You Might Be a Nurse If.... You believe PIA (Pain in the ass) is an acceptable admitting diagnosis from ER. (True story-the ER MD would list PIA as a diagnosis to alert the floor nurses) You use CTD for very-soon expectant terminal 'no code' patients. (circling the drain). You've ever refered to a patient as DIB (Dead In Bed) You have ever refered to an intoxicated patient as a FORD (Found On Road Drunk) You believe old nurses never die, they just go PRN You call some of your co-workers 'Flowers in the Field of Medicine' because they're bloomin' idiots You believe lunch can be absorbed transdermally by applying it to an inconspicuous spot of one's arm while working. Everything only happens all at once. Most everything can seem humorous...eventually. You know that the North American Wannabe is really an eight-month pregnant woman that is tired of being pregnant, as in, "I wannabe in labor." You've ever referred to a suicide-attempt victim as an FTF (Failure to Fly) You don't mention the name of a frequent flyer so as not to invoke his spirit to bring him/her to the ER and then to your unit When asked, "What color is the patient's diarrhea?", you show them your shoes. (True story) You've ever used the acronym F.T.D. (Fixin' to Die) or L.T.B.B (Lucky To Be Breathing) You have a bumper sticker that says, "I stop for all auto accidents." Every time you walk you make a rattling noise because of all the scissors and clamps in your pockets. You have more than five pins on your uniform. You get rear-ended in an auto accident and the accident scene looks like an ER exploded from your first aid kit in the trunk. You have more T-shirts that say, "Love a nurse PRN" than plain T-shirts. Half of your wardrobe has bloodstains on it. Not only does your watch tell the time but it has a pulse timer that will count in 5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 second intervals and will take your blood pressure. You've ever referred to other nurses as "Band-Aid Bunnies." You can tell the pharmacist more about the medicines he is giving you than he can. You've ever thought a blood pressure cuff would be an excellent gift for Christmas. You've ever spent more money on a stethoscope than on a car payment. You've ever been telling work stories in a restaurant and had someone at another table throw-up. Your family stopped talking to you because every time you open your mouth it sounds like a recital from a medical dictionary. You write a patient report and have to translate it to medical records because of all the acronyms in it. You notice that you use more four-letter words now than before you became a nurse. You think it is acceptable to use "penis" and "vagina" in a normal conversation. You look in your closet and can't find anything non-medical to wear. You have never missed an episode of RESCUE 911, ER or Chicago Hope. You've been looking everywhere for old copies of St. Elsewhere. You've ever wondered whether it would be legal to keep a defibrillator in the trunk of your car. You've ever raised your hands to heaven and said, "These hands have been touched by God." Every magazine in your house has the word 'nurse' or 'RN' in the title. "Trawling for Trauma" is your favorite saying. You've ever told anyone in pain to "stop being a baby and deal with it." You've ever told a patient to "stop faking it." You carry more gloves on you than a proctologist does. Every time someone asks you for a pen, you can find at least three of them on you. You can intubate your friends at parties. You don't have enough ego hypertrophy to be a surgeon. You can comfort anxious patients with, "I know just how you feel. It's my first IV, too." You believe any job where you can drive to work in green pajamas is a cool job. You can park next to rich doctors like cardiologists and gynecologists. You can cover your mistakes with Versed. After spending the night with surgeons, they still won't respect you in the morning. You believe the single diagnostic criterion in "Had seizure in a restaurant" is "Had he paid the bill yet? " You don't eat before driving to work because you want to be an "easy intubation" if you are in an accident. You think Medic-Alert(r) tags make fine presents or should be issued at birth. You see people in the crowd with stigmata of serious disease, and you quickly calculate if you could be recognized as an off-duty nurse. You see people in the crowd with stigmata of serious disease but wish you had bought that CPR pocket mask you've been promising yourself. "Man down" translates to you as 'Drunk if unwitnessed, Seizure if witnessed.' The first rule in nursing is 'don't hurt yourself.' You believe all bleeding stops...eventually. You believe everybody has to die sometime. You believe you can't hurt a dead man. You don't get excited about blood loss-unless it's your own. You don't hit patients or doctors....unless absolutely necessary. You believe SEX isn't everything, but it's a hell-of-a-long-way ahead of what's second. You think the patient will be all right if he is okay. You believe the pain will go away when it stops hurting. You believe all fevers will eventually come back to normal on the way to room temperature. You believe common things are common. You believe a strawberry by any other name would be a heart with acne. