You know you're a nurse when (part 20)

You know you're a nurse when the following sentences actually come out of your mouth:

I smell like blood. Is there blood on my arm?





You know you're dating a keeper when he doesn't run screaming for the hills.

Hypothetically, of course.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 18)

You try to type "episode," but your phone  would rather talk about an epidural.

You Know You're A Nurse When (Part 17)

The details for jobs in your field include warnings such as, 

"May be exposed to body fluids, tissue, possible radiation exposure, and infectious processes." 

You Know You're A Nurse When (Part 16)

You wake up on a tired morning to pray and you accidentally ask God to help you be "alert and oriented."

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 14)

You work in Internal Medicine, but a little girl in the waiting room answers her mom's phone and tells her dad, "We're on the 3rd floor in Eternal Medicine."

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 13)

You think this matches.

Yep, that's Brown, Navy, AND Black. Yum. 

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 12)

You try to text someone: check your email
but your phone tells them: check your embryo.

You Know You're a Nurse When (part 11)

You voice text yourself a reminder, "prescribe prednisone," but your phone autocorrects it to "seaside pregnant zone."

Gotta watch out for those seaside pregnant zones.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 10)

A girl says she was talking to a fellow and you start to wonder if she is a med student or resident or something. But then you realize, in this case, fellow is just another word for guy. So, there's that.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 9)

You try to type "carpool" and your phone corrects it to "carpal," as in carpal tunnel syndrome.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 8)

You try to text "in a" and your phone auto corrects it to "INR."

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 7)

You open pieces of gum using sterile technique.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 6)

Every time you pull a staple out of a stack of papers, you find yourself looking for a sharps container.

Got the photo here.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 5)

You see this sign at your apartment complex, 

and you think, "What in the world? Why do they have parking for residents here?" Resident, as in, "a medical graduate engaged in specialized practice under supervision in a hospital"1 rather than, "a person who lives somewhere,"2 which is obviously the more likely option. 

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 4)

In my crazy complex dream last night, my patient started having a stroke. We couldn't figure out how to page the stroke team, and I spent half an hour trying to track the team down so I could get him to the CT scanner. As I was doing so, my patient checked out AMA, so I did what any bizarre dream version of myself would do: I went to his house, where I called 911 so the paramedics could get him to some definitive care.

You Know You're a Nurse When (Part 3)

You spell materials incorrectly while writing a paper, and your spell check suggests that you try, "arterials," which isn't actually a word, but sort of looks like arterioles, the small version of arteries in your body that can self-regulate their diameter based on local chemical factors. Which, even if you aren't a nurse is really cool. Basically, when your tissues don't get enough oxygen and have too much carbon dioxide in them, they make these little arteries get bigger so they can get more blood supply, and therefore more oxygen. Fascinating, don't you think?

You know you're a nurse when (part 2)

You read the word perseverance, as in, “steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement,” 1 but in your head you think of perseverance, as in perseveration, “the repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder." 2

It really changes the meaning of a sentence talking about pushing yourself through hard things. 

You Know You're a Nurse When

you write the word versed (as in well-versed),
but you read Versed, as in midazolam,
the medication we use to sedate patients for procedures.