The Horror Stories of Clinical - Student Nurses Share Their Experiences

All nurses have them. At first, it was a shock, but if you stuck with it, you realized it was going to be a routine affair. We're talking about the chaos of humanity you can only find in healthcare.

Although not specific to the ER, sharing stories about your time in clinical (especially if you're in the midst of it now) is a good cathartic release for what can be heavy stuff. Here are two anecdotes to share. If you have an experience from your time in clinical or internship, (hopefully with levity) add it to the comment section below.

This story happened in my first clinical working in the AGU. I had one patient that needed a bath, so he and I prepped for the deed. I'm calling it 'the deed' since we're both male, and for me, I was relatively new, and for him, being bathed by a male nurse wasn't his first option. Nonetheless, everything went according to plan. As we're preparing to return to his bed, I noticed him acting a bit strange, so I asked, "do you need to go to the bathroom?" He said, no.

"Are you sure you dont need to use the bathroom?"

Still a no. 

Fair enough, we start to head to the bed where his wife is waiting for us. As I'm getting ready to help him into his new gown, I kid you not, he starts to do a squat. We're nowhere near the bathroom at this point, and I'm bending over behind him, right at the exit, if you know what I mean. 

The immediacy of the situation becomes apparent to all three of us. But to ensure we're all on the same page, he announces, "BOMBS AWAY!"

Crouched over, sighting his old man ass square in my view, I instinctively reach out my hands and catch his bombs....I don't know why I did it other than I just reacted. So there I was (I was wearing gloves), with a handful of poop and his wife chiming in, "oh, dear" as if this was a regular joke in the house.....

The other story to share isn't so funny. Again, being relatively new, I was prepping someone who was recently deceased. It had been a couple of hours and the body was started to leak some fluids. It was a tough task for me since this was my first dead body--ever. As I was powering through (I should mention it was nighttime to make matters worse), prepping the body, two individuals walk in the room. They can't see the body, I'm the first person in their view.

"Do you know where so-and-so is located?" They were an older couple, the man I was working on was younger. They were asking for their son, the deceased. They hadn't been informed that he had passed as of it, in fact, they didn't even know he was in the hospital up until that point. 

The look on my face probably gave it away, and I of course had no idea what to say other than to stammer out of the room in search of someone else. Turns out the parents were somewhat estranged from their son, and it was the wife/ex-wife who didn't call them in. The wife/ex-wife (same person) and the deceased re-married 4 days before the death.....so that was an interesting story for someone to sort out.

Thanks for sharing your story. 

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