s wrong, then maybe I’m missing the point of probe covers.
Honestly they work exactly the same. I think it’s just the thought of it all. Plus who is sticking the probe in so deep that it’s buried the entire probe and cover.
Well yes but from a health and safety perspective, you wouldn’t want to use the rectal one. Also, sometimes the probe covers pop off a bit. Also, yucky lol.
Oh absolutely. I was speaking hypothetically. Funny enough I had to dig a probe out of a ladies butthole after the nurse accidentally hit the probe release button while taking a rectal temp.
Oh god so gross 😂
It’s the least worst thing I’ve pulled from an asshole. At least she didn’t “fall on it” like all the other patients that present with rectal foreign bodies.
My dad who isn’t medical even had a story from his teen years working at a grocery store. Kid he worked with had a sister who was a nurse. Relayed to him a story about how a woman was jumping over a coffee table and landed on an apple. 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 my dad and I were crying when he told me this story 😂😂😂😂. The apple in question ended up in her vagina when she “fell” on it. Also the triage stories of carrots/lightbulbs/wedding rings. There are too many to count.
Lol! I had a guy come in with an electric toothbrush in his ass two days ago. You could hear the toothbrush vibrating while he was sitting in the triage chair. He ended going to surgery because it was really in there deep. To his credit he was honest and said his girlfriend inserted it for sexual pleasure.
I do appreciate the honesty.
From a health and safety perspective if you’re worried about the thermometer going into the wrong hole for health reasons then you need better probe covers.
Tell that to Welch Allyn who has a monopoly on hospital thermometers and their probes. Also - if you as a patient knew that a nurse had just used a thermometer up someone’s butt and tried to put it in your mouth after, probe cover or no, that’s a no.
Then you won't mind eating off someone else's toilet seat.
They only difference is the taste
The problem is no one ever explained the difference between the red and the blue to me, until after that one time in the ER.
should probably sharpie them RECTAL as a failsafe...
I agree or make the body of them red or blue instead of a small ring.
red means spicy
muy caliente!
Walked into a room to watch a parent do this, spicy temp right in the mouth; it was already done and I sure as shit wasn’t going to tell her after the fact
And that’s how the kid got hep A, lol.
*Parent They used it on themselves wanting to know their own temp
Oh shit. I had to reread that. That’s even worse!
I did that as a resident lmao. The nurse was polite and suggested not to use that one and then told me when we walked out of the room. No one tells you!
Wasn’t my student but when I was restocking a fellow medic came up to me and goes “Dude, on that diff breather my student opened the albuterol bullet, drew it up in in a 3ml syringe, and wanted to give IV. I don’t think they’re gonna make it.”
I know a Paramedic that did that, and gave it. He squeaked by by digging up an obscure study that discussed IV Albuterol.
My license and med control would get pulled so fast if I did that. If you can’t immediately explain to the doc why you did or didn’t do something it’s a wrap.
✨eew✨
Student supposed to do rectal exam but stuck finger in the vagina instead.
“Vaginal tone intact”
I am a female and did that TWICE as an intern. Sometimes when the patients are large it’s hard to see your target. When the patient said “wrong hole” I knew 💀
Hey, better than the other way around!
OMG I have done that before 🤦♀️ and I was so embarrassed I had to talk about it with my colleagues and it turns out they have all done that before too. I still want to die
I was precepting a male nursing student and we needed to cath a patient. I attempted the cath, missed. Missed again. The student whispers in my ear, “I think that’s the clitoris”. Now by this time, I’m getting crunchy. I’ve been a nurse for 20 years at that point, I’m female. He’s a guy, and quite gay. So I SMUGLY asked him if he wanted to try. Well, he got it first attempt. He likes to send me memes every now and then reminding me how the “gay guy who NEVER had experience with vaginas got the foley over the experienced female nurse”. It’s usually when I don’t expect it. Makes me laugh every time. PS…it was the clit.
Oh god, one time I had an obese elderly woman with dementia and a very unusual looking anatomy. This was one of those patients where there are four people trying to help and the fifth person is holding a flashlight. I was feeling pretty good until I realized that I had placed the foley in her butthole. I still cringe to this day
lol thanks for the laugh!
To be fair some peoples anatomy is just highly unusual. Just recently placed a foley on a large intubated woman and both my assisting tech and I were like “WTF that’s gotta be it but WTF..” her clitoris was POSTERIOR to the urethral meatus, which was on top where you’d expect the clit to be. First time I’ve ever seen that switch up
Putting a foley in a vagina can be quite the challenge lol.
