Hospital Urban Myths

JuliusCaesar

I was just looking at bizarre X-rays http://www.oddee.com/item_96558.aspx and was reminded of the myths that used to circulate round the general hospital where I used to work.

There were the usual unusual objects removed from bottoms, with their -cough- 'explanations'. The vibrator that had got away from its owner and was wending its way up the intestinal tract......and the surgeons had to wait for the batteries to run out before they could operate. There was the nurse told to warm up the blood before giving it to the patient....

Anyone got any more?

charlieroot

I've heard of using warmed fluids to flush centrals lines to prevent patients from getting a vaso-vagal type reaction. I don't suppose there is any justification at all in the warming blood though

JuliusCaesar

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

There was the nurse told to warm up the blood before giving it to the patient....

The nurses used to warm the blood bags by carrying them around down their fronts....but THIS nurse was discovered when a horrible smell emerged from the ward kitchen and she was found stirring a pot with a long spoon.....(It's quite a long time since I worked in a general hospital)

There were a few along the lines of " - and then he looked up the scope into the man's bladdar and there was Mickey Mouse looking back at him"

Zuppy

Hammer (with handle removed) slipped over a male appendage. Flex saw to cut it off.
Difficult because of the swelling. :eek:

shaywest

used to know a Dutch med. student he told us that at a debs. style ball a few of them took a cadaver all dressed up in tie and tails and dragged him around all night pretending he was drunk
at the end of the night they left him in the taxi

JuliusCaesar

shaywest wrote: »

used to know a Dutch med. student he told us that at a debs. style ball a few of them took a cadaver all dressed up in tie and tails and dragged him around all night pretending he was drunk
at the end of the night they left him in the taxi

Now that sounds like a myth!

Anyone hear the one about the mysterious deaths in ICU, until someone observed the ward cleaner unplug the life support machine to plug in the hoover?

Zuppy

shaywest wrote: »

used to know a Dutch med. student he told us that at a debs. style ball a few of them took a cadaver all dressed up in tie and tails and dragged him around all night pretending he was drunk
at the end of the night they left him in the taxi

I think I saw that in a movie set in Mexico with a few failed med students in a dodgy med school

shaywest

no doubt it is,yer man was a bit of a spoofer

JuliusCaesar

Just rremembered another...this was told to me as gospel by a doctor who claimed it happened in a friend's class. After lunch the med students all take cheek swabs and examine them under a microscope. One young woman calls the lecturer and says hers is very different and asks what it is. "That, madam, is a sperm cell!" he tells her.

I believed it till I'd heard it from several other people...the friend of a friend story is always a myth!