LOL! 5 Funny Problems Every Nurse Has

Most of what we deal with on shift is serious. Some of it is just funny, and laughing is how we get through it. Here are five problems every nurse will recognize.

1. Your shift is your workout.

Between the walking, the running, the lifting, the chest compressions, and the call lights that never quit, who needs a gym? As one ER nurse put it, "I kept meaning to enroll in a gym class. Every time I got off work I was too tired to go. Turns out my shift is more than enough exercise."

2. Drink, or pee?

We know hydration matters and we know why elimination matters. We also know how fast a shift can get away from us. So we make the call no one should have to make, and sometimes the answer is skip the water so you do not have to find time for the bathroom.

3. You are the family doctor now.

Patients are not the only ones who assume you know everything. Your relatives do too, from anatomy to symptoms to writing a prescription. One pediatric nurse with five years on the job remembers a call around 11 p.m. from her mother's friend whose baby had a fever, asking her to drive over and write a prescription, because surely she knew all about sick babies.

4. You teach things you have never done.

Nurses are good educators, even when we have no firsthand experience with the subject. Take breastfeeding. Plenty of nurses who teach it have never nursed a child. As one OB nurse said, "When patients ask how I know this, I tell them it's experience. I just leave out that the experience is my other patients'."

5. Your face itches the moment you scrub in.

It is a small miracle of timing: your skin starts to itch the instant you cannot touch it, gowned and gloved and sterile. If you have a coworker willing to scratch it for you, count yourself lucky. If not, you wait it out for the whole case.