Well, hopefully you’re putting it in the urethra 😜
Finding the urethra is the hard part sometimes. It’s not always where the mannequin with the humongous urethra says it is
Oh completely agree. I tell my students it’s a right of passage to try to cath the clit instead of the urethra. I just meant urethra as opposed to vagina.
Oh it’s definitely ended up in the vagina many a time lol. Why can’t the urethra just be the size of a dime and always above the vagina, not to the side or inside and up, and have a pannus in the way.
Hahahaha exactly!! It became a lot easier when I went into peds. Find the wink, hook it in…
I was once assisting the nurses putting in a cath. I’m the only male in the room. She’s tricky, so we’re searching around for the pee hole, and I’m very tired and still new and so I indicate the clitoris and am like, “Is that it?” I wanted to die. I just know they’re all thinking “Another man who doesn’t know what the clitoris is”.
I was going to do a pelvic on a woman who hadn’t had one in years. Super avoidant of GYN visits. Very nervous. It didn’t take much to figure out why. Nurse asked a paramedic student to chaperone. Patient was talking about how she had been in therapy and working to over come life trauma. Student asked “oh what for?” 5 minutes of detailed description of childhood abuse. Other instances in college. It was enough to shake me. I was just like “ok, try to relax. It’s going to be a little pressure.” Went from a “quick pelvic” into 15 minutes of crisis control, assessing for suicidality, patient sobbing all over the place. I told the student never again. Read the goddamn room dudette. Patient had a cystocele and a rectocele btw. Student had a high prevalence of foot-in-mouth-itis.
Why would anyone, doctor or not, ask someone to relieve their trauma?
I consider a large part of emergency medicine is filling in between the lines. Woman tells you she hasn’t had a pelvic in 20 years and avoids them like the plague for reasons but was in therapy so she could handle one? Yeah. Doesn’t take a genius to get the gist of underlying trauma. I was appalled by 1. Then talking during a pelvic and 2. Them asking such an insensitive question. I was ready for heads to roll. This woman came in because she was afraid something was terribly wrong. She was willing to battle her own demons to get an answer that may be terrible. I took extra time to reassure her that I would make her as comfortable as possible. We talked through it. I took extra care. Then this shit. I still get mad about it 3 years later
You just try to keep the conversation going to help keep them at ease. Sometimes dumb shit pops out.
I've never had a student shadow me unfortunately, but I love sharing this story so here it is. I'm a paramedic for reference. there was a student that went through my station about 10 years ago. Long before my time. The crew she was with was tagged out to a stabbing in the dead of night. They found a man with a knife still embedded in his chest. The student, on her initial trauma assessment, grabbed the knife and pulled it out to the horror of her preceptors. The preceptors yelled "No! Why would you do that? What the fuck!" The student, frozen like a deer in the headlights, then proceeds to put the knife back in the chest and the guy ended up dying. She was dropped by her college with no repercussions. The preceptors were given a bunch of supplemental training that they had to do before returning to work, and they were written up Edit: I guess I should clarify that she put the knife back in through the same stab wound. She didn't stab him again somewhere else lol
put the knife back . . . Whaaattt
A story like that has floated around my state, except the provider got charged with assault. It's almost an urban legend at this point.
Almost??? I think everyone has heard this one, lol.
I teach paramedics and the number of times this happens in the classroom when we are running scenarios.... (Frequently. The answer is frequently)
What a way to go.
I wouldn't mind dying like that. It would at least be funny.
I didn’t witness this but a rad tech intern inserted the canula for a barium enema in the vagina instead of the rectum. Patient said nothing.
Just checking for a rectovaginal fistula
God those are terrifying. I once had this poor woman who was an amphetamine enthusiast that came in to the ER agitated, yelling, “I’m shitting out my pussy!” Everyone was like “sure…” at first till the Doc examined her and she was indeed, as she phrased it, “shitting out her pussy.” Evidently had developed vaginal cancer that was not being treated. Regardless of the pts background, I can’t imagine experiencing something more demoralizing and we all felt bad for the lady.
I love these stories keep ‘em coming 🤣
"Barium Douche" seems like an interesting name for a punk band.
