Tap Water Enemas, No Red Glue, Office Visit Next Week: Hospital Humor

I work as a unit secretary, and a certified nurse aide at a hospital. I do respect patient confidentiality, and this article respects that. However, I would like to make a small mention of doctors and their ridiculous handwriting skills, as they often write the same orders day in and day out, the mentioning of a few specific orders does not endanger patient confidentiality. (end disclaimer)

This is for anyone who has ever had to read a doctor's writing, and as a secretary I have been exposed to their penmanship (or lack thereof). It is not something that can be taught, or learned, only by experience can you begin to understand what they are writing. I have wondered if they have a specific class in med school to learn to write like someone gave a gorilla a ballpoint pen. One specific doctor has had many a secretary at the hospital (and many nurses) wondering WHAT in the world he has written. One night, in particular, an order came across the printer. I looked at it and immediately knew it was that doctor who you can hardly ever read. I studied it for several moments, then I decided I should probably ask the nurse who was taking care of the patient. As I rounded a corner, hunting down the nurse who was standing there with two other nurses, discussing the same order as I had in my hand. They were talking to the doctor about the order. I asked one of the nurses what on earth the order said, and in a most serious and frank tone she said "We think it's Offer Oral Nest Unit" (which I thought was incredibly hilarious). The nurse who was talking to the doctor, got off her phone, and said to the second nurse standing there: "He doesn't know what he wrote either, he said it was a few hours ago, and he can't remember what he writes all the time." That's pretty bad when a doctor doesn't even remember what he wrote.

So I decided to head down to the third floor, where the secretary who has been there for years works, she would know what it said. I trekked the hall searching for her, and then when I found her she looked at it, only for a brief moment. "OH! It just says "Office visit next week"!" Glad to have received my answer, I thanked the secretary, and headed back up to my floor. I chuckled again to myself, wondering what if that did say "Offer Oral Nest Unit" what on earth is that? Where would I get one of these units, what is going to be nesting in your mouth, and does it come with a little perch like a little bird house? Then I laughed because after getting a nest-unit, how would you offer that to a patient? "Here, Mr./Mrs./Ms. So and So, we have this nifty little oral nest unit you can stick in your mouth and in no time you will have lovely little birds using your tongue to raise their young, it even has this cute little perch!"

I told the ER secretary about the order while on break, and what we thought it said, and my ponderings about what an oral nest unit were, and now every time I see her she says "Hey! I'm still looking for that oral nest unit!" I still chuckle at the thought of it.

The very same doctor in question wrote another order, which wasn't as funny as the nest-unit episode, but it still made me chuckle a little. Again, as before, I got the copy of the order on my printer, and this time everything was coming together a little better as I had studied some of his writing just to get a feel for what the way he writes. However, one thing stuck out that I had never seen him write before: "No Red Glue." No red glue? Why on earth would we give a patient red glue? It really looked like "Glue", I know they make different colored glues for school-age children for art projects, but I know we don't have any floating around the unit. Well, I put in the orders I could read into the computer, then promptly went to find the nurse whose patient this order belonged to. She said "Oh, that's just 'no red fluid'!" FLUID! Of course. Sometimes if you tilt your head to one side, and hold the paper away from you at a slight angle, you can read his writing a little better, I'm not kidding! It works! No red fluid made perfect sense, no red jello, no cranberry juice, and certainly no red glue!

I haven't seen any crazy orders for a while, but I'm sure that this won't be the last of the red glue, and the oral nest units; doctors are funny, and sometimes ridiculous, people.

Berta