Doctors! Nurses! Hospital workers! Share your funny/gross hospital stories.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My mom’s best friend is a nurse, and she always has some kind of funny or icky story to tell us. I want to hear more! I can’t help it. There’s something about these tales that I love. Maybe it’s the whole “truth is stranger than fiction” premise behind it.

Let’s do avoid anything that breaches patient privacy (Of course, health care workers are a respectable, sensitive and conscientious bunch, but I feel I ought to add the disclaimer anywho).

I have a story to start with (actually, this is from my mom’s experience, not her friend’s):

My mom has several herniated discs, which she’s had numerous surgeries for. While going in for yet another surgery she was placed in a room with a woman who was recovering from a stroke. Unfortunately the stroke had had a bad impact on the woman’s speech. She was just beginning to speak again, but the only word she could actually completely form was “Waterloo” (the town she lived in).

Anyway, this woman was extremely constipated as a result of some of the medication she was on. My mom swears the following incident is 100% true.

The lady had been given some laxatives and they finally had begun to work. She went to the washroom and was in there for quite some time. My mom was recuperating in her bed, not able to get up at the time. After about half an hour of hearing grunts coming from the washroom, my mom grew concerned about the lady. She yelled, “Are you ok in there?”

“Waterloo”, the lady said, trying to sound cheerful. My mom took this as a yes.

More time passed. More grunts.

Then, my mom hears: “Oooh…Waterlooo…Wat-er-LOOOOOOO!”, followed by what sounded like a cannonball dropped from a diving board. Then a long sigh. Minutes later lady emerges, looking relieved. My mom said the most unbelieveable smell on Earth followed the lady out of the washroom. She wanted to laugh and puke at the same time, but could do nothing with her back being out of order.

Oh, my poor mom…

:eek:

2

Check out Dr.J’s website and blog for some good stuff. (He’s got some great stories he should be putting back up on the website one of these years.) You might also do a search for any of the threads Qadgop the Mercotan has started. His current penis thread is quite hilarious.

You might also be amused by some of my coworkers dealing with a 150# mastiff named Big Daddy. Big Daddy blew a knee out and had to have surgery, necessitating a sling under his belly for support when he went out for walks. On a dog that size, it’s at least a two person job–one to hold the sling and one to steer. If the dog is uncooperative (some of them seem to think all four legs are affected), that often turns into one person the push the back and one person to pull the front, wheedling and cajoling all the way.

He went outside with little fuss, and meandered behind the dumpster at the edge of the parking lot, where he froze up. He wasn’t going a step further in any direction, no way, no how. So they have to push/pull/cajole his very large ass back into the building. Standing in our parking lot, all you could hear was a bunch of panting and gasping and grunting coming from behind the dumpster, punctuated with the occasion “Let’s go, Big Daddy!” “Come on, Big Daddy!” “All right, Big Daddy!” :eek:

3

Sadly, working in the lab means that the only humor I get is wacky patient names, which, thanks to the stupid LAW, I can’t even share. :smiley:

Well, unless you count the time we got in a chunk of testicle to test, and all the women in the lab fought over who got to be the one to chop it up. Or the time we tied a glove to the air nozzel in the hood and inflated it to the size of a small pony. Or the things we do to bugs that find their way into the lab - we still have a hole burned into one of our counters from an attempt to reduce a bug to pure carbon with a small blowtorch.

4

I have a sister who is an MD and another who is a RN. I don’t have any stories from them at the moment other than that the MD, a rheumatologist, once had a patient frequently calling her at home. A nice old lady whom she couldn’t bear to tell to stop calling.

5

My cousin is a doctor and did his residency at a hospital in Salt Lake City.

You know those travel-sized toothpaste tubes? Well this guy came in with one shoved *all the way up * his penis. My cousin had to remove it. Apparently, this man had come into the emergency room several times before with objects stuck up his penis.

Another interesting thing is that many of the patients coming into the emergency room were Mormon, and the doctors would have a hard time avoiding the removal of the “garment.” They could only remove it in serious cases. Otherwise the garment-wearer would insist it be kept on. My cousin said the garments were usually nasty filthy, as if they never washed or changed them.

