Top 20 Funniest #NursingProblems

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nursing problems

Nursing problems are troubles only nurses will understand. There are many problems nurses face every day with their patients and some of these problems are accidentally funny.

Have you ever encountered the following top funny problems of nurses at work?

1. To drink or to pee, that is the question.

To keep up with the demands of patient care in a unit, nurses usually ask themselves the same question everyday – to drink or to pee first? Nurses are always in such a hurry that they actually have to choose between drinking or peeing.

nurse break

2. Your weekend is in the middle of the week.

TGIF!  Oh wait. You never got to enjoy saying the TGIF expression out loud because your weekend is in the middle of the week. Your friends working regular 9 to 5 jobs can’t understand why you are asking them to party on a Wednesday night.

funny nursing

3. You just got your restless patient to sleep and suddenly all kinds of alarms start sounding.

Have you ever had a feeling that the machines in your unit are all traitors?

Just when your very restless patient finally falls asleep, infusion pumps, mechanical ventilator, cardiac monitor and other machines start playing warning alarms. The timing is so uncanny that sometimes, you wonder if they machines are actually alive and out to get you!

nurse patient

4. It is still dark when you leave for work and it is already dark when you get home.

Even before vampires or “Twilight” became in vogue, nurses were already living the “vampire” lifestyle.  At least nobody can fault nurses for their lack of dedication to work!

5. When someone says “It is sure quiet now”, the shift will never be quiet.

You know the drill.  Never say the Q word or else you’ll jinx an otherwise peaceful shift. We’d call it an urban legend of sorts in nursing except that we’ve seen it at work so many times.  So, unless you want chaos to erupt (and all your fellow nurses on shift to smack you), don’t say the Q word!

funny nurse

6. Your friends and relatives call you to diagnose their health problems.

This is a common problem of being in the medical profession – your relatives and friends think you’re a personal hotline for health problems. Have you experienced waking up to a frantic call only to hear your friends ask about symptoms they’re experiencing? Or how about mentioning at a party that you’re a nurse. That always invites strangers to suddenly remember  their symptoms and ailments.

7. People compliment you whenever they see you out of your scrub suits.

While other people get complimented for wearing a new top or a particularly cute dress, nurses get complimented for wearing normal casual clothes. People are so used to seeing you in scrub suits all the time that they get surprised when they see you outside in regular clothes.

nurse funny reason

Also Read: 250 Funny Reasons You Know You’re A Nurse

8. You are hoping that whoever invented the call light has a special place in hell.

As a nurse, you just can’t kill the call light nor ignore the patient behind the alarm. No matter how repetitive the call light blinks, you have no choice but to attend to it. And since it’s bad form to blame patients (no matter how abusive they are of the call light), let’s just agree to torture the guy who invented the call light.

call bell nurse

9. You are teaching a woman how to breastfeed when you don’t have any actual experience at it.

Have you tried teaching someone how to breastfeed when in fact, you’ve never tried it personally before? That’s the magic of health teaching skills of nurses! They can successfully teach the proper way of breastfeeding without any prior first-hand experience.

Just don’t let on that you’ve never done it before!

10. Accidentally ruined a friend’s appetite because you forgot that it is not normal to talk about body fluids over a meal.

Nurses are so used to body fluids at work that they have no problems talking about it in the middle of a meal. However, the real problem comes when you forget that you are dining with non-nursing friends. You might have ruined appetites already before you even realize it.

nursing humor

11. Skipped exercising because you believe you did a lot of physical activities at work.

Who needs exercise when the amount of legwork you did in an 8-hour shift is already equivalent to a mile-long run? Nothing beats the amount of calories you burn as you do chest compressions, patient lifts and many other typical nursing tasks.

funny quotes about nurses

12. The weird looks you are getting after asking your post-operative patients if they have passed gas already.

Those who do not have any idea about nursing work will give weird looks when asking about passage of flatus. Why would someone care about other people’s fart? Most of the time, you are tired of explaining why.

nurse humor

Also Read: 250 Funniest Nursing Quotes and Ecards

13. Had the sudden urge to scratch your face after putting on gloves and they are covered with body fluids.

It’s puzzling and hilarious but the need to itch usually happens when you’re wearing gloves and they’re covered in your patient’s body fluids. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a nurse buddy nearby who can scratch your itch for you. If not, you’ll have to bear it or go through some contortions to scratch your itch with an elbow or shoulder.

nurse problem

14. You feel like a referee when your patient has multiple doctors and they have conflicting orders.

Within an 8-hour shift, all of the patient’s doctors have made conflicting orders in the chart. As a nurse, you have to act as the referee and contact all doctors involved to resolve their conflicting orders. It feels like arranging for a peace treaty in the middle of a cold war.

15. Assigned to the night shift schedule for days and you feel you are not part of the society anymore.

You sleep when the sun is out and you work when the sun is down. Your friends are all asleep when you are awake and you are asleep when they are awake. What about about a social life?!

nightshift problem

16. You know how stressful your shift is once you empty the contents of your pocket after you get home.

How many times did you get surprised when emptying your scrubs’ pockets after a rough day at work? You find IV bottle tags, pill wrappers, ampoule heads, syringe packaging and many more. You know you might be in trouble when you find narcotics in your pocket.

17. You have this auditory hallucination that you continue to hear the call light alarm.

You know you’ve been working too hard when you start to hear the call light alarm everywhere.

You get jumpy in the middle of your sleep because you thought you heard the call light alarm. And it’s not just the call light alarm as sometimes you are start hearing the alarms of the infusion pump, mechanical ventilator and cardiac monitor.

When this happens, maybe a nice relaxing trip to the beach is in order?

18. They see you eating with a tongue depressor in your plate and a syringe barrel in your mug.

Having no eating utensils is not a problem when you can use a sterile tongue depressor as your knife and an unused syringe barrel as your coffee stirrer. Sometimes you feel like McGyver.

tongue depressor

19. You believe in the power of full moon to patients.

The power of the full moon is legendary to nurses. When patients get a bit crazier than usual or when the emergency room is flooded with unusual health problems, just go outside and you will see the full moon in the horizon. Nurses believe in the effect of the full moon phenomenon so much that they request to have their rest days fall on the full moon night of the month.

full moon

20. You are so tired from work and when you had night dreams, you are still at work.

Do you find it funny when you finally put yourself to sleep after a rough shift and your dreams are still about work? That’s how dedicated you are to your profession that even in your dreams you are still working as a nurse.

nurse funny

Also Read: 20 Funniest Nurse Cartoons That Speak Louder Than Words

Do you know more funny nursing problems at work? We may never find the perfect solutions to these problems but surely they made us laugh before. Share your funny problems encountered at work and let us just laugh at the problems of nurses around the world.

 

About the Author: Je Abarra is a nurse by profession and a freelance writer by passion. She is working as a staff nurse in the pediatric ward of a private city hospital for more than two years. During her free time, she usually writes about her fascinations in health and nursing. She loves to provide tips and fun facts about nursing and healthy living.

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