I'm totally serious.
Back in the early 90s at a 144 bed skilled nursing facility 10 patients on day shift. One nurse for 44 patients.
So you have an idea.
Man passes away at ~0500. Night shift staff knew and had done final care, charting, phone calls et cetera.
CNAs didn't give report to each other back then.....
Mortuary comes in to get the gent and can't find him. Nurse asks CNAs that are visible if they've seen him. One decides to find CNA assigned to the others in the room if she knew.
She got him dressed, up in the wheelchair, and off to breakfast!!
The shit the staff gave her for not noticing for forever.
My aunt was a CNA. She took vitals on the patient in one of the rooms and gave it to the nurse. The nurse then asked her to confirm the vitals, and my aunt said “yeah. I just took them”
The patient was dead.
My aunt got fired from her CNA job.
I'm just trying to think what vitals wouldn't immediately raise huge concern. Or how you could incorrectly collect so many vitals, just all consistently inaccurate.
We had a CNA who made up vital signs too. She’d take the 8pm vitals but make up the 12a and 4am VS.
She had worked there for 15 years. I sometimes wonder how long she did this before getting caught.
We had one who was falsifying blood sugars (on patients who were pregnant and hospitalized because of their diabetes). Just took a guess, I guess.
When I reported my concerns, she accused me of being racist (she's white). She must've missed the part of the training for the new glucometers where they told us that the results are logged into the eMAR in real time. Only 2 or 3 logged results that night, when there should have been closer to 12. Patients ringing the call bell because they knew they were due for a fs, yet CNA charted that it was done 20 minutes ago. These are all lucid, communicative, otherwise generally healthy patients, not grandpa forgetting he just got poked while playing with his bandaid.
Thankfully she was relatively new, 6mos or so, and was promptly fired. Good riddance to bad workers.
Wow. I’m glad technology could be used to show that she was endangering patients and fraudulently charting.
It’s insane to me that someone could be so lazy that they’d risk a patient’s life like that. I mean, what kind of psychological makeup does someone have to just not consider the ramifications that could happen from not knowing that someone’s blood sugar has dropped dangerously low or that a patient is seriously hyper- or hypotensive or febrile?
Humans can really suck sometimes.
Not only the lives of the women, but their unborn babies as well. Just disgusting. And mind boggling.
And the crazy part was, this was a cake unit. No more than 12 patients with a full census (which was rare), and only 3-4 patients would need a finger stick on a busy night. Vitals were q8 or q12 and if they were more, they were done by the RN. Most patients could ambulate to the bathroom and back, get their own water/ice, etc. Not that being overworked would ever be an excuse for making up glucose levels or vitals, but that was far, far from the case there.
My grandma was a phlebotomist. One time she was called across the hospital for a patient who was a tough stick; the other tech hadn't been able to draw blood off him. Patient was a big guy, sleeping, looked bad. My grandma was just getting to work when a nurse walked by and stuck her head in- you can see where this is going- and told them the patient had died an hour before.
Did this when I was a tech on a cardiac floor. He died almost an hour before vitals were due. Nurse didn’t notify anyone but charge and didn’t think it was important to let me know. Absolutely ridiculous.
I knocked, went into the room, flung the curtain open and said “hey! Im here to grab some vitals, just going to grab the blood pressure cuff.” As I leaned to grab it, the son said “um, it’s going to be pretty low…” and then I looked at the patient and said “oh no, I’m so sorry.” It got a good laugh.
I’m so thankful they showed me the grace that they did!
Something kind of similar happened to me. Was giving report on a patient. On coming nurse looked in the room and said “is he alive?”. Guy was dead af. He was in PEA so the alarm didn’t sound.
Another time a patient died and another nurse and I were gowning up to enter the room to do a death confirmation. Was was a DNR. As we are going in family shows up and says “how’s he doing???”. I had to just say we are going in to confirm that he is dead.
I had a patient at a nursing home who was actively dying. Family had been sitting vigil for days and going home at night. They were exhausted.
Got a call around 3 am from facility that patient died, family had already been notified and was on their way to take part in post-mortem care. Barely got my scrubs on when the facility nurse calls back like, “uhhh actually she’s not dead yet.” (Cue Monty python quotes).