6

Wooah, am I being Wooshed here? Having been a Mormon all my life, and having multiple Mormon relatives who I have visited in the hospital numerous times, and being in emergency rooms frequently (job related) in a heavily Mormon part of the world, and having numerous Mormon doctor friends, and being fully aware of church standards and instructions regarding the garment, I have never heard anything like this. Not taking garments off during a medical exam? Never heard of it, and it certainly isn’t part of any LDS teaching I’ve ever heard of. I imaginesome people’s garments are dirty, but more than non-Mormon’s underwear? That I have a hard time believing. (I’ve heard a lot of negative things about us, but I’ve never heard us Mormon’s decribed as generally dirty.) Members are even instructed to keep them clean and destroy them if they get worn.

I’m not doubting you’ve heard this, but it is totally foreign to my experience.

7

For the benefit of those of us in non-Mormon populated areas, what’s the translation of ‘garment’? I asked a friend, and I’m not sure that he wasn’t pulling my leg. :dubious:

We get Mormons occasionally wandering down to South Australia (can’t think why they want to, honestly, but they do) doing their Missionary thing, and they always seemed very clean.

8

Most Mormons are perfectly cleanly in their personal habits, and are usually willing to remove their underwear for exams. It’s possible that ER patients in a heavily LDS area will tend to be LDS, and may also tend to be a bit odder than the usual sort, thus possibly less willing to be unclothed and less hygenic in general.

Anyway, the garment is simply underwear for an adult Mormon who has made certain covenants with God*. It functions as a reminder of those covenants, and is conveniently invisible to the casual observer. It can be compared with a Jewish prayer shawl, only not as easy to see. G’s are somewhat old-fashioned-looking, but extremely comfy. They may be removed for sports, swimming, the other word that begins with S (you know, the fun one :D), and medical or other necessary purposes.

  • nothing strange, just sort of an adult version of confirmation–a covenant of obedience to the commandments, type of thing.
9

No, you’re not being wooshed! That really was my cousin’s experience. Remember, he was in SLC. He just finished up his residency a few months ago.

10

Sleeping?

11

Well, I hope they remove it for at least two of the Three S’es…

12

snerk!

When I worked in the trenches, I collected diagnoses, especially at one hospital that employed illiterate admissions people. Some of the descriptions were mind-boggling.

Lessee, there was the time a collegue (while at another hospital) made a blow-gun out of tubing and syringe needles. On week-ends he and the week-end staff target practiced against a wood-paneled wall.

I got a call from an LPN student regarding an assignment: find the normal concentration range of certain substances/drugs encountered in the hospital. She had the misfortune to pick alcohol (ethanol). My response was: none. There normally isn’t any alcohol in the blood. She absolutely insisted on a range, so in exasperation, I finally said: “zero to zero.”

And then there were these phone calls: “Uh, yeah, I’m going into the Army, and they need to know my blood type,” or: “I was in the hospital a few weeks ago, can you tell me what my blood type is?,” Suuure. She says the kid is yours, you say “no fuggin’ way!” (which was the problem to begin with). Here’s the number to paternity testing in Indianapolis. We’d get this call too: “Uh, yeah, man. Like, how long does does [favorite recreational drug] stay in your blood?” My response: “Weeks, man, maybe even months.” :wally

A know-it-all ER nurse had a bad habit of drawing blood and not properly identifying the patient in writing on the tube. Someone else brought over tubes she had drawn, and the tubes were completely blank. I sent them back over. She stormed back and attempted to ream me out, telling me I was punishing the patient by making them be stuck again. Not my problem, I said, if you had followed hospital and lab written rules. I was told by the ER doc to go ahead and run the tests, but I put that nurse’s name all over the results, as certifying that the blood came from that patient. If the patient was harmed, it was going to be her license, not my job on the line.

During phlebotomy rotation in school, we drew a woman who, very lucidly, told me and my partner that the (imaginary) man in her bathroom had murdered her the night before. I replied that she looked pretty good for having been killed.

At another hospital, the break room was just a nook, right next to histology. During dinner, surgery would bring over specimens from late cases. MTs/MLTs have an amazing ability to eat dinner and discuss diseased body parts, I’ve found.

Working toxicology in the municipal hospital in Louisville was interesting. We knew when the drug dealers were in town, or if there was a rave going on somewhere. Some of us would get a whiff of a urine or serum sample and make bets on how much alcohol it contained. I could get within about 10% of the result.

That’s all I can think of for now.

Vlad/Igor, MT(ASCP)

13

What, in Kentucky the drug dealers come through like the circus? :smiley:

14

…with the circus, with the fair, with a concert, when they’re bored… :smiley:

15

I work at the switchboard at a large hospital. I get some calls that make me howl with laughter. One night, a poor guy called who’d just had a urology procedure. He said that he’d just passed gas thru his penis.

