Emergency Nurses Week

This week is Emergency Nurses Week, and today is Emergency Nurses Day!
I hope that all of my ER RN friends have a great week!


Some ER humor. Some sick, some funny, but all true!

• Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal seems perfectly normal to you…

• You have the bladder capacity of five people...

• Your idea of a good time is a full arrest at shift change...

• You find humor in other people's stupidity...

• You believe in aerial spraying of Prozac...

• You have your weekends off planned for a year in advance...

• You automatically assume the patient is a drug seeker when presented with the complaint of migraine, lower back pain, chronic myalgia (choose one of the above), a list of numerous allergies to meds (except Demerol).

• You encourage an obnoxious patient to sign out AMA so you don't have to deal with them any longer...

• You have discovered a new condition that you call "hypo-xanax-emia"...

• You believe that the government should require a permit to reproduce...

• You debate which is worse, spaghetti and meatballs or pizza and beer, while performing gastric lavage...

• You plan your dinner break while lavaging an overdose patient...

• You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if the phrase "wow, it's really quiet" is uttered...

• You threaten to strangle anyone who even starts to say the "q" word when the ER is even remotely calm...

• Your diet consists of food that has gone through more processing than most computers...

• You believe chocolate is a food group...

• You take it as a compliment when someone calls you dirty name...

• You say to yourself "great veins" when looking at complete strangers...

• You refer to someone in severe respiratory distress as a "smurf"...

• You have ever wanted to hold a seminar entitled "Suicide...Doing It Right"...

• You have ever had to leave a patient's room before you begin to laugh uncontrollably...

• You have ever referred to the E.R. Doc or triage nurse as a "shit magnet"...

• You think that caffeine should be available in I.V. form...

• You have ever restrained someone and it was not a sexual experience...

• Your most common assessment question is "what changed today to make it an emergency after 6 (hours, days, weeks, months, years)?"...

• You have witnessed the charge nurse muttering down the hallway "who's in charge of this mess anyway?"...

• You believe the waiting room should be equipped with a Valium fountain...

• You want lab to order a "dumb shit profile"...

• You are totally astounded when someone from a nursing home is understandable...

• You have been exposed to so many x-rays that you consider radiation a form of birth control...

• You have ever had a patient look you straight in the eye and say "I have no idea how that got stuck in there"...

• You know the phone number to the local Detox Center by heart...

• You have ever had a patient say, "but I'm not pregnant; I can't be pregnant; How can I be having a baby"...

• You have ever had a patient control his seizures when offered some food...

• Your bladder expands to the same size as a Winnebago's water tank...

• Your immune system is so well developed that it has been known to attack squirrels in the backyard...

• You get an almost irresistible urge to stand and wolf your food even in the nicest restaurants...

• Your idea of fine dining is anywhere you can sit down to eat...

• You have a special shrine in your home to the inventor of Haldol...

• You have recurring nightmares about being knocked to the floor and run over by a portable x-ray machine...

• Your nursing shoes have been seized and quarantined by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

• You've been chipping away at your BSN for longer than most people take for a Ph.D....

• Your idea of thawing the holiday turkey consists of an IV and warmed saline (the holiday turkey you usually see has arms instead of wings and is sauced instead of basted)...

• You have every referred to subcutaneous air as "Rice Krispies"...

• You have thought OD instead of BBQ when asked to get the Charcoal...

• You always try to schedule days off around phases of the moon...

• You think that Prom tickets should have coupons good for one free gastric lavage

• Your alcoholically challenged patients know you by your first name, and can point to "their room"...

• You've ever hung a "banana bag", "yellow jello", or a "rally pack" for an etohlic...

• You believe things would go much quicker if everyone would just get a head CT, Roc and Doxy, narcan, D50, ativan, and a loading dose of Dilantin at the ED entrance..

• You believe that the sight of a full moon can ruin a perfectly good day...

• You find yourself avoiding an unhealthy looking "COPD"er in the grocery store in fear that he'll drop near you and you will have to do CPR on your day off...

• Your family members have to have a fever of at least 105 or be missing a limb with active bleeding in order to receive your sympathy...