Nursing Humor

Every once in awhile someone will say something really funny in the PICU.  And every great once in awhile, it will be non-medical or non-nursing humor.

But most of the time, the jokes revolve around medicine, or patients, or something nursing related.  Which makes it completely not funny to non-nurses around me.  But it cracks me up nonetheless!

For example, one of the nurse practitioners was presenting her patient during rounds.  The patient had many medical problems, one of which was pulmonary hypertension.  We typically present patients by body systems- so we tell about their respiratory status, what the exam is, and any meds pertaining to this at one time.  Then we move to the next body system.

She started listing the pulmonary hypertension meds (including sildenafil)  in the respiratory section but the attending on service promptly stopped her.  She said that pulmonary hypertension is a primary cardiovascular problem and should be reported in the CV section.

Which then caused about everyone in the group to roll their eyes or make some comment under their breath.  Someone said "Gee, I guess having "pulmonary" as the first word just doesn't mean anything."   Someone added that despite being directly related to the lungs would clearly make it a CV problem (sarcasm greatly noted). And someone else said something about potatoes/poTAAtoes.  I just stayed quiet.

Until one of the only male physicians in the group spoke up and said, "Well I think it is much more appropriate for this to be reported in the genitourinary section.  It is Sildenafil after all!"

To which I couldn't hold it in anymore!  I, along with everyone else in the group, was cracking up!  Now that is some funny stuff!!!

Oh, and to all my family and non-nursing friends, the other name for Sildenafil is Viagra.  Maybe that will help make the joke funny for ya.

Or maybe not.  Maybe only nurses can find the funny in silly little things such as this!