About once per week, I get a call from different guys (it’s never the woman) who says that his wife/girlfriend has a condom stuck insider her vagina.

I’ve got tons more

Eric

16

That reminds me - we got in one sample to be tested for Fragile X, which causes mental retardation. There was a footnote from the doctor that said, and I quote, “Diagnosis: Funny-looking kid.”

17

One of the final parts of paramedical certification was an 8 hour shift in the ER, so the Doc could sign off on your performance, figuring there would be at least an IV or two, perhaps a cardioversion, etc.

So we’re sitting there, the Doc and me, playing cards. Not a soul in the place-about as much excitement as watching paint dry.

Then the radio says Jenkintown PD is inbound with a gunshot wound. Woo hoo! Something to do! We’re all ready, figuring on a major deal, and the subject walks in through the sliding doors, escorted by the PD-no apparent distress. Once he turned around, we saw his bloody butt. He had reached for his hankie and shot himself through the ass cheek with a small caliber semi-auto. The bullet went in and out, so other than a few sutures, a bandage, a scrip, and a tetanus shot, he was good to go.

18

Any unlabelled specimens get into my lab they go directly into the biohazard waste bucket, no ifs, ands, or buts. Boy, does that make people mad. Some have spent many minutes arguing with me about the policy when they could have redrawn the patient in half that time. All I have to do is remember the time a patient here was transfused the wrong type blood because of a labelling error and I have not the slightest compulsion to bend the rules for anyone.

I once had a doctor call me because I’d reported out a blood alcohol level as <10 mg/dl (i.e. <.01 %) He wanted a more specific result. I had to explain that it was essentially equivalent to zero.
I also am pretty good at guessing blood alcohol levels by sniffing the serum specimens. A fairly odd skill to be sure.

Occasionally we get vets who refuse blood transfusions because they’re sure they’re a different blood type than we’ve got on record. Usually because someone in the army told them they were such-and-such type. One elderly fellow confided to a phlebotomist that it was the CIA who’d changed his blood type.

At the last lab (microbiology) I worked in, the break table was just across the hall from the autoclave room where biohazardous waste was sterilized. Nothing says lunch like the smell of anaerobic cultures in steamy heat. :slight_smile:

19

Well, lets see. There is my current patient who is a regular. She is deathly afraid of spiders and claimed to see one the size of her hand in the bathroom. This is a fairly young woman (early 40’s) who takes enough narcs each day to kill me twice. A rather unprofessional nurse explained to her that she needed to settle down, she was over medicated and was seeing things and he would not be giving her any more narcotics. Apparentlyl, her fear of not having her meds overrode her arachnophobia, as she came out with the spider trapped in a cup with paper under it and screamed up and down the hall that she hated it when people told her she was seeing things, and “NOW give me my roxys oxys”

I had another patient who was Baker acted after her neighbors called police several times. It seems that she knew that people were trying to kill her and the last home invader had left his parachute in her living room. This I must stress, this was a teeny-tiny little old lady. When I came on she was described as harmless, though highly confused. She had a sitter to ensure that she caused no injury to herself or others. She also carried a pillowcase with a towel in it , that she said was her pocketbook. The first 8 hours went smoothly, but then she decided that staff were part of the plot to kill her and tried to wander in the ICU to escape. The sitter and I tried distraction, the offer of walking the other direction and any other diversion, but she would not have it. She then told us(myself and the sitter) that we would be sorry that we would not let her pass and proceeded to whack the crap out of us with her “pocketbook” which in reality was a pillow case filled with the silverware that she had collected from her meal trays…for 3 days. When all was said and done I could only think that this delicate little old lady had fashioned a weapon not unlike the old cue ball in a sock.

20

Back in the old days, before everyone was so concerned with contaminated body fluids, I worked with a nurse who had an unusual habit. At the end of her shift, she collected all the fluids that had drained from NG tubes into the wall suction bottles. Then she took it all home and used it to feed her house plants, claiming that it was chock-full of nutrients. Yecccch! Can’t imagine her doing that
these days. “Miss, license and registration please, and what’s in that container of green slop in your back seat?”

In one of the dialysis clinics where I worked, we had several elderly men, sweet but demented, who would fart loudly and then shout “backfire!” across the room to each other. That always made me laugh.

I’m sure I"ll think of some others…My nurse-y brain is tired right now.