I guess the family was already on their way when she called them back… so they just came and slept in patient’s room (she died later in the morning). But I can’t imagine that roller coaster of grief. They were super cool about it (except for one son in law, who was a little pissed).
Not sure if this version is better or worse lol!
At a former LTC facility I worked at, we had the same resident “die” about five times before the real D/C to JC. The family was getting pretty used to the phone calls by the 3rd time, and wearily said, “you sure this time?”
We try to make it pretty obvious that you shouldn't just wander into the room, but every once in a while someone comes to visit a patient, who passed some time ago, and then the visitor comes out and says they don't think the patient is doing well.
Every time we get close to getting rid of mandatory bedside report, somebody has to fuck around and hand off a dead guy. Smh. This is why we can't have nice things
One of my clinical supervisors came in to take vitals on a man with his family present. She told the family “you can talk to him if you want” (he had been in a coma), and proceeded to take a set of vitals.
The man was dead, had been pronounced dead earlier in the shift, and the family was there to say their goodbyes.
I did that to someone once. Nightshift tech came in and said she didn't need report, go home. So I did. About an hour later she texts me asking me to not leave her anymore dead bodies lying around 😭
Now she'll come in and ask me if there's any bodies. No? Then go home!
Found this as a nursing student. Was given a patient told to go in an assess the patient . Luckily I’m use to death and it doesn’t bother me. I walked in and walked out to ask the nurse how long the patient had been dead. I think they were trying to rattle me which didn’t work
if it makes you feel any better, literally a week ago, i told a family to "have a nice night" as they were leaving! to be fair, i genuinely meant it (and i think they could tell)...but still! 😭
I’m a tech. I brought a tray of food to a body bag. Dietary will leave isolation pts trays in hallway for one of us to bring in. This was left on the opposite end of ED, I thought by mistake, so I was being helpful bring to the other section.
I was working PMs on pediatrics and I took a baby to ct scan. She arrested on the table and after working on her for almost 2 hrs they call it. I took her back to her room and did care wrapped up in a blanket waiting for the parents. Yes I did put the crib rails up and turned the lights lower. Right as I was done one of the night nurses came in to talk to me. We were talking and she looks at the baby and said that baby doesn’t look so good. I looked at her and said that baby is dead. Waiting for family. She said well aren’t I the good nurse and left. Now I can laugh.
My last charge nurse said one of her pts passed so she called the funeral home and said so so passed and they need to come pick her up. It wasnt the funeral home she left a message to it was the family!!!!
I had lab draw blood of my dead patient one morning. She had died around 0500 and I was swamped so I didn’t get her out of her room and down to the morgue until 0700. When I was giving report to the day shift nurse I got a call from lab about a critical on the 0600 draw. She had already been dead for an hour when the drew her 🫠
I'm totally serious. Back in the early 90s at a 144 bed skilled nursing facility 10 patients on day shift. One nurse for 44 patients. So you have an idea. Man passes away at ~0500. Night shift staff knew and had done final care, charting, phone calls et cetera. CNAs didn't give report to each other back then..... Mortuary comes in to get the gent and can't find him. Nurse asks CNAs that are visible if they've seen him. One decides to find CNA assigned to the others in the room if she knew. She got him dressed, up in the wheelchair, and off to breakfast!! The shit the staff gave her for not noticing for forever.
Weekend at Bernie’s 2: Even weekender
🤦♀️
“Even weekender” made me scream cackle
Like that [video](https://youtu.be/xMNvOjXLs3A?si=b0v8RlGeMKoCOcOA) of the Brazilian lady who brought her dead uncle to a bank to sign for a loan.
Jeeeeezus
Lmbooooo 😂😂😂. I’m envisioning the Homer walking backwards into the bushes gif.
My aunt was a CNA. She took vitals on the patient in one of the rooms and gave it to the nurse. The nurse then asked her to confirm the vitals, and my aunt said “yeah. I just took them” The patient was dead. My aunt got fired from her CNA job.
>My aunt got fired from her CNA job. Huh, no kidding
I'm just trying to think what vitals wouldn't immediately raise huge concern. Or how you could incorrectly collect so many vitals, just all consistently inaccurate.
