The Perioperative Nurse’s Top Ten Signs That They Need A Vacation

10. You answer your home phone by saying, “Surgery, Mary, May I help you?”

9. In the perioperative nurse’s kitchen, their recipes have the ingredients listed in CC’s, grams and ounces.

8. You enter your PYXIS password on the microwave and can not figure out why the dumb thing doesn’t work!

7. You peel open food packages using sterile technique as you deliver them to your kitchen table for preparation.

6. At the check out, you are assessing the veins on the cashier, thinking, “A #16ga. insyte or butterfly?”

5. You rotate your kitchen towels and bath towels like you rotate the sterile packs at work.

4. You jump up to check your ‘ON CALL’ beeper and realize it is the pager on the TV show you’re watching that is going off.

3. Wrapping Christmas presents envelope style seems quite normal.

2. Before preparing the evening meal for your family, you wash your hands as if you are going to be scrubbing an aorta bi-fem.

1. When opening a jar at a friend’s house you repeat, “Righty tighty, lefty loosey”, and your friend looks at you like you’re from another planet.

Contributed by Dina Pratt, RN, CNOR

Not the Issue Here

Brand new babies had come into the world: Twins! A tiny little boy and a feisty girl.  Mom was doing great, so the head nurse brought the babies over to their father.

He was, understandably, as excited as could be.  All through the birth, he’d been watching wide-eyed, and now he was ready to embrace his children.  He took one step forward to touch his children, unable to totally believe that this was real until he felt them.

As he started to touch them the nurse took a step backwards and said, “You can’t touch those babies. You aren’t sterile!”

With out missing a beat, he said proudly “You’re telling ME I’m not sterile!”

The Top Ten Ways to Tell if You’re A Nurse Midwife

10:  You’re talking about seeing the Crown and you’re nowhere near Buckingham Palace!

9: You know a fetoscope does not measure shoe size!

8:  Broken water never involves busted pipes in your world!

7: You can get out of a speeding ticket by showing the policeman the placenta.

6: Black Birkenstocks are the most formal footwear you own.

5. You can eat cherry jello while watching a birthing movie!

4: You’ve used a speculum to put on a tight pair of shoes.

3: You know the only appropriate use for forceps is as salad tongs!

2: You’ve had your picture taken with so many babies you should run for office!

and the number one way to tell you’re a nurse midwife:

1: You call getting out of beeper range your vacation!

Happy Labor Day to all the Nurse Midwives out there!

Night Nurses Do It In the Dark!

We had a patient in the DTs. The patient had been in DTs for about 2 weeks, and was prone to stripping off clothing and wandering around looking for a beer and a smoke, which did not go over too well with the other patients, especially the females. Read more

You Know You’re A Nurse When…

You believe there is a special place in Hell for the inventor of the call light.

You believe all bleeding stops…EVENTUALLY!

You’ve ever told a confused patient the name of a co-worker and that they should yell REALLY LOUD if they need help.

You don’t mention the name of a ‘frequent flier’ to avoid invoking his presence in the ER.

You know it’s the full moon without ever having to look at the sky!

The Top Ten Reasons To Take Those Extra Shifts

10. You’ll lose a ton of weight — because there’s never time to eat!

9. Develop a closer bond with your co-workers, responding to all those codes!

8. Everyone is so frazzled, you’ll look fabulous by comparison!

7. Enjoy the challenge to your nursing skills to run a code without a crash cart because they’re all down in Central, being replaced!

6. Experience the joy of having the previous shift’s charge nurse tell you, “I don’t know why no one would return my calls tonight.  By the way, you’re short two nurses and a CNA, with a full shift of patients as sick as dog dirt!”

5. Be the “Team Player” your nursing instructor told it was so vital to be!

4. Know that you are truly a caregiver — with an aching back, sore feet, and an interesting perspective on patients who think a 3 am gas attack is truly an emergency!

3. Learn new computer skills putting in your own orders and ordering supplies from Central!

2. Inadquate time to chart correctly may win you an exciting tour of our nation’s judicial system!

1. It’s a great LEARNING EXPERIENCE!

Doctors’ Opinion of The Financial Bail Out Package

The allergists voted to scratch it

And the dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves

The gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it

but the neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve,

and the obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception

The opthalmologists considered the idea short sighted

while the pediatricians said, “Oh, grow up!”

The psychiatrists through the whole idea was madness

The radiologists could see right through it,

and the surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.

The internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow,

and the plastic surgeons said, “This puts a whole new face on the matter!”

The podiatrists thought it was a step forward,

but the urologists thought the scheme wouldn’t hold water.

The anasthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas,

and the cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

In the end, the proctologists left the whole thing up to some assholes in Washington!