Stupid Nurse Tricks - Part Two
Idiot #1. The patient's IV infiltrated and her arm swelled from all of the IV fluid accumulating directly under the skin. The IV fluid was harmless; it was just a matter of waiting for the fluid to go away. To speed up matters, it was decided to put a warm pack on the patient's arm. The aide put a wet towel in the microwave until it was nice and hot and them plopped it on the patient's arm. Blisters from the second degree burn now cover her arm.
Idiot #2. The nurse needed to remove a large dressing from the patient's hip, so she grabbed one end of the tape and gave it a good yank. The skin came off with the tape. There is now a strip of missing skin that is nearly a foot long and an inch wide. She didn't tell anyone about this. She just covered it with a new dressing and hoped that no one would notice.
Written by Melissa on 12:37 AM
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Melissa blogging from sunny Santa Clarita, Southern California, United States.
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8 Comments:
Wow! I didn't think aids were allowed to apply any cold or hot therapy; and for the right reasons huh?
Do I smell lawsuit?
Regarding #2, Wouldn't the patient have noticed? Ow!
Have you considered leaving this hospital and signing on at . . . oh, I don't know . . . BEDLAM?
Microwaves are definately not for heating up towels. But I hear they are great for drying off cats after a bath. :)
Anon, our aides are allowed to apply hot and cold packs. Too bad for our patients.
Dave, liabiltiy is clear and our pockets are nice and deep, but the damages aren't enough for any lawyer to take the case.
Alan, the missing skin is on the patient's butt, so he can't really see what happened. It always hurts anyway to take dressings off, so he may not know what happened.
Bulldog, I thought that I already worked at bedlam.
Gary, microwaves are great for heating up wet towels. It gets them nice and hot. I'm not so sure about cats. :)
We used to use microwaves all the time to heat up towels, then some idiot did something just like you described and they banned the practice. It takes just one dumbass to ruin it for everyone else.
Now I take a chux and lay an unfolded towel on the plastic side, pour some hot water (from an instant hot-water faucet we have) to soak the towel, then fold up the chux and tape it to contain said towel. It makes the best heat pack.
We're not even allowed to use the instant hot water faucet. We have to use warm tap water, which is barely warm. It is so irritating that that one idiot ruined it for everyone.
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