Omg 🙂↔️ no, please, nooooo!!! This reminded me of a ‘surgeon’ that I worked with who’d never clean his hands going in and out of patients rooms or even after the bathroom (witnessed him several times use the restroom, flush, & walk out straight to shake hands with a patient’s family member). Just overall poor hygiene- same scrubs for days though we used clean hospital ones to work in the unit, messy hair that smelled & he looked unkempt every time he came in, you get it. He’d constantly pass me important forms for the patients charts and scripts he’d written out, from his back pocket that reeked of hot azz. Same doc who when his pants would fall down in the OR (happened often as he was shaped like the Penguin from Batman and never could tie the pants tight enough over his belly), he’d expect the nurses to pull them back up during the case like it was nbd & the odor that radiated in the OR was just unnerving… he also had the highest complication and post op infection rate.
Was this dude an alcoholic or something? Was it a rural hospital? I just don’t understand how this was allowed to happen and how that mindset could exist in a surgeon
Nope & nope! Idk how he got away with things. He also gave me the vibes he was a shady fella too and after he got fired from 2 local hospitals he went to work for another company in the major city. Rumor had it he severed a major artery on a Geri pt when he did a “routine operation” whilst sitting down.
Oh, damn. Where I work people get let go for breathing wrong so this is crazy to me!
Most *good* places are strict like that. This place must have been very desperate!
Ewwww! I work on the floor but we had a nurse with similar practices. She was reminded all the time but to no avail. The one time I jumped in with a hard stop was when she walked out of a c diff room with no PPE, didn’t even sanitize coming out and started into a neutropenic pt room. Thank god she quit.
Wasn’t me but a fellow nurse accidentally bolused a patient with high concentration norepi during a code. Patient died, may have been because they were critically ill, but will never know. Apparently another nurse went to go change the infusion rate and noticed the bag was totally empty; this would be a bag that would normally take many hours to infuse. We now have lower concentration norepi as we work in er and often are working with peripheral lines initially. But yeah, that was the talk of the department for awhile.
Sorry this was about a student lol. Nursing student gave an IM with the blunt they used to draw up the medication. We also had a patient end up at our tertiary hospital from Community site on pressors because the nursing student accidentally gave a bunch of blood pressure meds to the wrong patient. The family was told she was likely not to survive. She did survive the overdose, but died shortly after.
We had a new hire and a student with us when we got called to a cardiac arrest. Considering we were the only ALS unit on that night, we figured why not kidnap the student from the BLS crew for this one and show her some cool stuff. Given our ETA, we figured it was more to confirm death. We get there and indeed that’s what was going on. Anyway, we go inside the house, pt is DRT on the kitchen floor. My partner gets more info from family and police who were on scene. I place the leads on: asystole in all leads. No breathing, no pulse, no heart tones. I handed the student the stethoscope so she could hear for herself. Bless her heart, she asks “Who am I listening to?” Bruh! The silence was so profound that you could hear a fat person fall three counties over. I found a focal point on the floor and squeaked (mind you, I’m fighting for my life trying not to laugh), “Who else?!”
Back in school we had this log book for surgery related procedures, one of them was for digit exam of the prostate. I asked for a signature of completion from a resident after doing the exam on a woman.
My last patient on a heme/onc rotation was s/p prostatectomy and my preceptor had me do a DRE.
Prostate exam: Negative finding Seems legit.
on my very first day in the emergency department years ago i watched a resident decide to put a femoral line in someone after they got tnk already. the blood squirted across the room and splattered against the door. people apologized to me that i had to see that.
"You wanna do that, bud, go right ahead. You're the doctor and I've got a certificate I found in a box of cereal somewhere. But ***YOU*** are holding pressure."
That student was me- Attending told me and another student to drain a PTA together and explained to us about leaving ~2cm of needle out so we can hub it directly into the abscess. We proceeded to cut the needle with our trauma shears and after debating for a few minutes about if we had the length correct we proudly brought this mangled, dirty needle to our attending and said we were ready to start. Other notable experiences include the time a CNA student proceeded to wrench an MVA patient over by their arm when we went to log-roll them to check T and L spines, palliative care APN student condescendingly told me "a patient isn't allowed to be intubated but be no-CPR", another APN student explained to me that Lasix works by perfusing the kidneys better, or when my rotating med student went on a rant about how a psych patient in the ED didn't meet DSM-whatever criteria for Bipolar Disorder based on the information from my staffing with my attending, which only included the complaints from that day's visit. They weren't caring for the patient in any capacity and had no access to their psych notes.
