Sunday, September 14, 2008

Overheard on Day 1 of ENPC

Overheard on Day 1 of ENPC Class:

* Teacher (on allowing families to visit): "Most ER rooms aren't designed for families.  They are designed for one patient and a really small nurse."
* Teacher (on cultural sensitivity): "When you go in a room, do the patients ever ask you where you are from?" Nurse in back: "They usually tell you where you can go."
* Teacher: "Nurses are trusted by families.  Doctor's are way down on the list."  Other teacher: "In some places, the Doctor is still next to God."  Nurse in back: "especially in his own mind."
* Teacher: "Infants are obligate nose breathers.  What does that mean?" Class: *stunned silence*  Did she really just ask us if we know what that means?
* Teacher (on age-appropriate care): "You wouldn't ask a 9 year old to take their shirt off in a hall bed."  Nurse in back: "But some of our 35 year-olds will."
* Nurse (on HIPAA and age of consent for treatment on issues of sexuality): "Isn't sending a bill to the parents a HIPAA violation?" Teacher: "No.  Most bills are really hard to decipher."
* Teacher (on causes of pediatric overdose): "Maybe the kid ate three of Grandma's Whateverolol."
* Teacher (on questionable parenting practice): "I know that as Emergency Nurses we always talk about Stupid Parent Syndrome..."
* Teacher (on advances in medical science): "Any time someone says it will never happen, that means it will happen tomorrow." Nurse in back: "I'll never get a raise."
* Teacher: "Another cause of pediatric trauma is lack of experience.  They have only been around for 3 or 4 years and have a lot to learn about the world."  Nurse in back: "Sounds like Barack Obama."
* Teacher (showing a picture of kid with tire marks on his back): "...tire track marks..." Nurse: "tire?!?" Teacher: "you know, the four round things you find on the bottom of cars..."
* Teacher (on assessing for abuse): "I'm not trying to give anyone any ideas, but if you put a pillow over the child first and then punch, you wont leave a bruise."

And during our megacode practice:

* Nurse: "I can live with the pupils 5 mm and sluggish." Teacher: "Yes." Nurse: "I'm not sure in the patient can." Teacher: "Who cares about the patient?"
* Teacher (after giving brief history of the presenting complaint on critical 3 year old): "...and everybody else is at lunch so you are all by yourself."  Nurse: "I'd hate to work in that ER!"
* Teacher (reading another scenario of an unresponsive, suicidal 16 year old): "...the parents found an empty bottle of Verapamil in the trash can in the bathroom..." Teacher pauses, looks up, "well, at least she was tidy."
* Nurse (while doing megacode for two month old brought into ER): "do I see any vomitus or loose teeth?"
* Nurse (after pretending that her patient was just intubated): "do I see positive color change on colorimetric detector?" Teacher: No." Nurse: "Do I hear anything over the stomach?" Teacher: "You hear lots of gurgling." Nurse: "Do I need to let the Doctor know?" Teacher: "You do if he's walked away." Other nurse: "And while you are at it, take his license away."

4 comments:

Sara Belle said...

good stuff

Prisca: said...

I wanna work with the nurse in the back of the room--s/he sounds brilliant! Maybe s/he should have taught the class...

Lisa G said...

LOL! I tried to figure out which one was my favorite, but they are ALL hilarious. I can't wait to hear your commentary on day 2.

Nurse Nickie said...

Wow! Sounds like a fun class. I love it when they ask you the most obvious question. On one of my rotations at the begining of 4th year, we had an instructor ask us if we knew how to take a temperature, how to take a BP, and show us a binder and say "this is a chart". She proceeded to explain each section of the chart to us - I thought I was going to kill her!