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As most of you may or may not know I’m a Respiratory Therapist. I work in a large teaching hospital and I seriously love my job. In my five years of working I have seen some pretty crazy interesting stuff and had my share of embarassing moments.
For example…Just the other day I walked in to a patient’s room bright and early one morning to do a breathing treatment. He was sitting up in his chair and his eyes were closed. I assumed he was sleeping and said “Good morning Mr. X!! I’m with Respiratory and I came to do your breathing treatment. How are you this morning?” He nods his head and grumbles something. I said a little louder “Good morning Mr. X. Time to wake up and do your treatment!” He grumbles a little more and I said “Open your eyes and look at me, it’s time to do your treatment.” To this he responded with…
“I’m blind. I couldn’t see you even if I did open my eyes.”
Well I almost died right there on the spot. I did his treatment and hurried on out of there. Embarrassing? YES! But I texted all my friends about it laughed about it and went on. That patient was my BFF for the rest of that day.
To this day one of my favorite codes I ever got called to was when I worked night shift. I got the page, dropped what I was doing and ran to this room. When I got there all the lights were on, there were a million doctors and nurses in the room, and someone was leaning over the patient’s bed trying to wake him up. Right as I walked in the room the man rolled over (we were told he was non-responsive and had no pulse), sat up in his bed, and looked his nurse dead in the eye and said
“I was IGNORING you!”
HA! Apparently she had been in his room several times to try to take his vitals and when he wouldn’t roll over or talk to her and so she thought he was dead. Obviously he was not. I thought it was pretty funny. This is also a lesson in actually assessing your patient.
What is your most embarrassing moment at work??
Ignoring the nurses has never worked for me… LOL.
Hahaha! This is hilarious
Omg that Stevie Wonder MeMe is hilarious! At least the patient didn’t see your reaction to “I’m Blind”.
haha
Bahaha that was funny. The Stevie Wonder thing was excellent as well :)
HAHAHA that’s great! My husband is a physical therapist and he works outpatient at a hospital but goes into the hospital when they need help. One day he had a patient who just had a baby and had a bad reaction to the epidural so had to have a PT sign off before she could leave. He gets into her room and sees this big machine and says “I’ve never seen one of these before, what’s it for?” and the patient says “it’s a breast pump!” My poor husband was so embarrassed and felt so bad but he said it was huge and looked like a robot – not what he imagined a breast pump looking like. And he has a million more stories just like that as I am sure you do too!
Shannon [ lifeofpoole.blogspot.com ]
OMGosh this is hilarious. I don’t have any fun or embarrassing stories at my job…I kind of wish I did, though.
Calling someone over the phone a different name and they tell you “You should know me by now you talk to me every day like clock work.”
Don’t feel bad, there is no way you could have known that the first man was blind, right?
OH MY GOSH. Love these!!!!!!!! Especially the blind one! xoxo – hope
Baha! I distinctly remember my first ever clinical as a nursing student. My resident was blind & I made him cry! I don’t remember what about, but I definitely didn’t like yell mean things at him or something :)
I worked in a nursing home for a bit & some of the residents are SUCH HEAVY SLEEPERS! It would freak me out sometimes because you literally had to shake them really hard for them to wake up.
The #stephanies are coming to town so let’s have a Central Arkansas Blogger… fb.me/1IbmWTBFh
haha thats amazing!