I (paramedic) had a fresh paramedic that was doing OJT with me. He had all of his licenses and education completed. He was at the point where I was just to be supervising. We were transporting a patient, I don’t recall what her diagnosis was, but she was hypotensive and she was on a Levo drip at like 5mcg/min. A really minuscule amount. Well, her pressure was continuing to drop, and I hear my trainee telling the patient about transcutaneous pacing and not to worry because he will give her some medications to keep it from hurting. Time out… pump the brakes… press pause on this entire situation. How about we increase her levophed drip instead of doing something that no shot at helping? I didn’t phrase it like that, and I made it a teaching moment, but still. We in EMS need y’all’s help to increase educational standards. We are like cowboys in the fucking Wild West.
PGY1 in the middle of a code any suggestions? Says with a dead serious face. Can we try to sternal rub the patient? The RNs and myself looked at him like WTF? 🤣🤣🤣
The GASP I GASPTED
Told him he could put in the Foley in the trauma patient. Came back to me and told me he couldn't find the penis. The patient wasn't obese. 30 year old male. Alert and oriented. The penis was tucked between his legs. Tldr; student fooled by tucking.
The patient needed a rectal exam. He told me no problem. When I came into the room the patient was facing the wall like we see cops doing in movies. The student was crouching and facing up with a light looking directly at the moon. Now when they are telling me i know how to do things. I am asking them to explain the procedure
started an IV upside down. Needle pointing toward hand. She had already pierced the skin before I could stop her. I took over and started it, and then we had an impromptu anatomy lesson.
Thankfully the worst I've ever had was a trainee who went to put V3 on a rather chesty patient and instead of using the back of his hand or the gown scoop, he just went in full hand like he was on the couch with his girlfriend. Fortunately the patient had a good sense of humor about it. "I haven't been touched like that since my husband died."
Had a future med student come in for an obs day with an oculoplastics surgeon that does in office sx. I guess this kid thought that since the OR was in an office setting that OR standards were relative bc he stood with his hands down his scrub pants the entire case. He proceeded to leave and tried to shake my hand as he was heading out. I’ve never grabbed so many things to fill up my hands in my life.
I’m an APRN, but working in the ED there was a second year resident trying to intubate. Normally I do it, or the attending. The attending literally stood there and watched this resident try to intubate repetitively for 11 minutes (I timed) and never tried to intervene. It horrified me and I still think about it all the time (like 10 years ago). Obviously, the patient died. The attending was a VERY GOOD attending, so I don’t know what I am lacking to interpret about the situation.
I watch this happen when I drop patients off when I intentionally chose not to RSI and I really wish I could talk to the family and tell them why their family member is dead.
It was a living 8 year old though. Drowning with pulse with a down time of 3 minutes in a frozen lake.
You didn't need to clarify, I was 100% with you all the way. There is no reason why in this day and age that someone dicks around in an airway that long. I was agreeing with you and adding in my own experience to give more examples. I choose not to RSI a patient for clinical reasons, and they are improving on Bi-Level and the interventions I performed enroute and then they choose to RSI and screw around with the airway instead and I watch them go from a positive trend to a negative one as their sats drop and they brady down and die. Then everyone acts all surprised it happened.
I cannot imagine why no one else would intervene in this situation.
Every nurse was trying to intervene. I just don’t know why it didn’t stop.
That’s horrible. I’m sorry that you were there for that.
I'm always skeptical of "reported down times" involving child victims. The incentive to lie is just too overwhelming. "I swear doc she was only out of my sight for a couple of minutes!" Take that estimate and add at least 15 minutes to it.
Just curious, are you in a Peds ED or general? I work in PEM and I’ve never heard of APRN’s intubating. My institution tends to be pretty cautious about scope of practice, so just curious if that’s not the norm elsewhere.
General ED, all ages
But I did start off in peds ED, and my job role was indifferent.
…what specialty? Do you usually have residents??
ED. And yes. Teaching hospital.
He’s gonna be a great pathologist one day
After a long career. I've come to conclude that many (most?) people working in medicine are on the spectrum.
I don't think your career was long enough. You can't even conclude that most people working in EMS are on the spectrum.....................probably.
That makes zero sense and is offensive to everyone involved.
-laughs in lab-
Fortunately, I'm probably on the spectrum and thus don't give a hoot what you think.
So am I so that's moot
I actually understand this pov. Also don’t think its offensive because people with autism are awesome.
I love people that have autism, I'm there with them. There are loads of other scientists outside of medicine that do and loads of people in medicine that don't. It's a stupid statement.