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong and if nothing has gone wrong, you've obviously don't understand the situation. You believe if you can keep your head among all this confusion, you obviously don't understand the situation. Uncommon manifestations of common diseases are more common than are uncommon diseases. You believe death is a severe stage of shock, or shock is a pause in the act of dying. You've ever said, "WHY am I here?" You believe, in medicine, to always remember never to say always and never. You can't see it; it's probably not there. You know P.I.D. doesn't stand for "pink in dere." If you believe if a patient who has a catheter ---he needs it. Everyone gets treated exactly the same---until they piss you off. The ER is a mixture of can do, can't do, and why the hell not! You live by the motto; "To be right is only half the battle; to convince the patient is more difficult." You know the problem is always better than the X-ray looks. You believe in a diagnosis of acute Haldolpenia The most common complaint in the ER on a Saturday night is W.A.D.A.O. (Weak And Dizzy All Over, you know -- "Oh, I've felt real bad all day -- just Weak and...") You can identify the following Syndromes: F.O.L. (Full Of Liquor) A.D.A.S.T.W. (Arrived Dead And Stayed That Way) W.O.F.T.A.M. (Waste of Fuc*ing Time & Money) P.F.O. (Pissed and Fell Over) F.I.T.H. (Fuc*ed In The Head) T.F.B.U.N.D.Y. (Totally Fuc*ed But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet) T.M.B. (Too Many Birthdays) F.U.D. (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) F.U.B.A.R.(Fuc*ed Up Beyond All Recognition) When you get a call telling you the name of your next admit and you can do the care plan before the patient gets to the floor. When called for orders, the MD says, "Write them yourself; you know the patient better than I do." You swear that certain patients should return to Transylvania because they never show up before sundown and you can never reach them by phone before 4 PM. You have a PD patient who whips out their catheter and announces unless they get their way they'll pee all over you. You believe the first thing a person does when they enter this world, and the last thing they do before they leave it, is take a take a really big crap. You know what a 3-H enema is...High, Hot and Hell of a lot. You refer to ammonia capsules as a "seizure-cure." You consider a tongue depressor an eating utensil. Your friends drag you to a strip bar after work to loosen you up. The young lady on stage does a nude spread eagle back bend with pelvic thrusts a foot and a half from your nose. You are not aroused, but you DO think, "I could catherize that". (True story) You have ever tried to identify what a patient ate last by examining the barf on your shoes. You knock before entering a room, knowing full well the only patient in there is the one that just died! You've ever basted your Thanksgiving turkey with a Toomey syringe! You have placed your irritating patients/family members on P.I.T.A. (Pain In The Ass) precautions! You're at the grocery store, look down and notice you have at least 2 body fluids on you shoes and it doesn't bother you. You refer to idiot patients as CNS-QNS [central nervous system- quantity not sufficient]. When asked, "Are you are the nurse on tonight?" You want to respond, "No, I just like dressing up as a Nurse and hanging around because I have nothing better to do!" Ever had a patient whose positive pregnancy test prompts her to call the next day and ask if you can tell who the father is Ever referred to an intelligence-impaired individual as a functional anaerobe When asked to assist with a pelvic, you ask for a rope to help pull you out, just in case Ever rolled your eyes when the 14 year-old says, "No, I've never had sex" Ever been in the "Death Grip" of gomers Ever told a confused patient your name was that of your co-worker and to HOLLER if they need help Ever referred to KY jelly as "Goober Grease" Ever passed on the green stuff at the buffet because you are certain you suctioned it from a patient earlier You know it's a full moon without having to look at the sky. You have ever referred to a patient as "genetically exclusive" or "genetically challenged." You've developed a crease between your brows from trying NOT to inhale the various human secretions you've encountered over the years. Eating microwave popcorn out of a clean bedpan is perfectly natural. You believe in PPP as a diagnosis - Piss Poor Protoplasm You feel like prescribing high-speed lead therapy for a patient or their family. Diagnosing the patient or their family with asynapsing neuritis seems appropriate You refer to an admission diagnosis of 'PFO'. (Pissed and fell over) You can eat a candy bar with one hand while performing digital stimulation on your patient with the other hand, and it doesn't bother you. You've been exposed to so many x-rays that you consider it a form of birth control.