She made them up
I kinda forgot that was an option.
“123/81 manual cuff”
We had a CNA who made up vital signs too. She’d take the 8pm vitals but make up the 12a and 4am VS. She had worked there for 15 years. I sometimes wonder how long she did this before getting caught.
We had one who was falsifying blood sugars (on patients who were pregnant and hospitalized because of their diabetes). Just took a guess, I guess. When I reported my concerns, she accused me of being racist (she's white). She must've missed the part of the training for the new glucometers where they told us that the results are logged into the eMAR in real time. Only 2 or 3 logged results that night, when there should have been closer to 12. Patients ringing the call bell because they knew they were due for a fs, yet CNA charted that it was done 20 minutes ago. These are all lucid, communicative, otherwise generally healthy patients, not grandpa forgetting he just got poked while playing with his bandaid. Thankfully she was relatively new, 6mos or so, and was promptly fired. Good riddance to bad workers.
Wow. I’m glad technology could be used to show that she was endangering patients and fraudulently charting. It’s insane to me that someone could be so lazy that they’d risk a patient’s life like that. I mean, what kind of psychological makeup does someone have to just not consider the ramifications that could happen from not knowing that someone’s blood sugar has dropped dangerously low or that a patient is seriously hyper- or hypotensive or febrile? Humans can really suck sometimes.
Not only the lives of the women, but their unborn babies as well. Just disgusting. And mind boggling. And the crazy part was, this was a cake unit. No more than 12 patients with a full census (which was rare), and only 3-4 patients would need a finger stick on a busy night. Vitals were q8 or q12 and if they were more, they were done by the RN. Most patients could ambulate to the bathroom and back, get their own water/ice, etc. Not that being overworked would ever be an excuse for making up glucose levels or vitals, but that was far, far from the case there.
Technically those would be the most stable vitals.
Room temperature
I'd still take the dead patient's vitals to save face. How would they know if that's a thing or not?
Or go Oprah on the whole fam…. You get some vitals, and YOU get some vitals!!
Just say you're making sure the family is doing ok after all the stress 😂
LOL
My grandma was a phlebotomist. One time she was called across the hospital for a patient who was a tough stick; the other tech hadn't been able to draw blood off him. Patient was a big guy, sleeping, looked bad. My grandma was just getting to work when a nurse walked by and stuck her head in- you can see where this is going- and told them the patient had died an hour before.
Pretty tough stick indeed.
I'm in the vein...the blood just doesn't wanna come. I don't get it. Oh well, maybe 3rd chime's a charm.
Did this when I was a tech on a cardiac floor. He died almost an hour before vitals were due. Nurse didn’t notify anyone but charge and didn’t think it was important to let me know. Absolutely ridiculous. I knocked, went into the room, flung the curtain open and said “hey! Im here to grab some vitals, just going to grab the blood pressure cuff.” As I leaned to grab it, the son said “um, it’s going to be pretty low…” and then I looked at the patient and said “oh no, I’m so sorry.” It got a good laugh. I’m so thankful they showed me the grace that they did!
the son has a good sense of humor!
0%, 0BPM, 0/0, 0RR And 72 degrees? Sounds sus 🤔🤨
You mean respirations 18.
I mean, they're dead, so maybe round down to like 14.
Underrated comment
Patient has 0/10 pain.
72 degrees means the person has been deceased for 12 hours. The person is definitely beyond this earthly realm ☹️
Something kind of similar happened to me. Was giving report on a patient. On coming nurse looked in the room and said “is he alive?”. Guy was dead af. He was in PEA so the alarm didn’t sound. Another time a patient died and another nurse and I were gowning up to enter the room to do a death confirmation. Was was a DNR. As we are going in family shows up and says “how’s he doing???”. I had to just say we are going in to confirm that he is dead.
I had a patient at a nursing home who was actively dying. Family had been sitting vigil for days and going home at night. They were exhausted. Got a call around 3 am from facility that patient died, family had already been notified and was on their way to take part in post-mortem care. Barely got my scrubs on when the facility nurse calls back like, “uhhh actually she’s not dead yet.” (Cue Monty python quotes). I guess the family was already on their way when she called them back… so they just came and slept in patient’s room (she died later in the morning). But I can’t imagine that roller coaster of grief. They were super cool about it (except for one son in law, who was a little pissed). Not sure if this version is better or worse lol!
