10 more ways you know you’re an ICU nurse

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When we put together our original list of how you know you’re an ICU nurse, we knew it could go on for quite a while. So we decided to ask YOU how you know you’re an ICU nurse, and you certainly came back with some fantastic answers!

Here are 10 great responses that you posted on our Facebook page. Peruse the entire list, and don’t forget to add your own!

1. “ICU taught me to love black coffee. No time to stir sugar or creamer.”
—Carolyn Watson

2. “[When you] drink instant lemonade out of the new urine collection containers.”
—Joyce Ann Wilson

3. “Reading about bowel elimination and eating a beef pot pie without a thought.”
—Teresa Honeycutt-Barker

4. “How about not eating or peeing for 12 hours?”
—Melinda Sutton

5. “When your alarm clock wakes you and you wonder which patient is coding. True story.”
—Glenna Beasley Phillips

6. “Your patient’s vent starts alarming, they need [to be] suctioned, you run in the room and do it while finishing a bite of your lunch.”
—Suzanne Humphrey Caldwell

7. “You’re in the break room and your portable rings: ‘I don’t care what you’re doing I need help NOW. And bring restraints.’ [Run] down the hall still chewing.”
—Laura Deever

8. “You’re an ICU nurse when you’re so calm giving the medications to a dying patient, in which ward nurses are shaking seeing a bradycardic patient.”
—Rôn Pierre Simone

9. “Having to urinate in a patient’s bathroom before you have an incontinent moment, #gottagorightnow.”
—Natasha J. Louis

And last but not least, a bit of inspiration from a wonderful patient:

10. “I was an ICU patient one time for two weeks, and the nurses kept me alive. Another bunch of nurses, a few years before, delivered my babies. I love nurses. Doctors are all right, but I LOVE nurses.”
—Margaret Leonard