Your bladder can expand to the same size as a Winnebago's water tank.
Your shoes have been seized and quarantined by either the Centers for Disease Control, OSHA, the EPA or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Your idea of thawing the holiday turkey involves an IV and warmed saline, and the turkey usually has arms instead of wings and is sauced instead of basted.
You believe Tylenol, Advil, or Excedrin provides a large part of your daily calorie intake requirements.
When checking the level of orientation of a patient, you aren't sure of the answer.
You think that Prom tickets should have coupons good for one free gastric lavage.
If the hems of your scrub pants are held in with 3.0 suture, steri-strips or rubber bands.
You avoid unhealthy looking COPDers in the mall for fear that they'll drop near you and you'll have to do CPR on your day off.
You've ever pretended to sneeze and at the same time thrown KY jelly on a co-workers sleeve to make them think they got shot with a hocker.
You've ever held a 14-gauge needle over someone's vein and said, "Now your going to feel a little stick."
You've ever sworn your going to have "NO CODE" tattooed to your chest.
You can identify the 'PID Shuffle" and the "Kidney Stone Squirm" at 15 feet.
~ You've ever had to contend with someone who thinks constipation for 4 hours is an emergency.
~ You've ever listed a patient's chief complaint as "I'm drunk".
~ You refer to motorcyclists as organ donors.
~ You've ever had a patient with a nose ring, a brow ring and twelve earrings say, "I'm afraid of shots."
~ You stare at someone in utter disbelief when they actually cover their mouth to cough.
~ You've ever thought, "As long as he's got a pulse, I don't care about the rhythm".
~ You've ever referred to a body bag as a "to go" bag.
~ You think the ultimate cruel joke is get someone drunk, take them to the ER and tell them he ODed on 'some kind of pills".
~ You personal triage categories are: Emergent, Urgent, Non-emergent and Sleeping it Off.
~ You automatically multiply by three the number of drinks a patient claims to have daily.
~ You don't ask "frequent flyers' their history, you know it by heart.
~ You can keep a straight face when a patient responds, "Just two beers."
~ You tell local drunks tips on where to sleep so you won't be bothered with a return visit.
~ You develop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from constantly locking and unlocking the Narcotic Cabinet.
~ You have a patient in four-point leathers that asks if you're a nurse, you reply "Yes", and walk away.
~ You hold on to the bed rails during a defibrillation, just to have something to do on the night shift.
~ A trained physician can't recognize the proper anatomy of a female for a catheter, but you get it on the first try.
~ You believe that all bleeding stops...eventually.
~ You shock someone with an unrecognizable rhythm...until you get one you DO recognize.
~ You've ever eaten your lunch out of an emesis basin, and poured your drink from a Urimeter container.
~ You believe survivability is inversely proportional to societal worth.
~ You believe that if you have two tattoos you will never die, especially if one is a homemade cross or swastika.
~ You feel that if someone is shot or stabbed, they probably deserved it.
~ You refer to a patient as having a high DBI (dirt bag index), which is calculated by the following formula: DBI = number of tattoos divided by number of missing teeth, multiplied by number of "tracks" added to estimated days without a bath!
