Remember me
Nurses are trained to handle all sorts of situations in a calm and compassionate manner. But there some things that simply cannot be learned from a medical textbook. Long shifts, endless paperwork, and caring for gravely ill people are all part of the job. Unfortunately, so too is being on the receiving end of some very wild and unforgettable comments.
Patients can be funny, brutally honest, confused and even rude to the people tasked with nursing them. Sometimes, the only response is to blink twice and get on with it. Someone asked, "What's the most unhinged thing a patient has said to you?" and the answers ranged from hilarious to downright shocking.
Bored Panda has put together a list of the best unprovoked comments that capture the painful reality of working as a nurse who has to sometimes bite their tongue.
I’m a doctor. I was accompanying an 86 year old lady to the ultrasound department, who had multiple clots in the veins of her leg. The radiologist was scanning the lower part of her abdomen to complete the scan. This lady looks me straight in the eye and asks, “Doctor, is it twins?” The whole room burst out laughing. I had tears in my eyes, the comedic timing and delivery was so perfect
I was a CNA and I needed a nurse to help me pull up a patient who was sliding and he was Nigerian. We go and introduce ourselves and I tell her to cross her arms over her chest so we can pull up the bottom pad and she goes “Wakanda forever.” I still think about it till this day.
Had a demented older gentleman as my patient and I usually wore a nurse cap with long hair hanging out the back. I turned around to prepare a med and he says “mmmmmmm honey your behind is sublime!” I turned around, he saw my beard and started screaming😂
Patient wife talking to her daughters "I have a hard time telling you're father (the patient) no". The daughters "we know, mom. That's why there's 10 of us".
I’m a voice actor, but have also been a nurse for almost 10 years. Had a confused elderly patient, who was also completely blind, that kept firing and cussing out every nurse on the unit. When they had gone through all of us, and every nurse had been fired, I said “WAIT! I have an idea!!💡”
I then walked in to the room putting on a COMPLETELY different voice, and the patient proceeded to tell me how great I was, and how much the last nurse sucked. I was the last nurse. 😂😂😂.
“I’m going to sue you. I’m calling my lawyer.” (Please note the patient was 5 years old )
Im a psych nurse. I asked: Do you have any thoughts to harm others?
pt replied" "Only on Mondays" (it was a Monday)
I asked a patient what pharmacy they use for prescriptions and he said “God”. I replied “Can you choose an earthly pharmacy?”
On the maternity ward getting birth cert info. Naming the little boy Allen. I said there's several ways to spell it..how are you spelling it. She states Alien. I said that spells alien. She corrected me and said I was wrong. She named him Alien
I had a patient code, when we shocked him, he sat up screaming I’m back, stop it.
I had a dementia patient ask me if I was part of the upper class. I flipped my hair and said “no do I look like it?” He said “no. I was hoping you were so you could do something about that nose.” No joke 3 weeks later, same patient when I walked in his room said, “oh no. Not the nose lady.”
Sir. You don’t even know your name. How do you remember my nose??
I’m an interpreter and I was asking a mom to slow down so I can interpret to doctor and she said “and this stupid Interpeter is so slow she can’t keep up with a conversation “ I had to interpret that too
We work working on a patient, CPR on the floor , he collapsed on the floor in the waiting room, another patient put her hand on my colleague's head and stepped over the deceased patient on the floor ( across his waist) and shouted to the receptionist and pointed at the man on the floor and said is this ( twirling her finger at him) going to hold up my appointment?
I was trying to assess my patient with dementia to see how oriented she was, she said back to me" since you asking me all these stupid questions i'm gonna ask you one. How many strands of hair do you have on your cat?"
I’m an OT. I was once working with an elderly man with Parkinson’s who was once a very successful business man.
He said to me… “stick with me kid, and you’ll be farting through silk”.
If you only knew how much time I’ve spent trying to figure out what that even means
We were doing a skin assessment on a new admit and after looking under her abdominal fold, we found a knife. " I need that for protection "
Male patient: "do you want to lay down with me? It's warm, I peed a little"
I had a patient turned on his side, he ripped a massive fart right in my face, turned and looked me in the eye and said "blew you a kiss"
When I was a CNA, I went into the room to help my coworker reposition their blind patient. After I introduced myself she said “oh no, you sound weak.”
Had a little, old, drunk man (looked like Danny devito) come in after falling and breaking his hip proceed to tell me that I look like I could pick him up and throw him over my shoulder.. that he’s into “sturdy blondes” (I’m 5’9”) and proceeded growl at me (trying to be seducing)
My dept had 10 nurses pregnant all at the same time. One of which was pregnant with triplets. One of our nurses who wasn’t pregnant was taking care of this guy who said “wow you have a lot of fat nurses who work here” she replied well everyone is pregnant. He then said to her “well what’s your excuse”
Had an patient with ALS. He had an eye-computer to communicate. He slowly spelled out “this guy sucks” took about 2 minutes
I asked a patient about their allergies and they told me they are allergic to adrenaline (epinephrine). When I asked what happened they said it makes their heart race. I tried to tell them that was kinda the point but they then spent 5 minutes telling me how I was wrong and it was a severe allergy and under no circumstances was I to give them adrenaline.
My mom had a patient tell her that she didn't know why they were doing all of these treatments because she was going to pass away soon. My mom told that lady that she better not do that while she was on the clock
When I was still in a nursing school, a patient was upset at his nurse and kept shouting “I am not a human being!” He was implying they were treating him like an animal. The patient next to him calmly asked “then what are you?” Patient stops yelling, looks at him and says in the deepest most serious voice: “I’m yo daddy foo.”