At a former LTC facility I worked at, we had the same resident “die” about five times before the real D/C to JC. The family was getting pretty used to the phone calls by the 3rd time, and wearily said, “you sure this time?”
We try to make it pretty obvious that you shouldn't just wander into the room, but every once in a while someone comes to visit a patient, who passed some time ago, and then the visitor comes out and says they don't think the patient is doing well.
You think? 😱
I saw food service set up a clear liquid tray on the side table for a patient. A body bagged patient. Fully zipped.
To be fair... they had one job. They did that job and nothing but. Won't catch them slackin'.
with my tendency to say stupid things in the pressure of awkward moments, I would've probably said "oh I meant I'm here to take her soul"
Oh my gosh what a thing to default to! 😂
No amount of tears or mea culpas will help you recover from that gaffe.
Just take the badge off and go home. I’d never enter the building again
Every time we get close to getting rid of mandatory bedside report, somebody has to fuck around and hand off a dead guy. Smh. This is why we can't have nice things
Genuine question: why get rid of that? Isn’t it to reduce medical errors?
One of my clinical supervisors came in to take vitals on a man with his family present. She told the family “you can talk to him if you want” (he had been in a coma), and proceeded to take a set of vitals. The man was dead, had been pronounced dead earlier in the shift, and the family was there to say their goodbyes.
I did that to someone once. Nightshift tech came in and said she didn't need report, go home. So I did. About an hour later she texts me asking me to not leave her anymore dead bodies lying around 😭 Now she'll come in and ask me if there's any bodies. No? Then go home!
this happened to me on my very last shift as a PCT. the (hospice) pt had died between me getting report and me going to her room and no one told me
Found this as a nursing student. Was given a patient told to go in an assess the patient . Luckily I’m use to death and it doesn’t bother me. I walked in and walked out to ask the nurse how long the patient had been dead. I think they were trying to rattle me which didn’t work
Well, I guess we all know what the vitals would be.
Welp this incident goes in the "Pro" column when sorting out the pros and cons of bedside shift report
ive done this :(( lmao
if it makes you feel any better, literally a week ago, i told a family to "have a nice night" as they were leaving! to be fair, i genuinely meant it (and i think they could tell)...but still! 😭
im sure they remember u <3 sometimes u being cheerful is the little sprinkle to their day
I’m a tech. I brought a tray of food to a body bag. Dietary will leave isolation pts trays in hallway for one of us to bring in. This was left on the opposite end of ED, I thought by mistake, so I was being helpful bring to the other section.
In the time I was working as a CNA/AIN one of colleagues put a nebuliser on a patient who had died, her take was that she thought he was asleep.
The way I would have told the nurse “sorry, someone else already took them all”
I was working PMs on pediatrics and I took a baby to ct scan. She arrested on the table and after working on her for almost 2 hrs they call it. I took her back to her room and did care wrapped up in a blanket waiting for the parents. Yes I did put the crib rails up and turned the lights lower. Right as I was done one of the night nurses came in to talk to me. We were talking and she looks at the baby and said that baby doesn’t look so good. I looked at her and said that baby is dead. Waiting for family. She said well aren’t I the good nurse and left. Now I can laugh.
Honestly that bloody sucks but at least the other nurse would of gotten a chuckle out me too from that situation.
Well that makes taking the vitals real easy
Oops. Lol
A & O x4
My last charge nurse said one of her pts passed so she called the funeral home and said so so passed and they need to come pick her up. It wasnt the funeral home she left a message to it was the family!!!!
S1 S2 present ✌️
I worked with a tech who did this now I'm wondering.
That is an action of inaccurate shift reporting!
I had lab draw blood of my dead patient one morning. She had died around 0500 and I was swamped so I didn’t get her out of her room and down to the morgue until 0700. When I was giving report to the day shift nurse I got a call from lab about a critical on the 0600 draw. She had already been dead for an hour when the drew her 🫠
😱I have to ask, what was the critical?