~ Your idea of a meal break is finishing your coffee before it gets cold
~ You make up acronyms so non-medical people won't know just how sick you really are: GOMER, GORK, YOYOMF, TSTL...(Get Out Of My Emergency Room, God Only Really Knows, Your On Your Own Mother F..., Too Stupid To Live)
~ You think "awake and stupid" is an appropriate choice for mental status
~ You hate working the night of a full moon
~ You've ever bet on someone's blood alcohol level
~ Discussing dismemberment over a meal seems perfectly normal
~ You have the bladder capacity of 5 people
~ You believe in the aerial spraying of Prozac
~ Your idea of comforting a child includes placing them in a papoose restraint
~ You have encouraged obnoxious patients to sign out AMA
~ You believe the government should require a permit to reproduce
~ You plan your next meal while performing gastric lavage
~ You believe the 'On-call Nurse' program is a satanic plot
~ You believe unspeakable evils will befall you if the word 'quiet' is uttered
~ Your most common assessment question at 2 am is "Why is this an emergency now?"
~ You have used the phrase' health care reform' to terrify your co-workers
~ You believe every waiting room should have a Valium salt lick
~ You believe you have patients who are demonically possessed
~ You believe waiting room time should be in proportion to the length of time from symptom onset (You've had pain for 3 weeks...have a seat, well get to you in 3 days)
~ You refer to vegetable and you don't mean the food group
~ You know the local detox center number by heart
~ You believe the lab should have a 'dumb shit' profile on the lab requisition
~ You have handled several 'lost condom' cases
~ You firmly believe that 'too stupid to live' should be a diagnosis
~ You have to leave the patient before you begin to laugh uncontrollably
~ You believe a book entitled 'Suicide: Getting it Right the First Time' will be your next project.
~ You find humor in other people's stupidity
~ You believe that 90% of people are a poor excuse for protoplasm
~ Your idea of fine dining is sitting down to eat
~ You believe chocolate is a food group
~ You believe a good tape job will fix anything
~ You get an almost irresistible urge to stand and wolf down your food, even in the nicest restaurants
~ You can identify the "Positive-teeth-to-Tattoo" Ratio
~ Your idea of a good time is a Code Blue at shift change
~ You firmly believe that if Dilantin, Haldol and Librium were put in the water instead of fluoride, Dentists would be busier, but Nursing would grind to a halt
~ You don't believe 90% of what you're told, and 75% of what you see
~ You have your weekends off planned a year in advance
~ You automatically assume the patient is a drug seeker when they present with a complaint of migraine, lower back pain or chronic myalgia...or if they list numerous allergies (except Demerol), or tell you their family doctor is out of town
~ You believe that "Shallow gene pool" should be a recognized medical diagnosis
~ You have discovered a new condition called "Hypo-Xanax-emia"
~ You are totally astounded when someone from a nursing home is understandable
~ You take it as a compliment when someone calls you a dirty name
~ You say to yourself, "Great veins!" when looking at complete strangers at the grocery store
~ You think a referral to Dr. Kevorkian is perfectly appropriate
~ You have ever referred to someone's death as a "Celestial Transfer"
~ You refer to someone in severe respiratory distress as a "Smurf"
~ Your idea of a good time is dueling shock rooms
~ You feel that most suicide attempts should be given a free subscription to "Guns and Ammo" magazine
~ You've ever had a patient look you dead in the eye and say, "I don't know how that got stuck in there"
~ You have ever wanted to reply yes when someone calls the ER and asks "Is my (husband, wife, mother, etc....) there?"
~ You have ever issued a "dead head" alert
~ You have ever restrained someone...and it wasn't a sexual experience
~ You believe a "Supreme Being" consult is your patient's only hope
~ You have been exposed to so many x-rays, you now consider it a from of birth control
~ You have ever had a patient say, "I'm not pregnant, I can't be pregnant! I can't be having a baby!"
~ You have ever had a patient control his seizures when offered food
~ Your bladder expands roughly to same capacity as a Winnebago's water tank
~ Your feet are slightly fatter and tougher than Fred Flintstone's
~ Your immune system is well developed that it has been know to attack and kill squirrels in the backyard
~ You have a special shrine in your home to the inventor of Haldol
~ Your idea of a CT prep includes Pavulon and a vent
~ You have recurrent nightmares of being hit and run over by the portable x-ray machine
~ You call tell the difference between a Doctor's Order and the ground around a chicken farm
~ You call burn victims "crispy critters"
~ You call subcutaneous emphysema Rice Krispies

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