Have you ever found yourself trapped in a service elevator with the living dead?
Or opened the fridge at work to find your lunch sitting next to a cold lump of human exrcement?
Or been hit in the head with a flaming mouth swab?
Well you might just be having a really really bad day…..but more than likely you have been pranked.
As a student nurse I was sent to theatre to urgently fetch a ‘vaginal rake’. I sat there for 10 minutes until someone gave me this small garden rake. What the hell do they do with this?
And a while ago we went though a phase of making up triage sheets for imaginary patients so the Triage nurse would go out into the waiting room to call them out: Dixie Normous?…. Is there a Dixie Normous here?
Or Maya Buttreeks, Anita Bath, Angie O’Plasty, Pat McGroin….. all pretty lame, but when you stride out to the waiting room on a busy Friday evening and call out in a loud clear, gullible voice for Emma Roids, you feel about this big.
Tricks, pranks and practical jokes have been an integral part of our profession ever since someone snuck an owl into Florence Nightingales top pocket.
Some are simple and spontaneous, whilst others require meticulous planning and multiple partners in crime.
So, with the aim of compiling a comprehensive database of best practice medical pranks, I would like to capture your own experiences. Then we can spread the love.
KY-jelly on the earpiece of the phone, a syringe of ice-cold water down the back of your scrubs or something a little more advanced. What is the best trick in your repertoire?
Prankee or pranker ….. what sort of mischief you have been getting up to?
i left halloween chocalate candy in a adult diaper, and added OJ…..heavy soiled adult diaper left on coworker chair….hahahhahaha
Our favorite is with the new alcohol foam that resembles hair mousse. One of the most annoying doctors in the ICU was inserting a central line, so he was wrapped in sterile garb & his hands were otherwise occupied. Now, luckily, he is bald, so not wearing a surgical cap…we proceeded to decorate his bald head with alcohol foam. By the end of the procedure, he was furious…and all of us were laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe (good thing he’s a pulmonologist, huh?)
My dad, an old-time ICU nurse, relates how if your spouse would call you at work, a few of his coworkers would tell the spouse they weren’t scheduled to work that day. Then they’d tell you that you’d better hurry and call him/her before too many thoughts of infidelity form in their heads. One day my dad did that in the middle of a busy day and forgot to tell the nurse…until several hours later when he called a code on his patient and she rushed in to help him. In the middle of chest compressions he looks up and exclaims “Oh *^*%^*!” and tries to tell her what he did in the middle of managing a code.
Needless to say she was somewhat unhappy, but it was quite a popular memory on the unit.
I just posted about pranks on my blog—I forgot about this entry; I could’ve just posted them here! I won’t rewrite them but they include calling for remains to be taken to the morgue, when the remains in question is a staff member in a body bag waiting to sit up and startle the transporter…asking for a monitor to take a patient to the morgue “just in case”…paging overhead in the middle of the night that there’s free coffee and snacks in the cafeteria and watching to see how many residents show up…etc.
I got one from a few years ago.
From the main pharmacy, I called one of the new pharmacists working in the IV room, and with my best East Indian accent, told her – “This is Dr Bangalore. How fast can I push KCL?” She started explaining that you can’t push KCL, when I quickly interrupted her, and in an irritated sounding tone said – “Oh no, we push KCL all the time in Pakistan, I’m just going to push 40 meq.”, then quickly hung-up on her.
Within 2 seconds, she came running out of the IV room, screaming worried that this doctor was going to push KCL, and what should she do? Breathing hard and shaking, she hurriedly started telling me and the other pharmacist her conversation with Dr. Bangalore, when I couldn’t hold back my laughter any longer and told her in, my best Eastern Indian accent, that it was me.
It took about 10 seconds for her to believe it was me calling and not a doctor. The look on her face was one of both extreme relief and suppressed anger. But, I’ve got to hand to her, she took it all in stride and laughed at herself too. But, I had to watch my back after that.
Prank played on me while I was a student. Doing my O.B. rotation and was sent into the utility room to assess a new mums lokia “for colour consitancy and odour” Mean old nurses, playing with a male nursing student. Now glove on the other hand, the girls involved agreed to have a bit of fun with the nurse who instigated the pad sniffing prank. Ok…we all know how heavy fire doors are, well ky jellied the inside door nob of the loo, removed all the hand towels, (said nurse always visited the loo prior to a smoke break). With the rest of the ward nurses standing quietly outside of the toilet, we set off the nurse assist alarm. Ok…well we heard a flush…water on hands being washed (note…cleanliness is next to godliness) ohh nothing to dry hands…grabs the door nob… no grip…%*&*&#$!!!!. Ok gives toilet paper a go…no good… resorts to plea for help. At which time I open the door for her, she’s all pumped and ready to assist with “nurse assist”…her collegues and I on the other hand are doubled over laughing. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE CREATIVE FORCES OF A NURSE.
Fake medcom call to the ED when very busy for a 98 year old female from a local nursing home with dementia, severe contractured legs, combative, and vaginal bleeding.
betadine on a peri-pad, and slip it in the pocket of a co-workers lab jacket.
Back in the day of black carbon paper….dating myself….liberally carboned a co-workers black coffee mug rim….they imbibed and wore a carbon smile just about all day. Really hard to keep a straight face when she talked to you.
Take a thick darkened stew….smear it on the sample side of a guiac card….walk out to the staff station….gain everyone’s attention to the problem of possible heme positive stool…..dip fingertip into said smear…taste it….and say I’m not too sure though what do you think?
micky-moused a dialysis bag under double pressure bags; connected IV give set and enough IV extension tubing to secretly run it from outside med room and terminating under the med cabinet with tip aimed for a point where some often stood to use the wall mounted phone in the med room… waited for the honey-hot-line to ring and when smooth play-ah was chatting up his sweets….wet willy!
had newbie go to lab to get fallopian tubes for a special test
had newbie vent fire doors
had newbie do air quality trap check….take speci cup with aseptic technique…..go to 4 points in unit (each hallway)…..deftly and ever so rapidly carefully remove lid and sans contamination trap air in it while secruing lid on (multiple attempts r/t not quick enough or technique poor)….date, time, lable speciment and send for air pathogen analysis
got a few more, but I would never pull a prank….we be serious about our work
our NUM used to
leave paper mache turds (he soaked brown paper belongings bags overnight) – under the ED patient trolley.
KY on the toilet seat
gladwrap across the toilet bowl
fake triage sheets – he had one Dr call out “Willie Woof” repeatedly across a packed waiting room once – and he had a toy dog on the seat.
put a call out over the loudspeaker that the results (for one of the male RN’s) were now available at the “clinic”
ring ICU and tell them the manager’s grandmother aged 99 was intubated in ED and was for full intervention and get them to set up for her (an imaginary patient).
sent apple juice to pathology on XMas day (had a really obvious silly name) – but path did not pick this up and sent back a result on this ‘urine’.
I love drinking apple juice out of urine collection containers
Dark Brown Paper Bag soaked in Betadine…looks like poo and leave in pan room near linen trolley, or near a Patient Bathroom…watch the Cleaner RUN!!!!!!