Categories: Scrubs

Even more nursing diagnoses that don’t exist, but ought to

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There are positive and negative nursing diagnoses, right? Right. I make these things up in my head all day long, even though I’ve been out of school for 10 years. Somehow, they just seem to flow. Here are eight new ones…all about family members:

1. Risk for violence (actual or threatened) secondary to trying to “help” the nurse arrange the patient’s lines or EKG leads.

2. Obesity related to eating everything on the patient’s tray.

3. Defenestration secondary to quoting WebMD at the nurse.

4. Hearing loss related to excessive volume of Judge Joe Brown, Maury or I Married a Toothless Guy with Five Hundred Tattoos, So Who’s the Daddy?

5. Inadequate gas exchange secondary to never shutting the heck up.

6. Risk for excess hugging secondary to bringing a bag of sandwiches to the nurses’ station during a busy day.

7. Excessive smiling (nurse-related) as a consequence of a simple “thank you.”

8. Risk for being memorialized as “that really great family–you know, those guys?”

Want more diagnoses? Check out parts one and two of this series!

Agatha Lellis

Agatha Lellis is a nurse whose coffee is brought to her every morning by a chipmunk. Bluebirds help her to dress, and small woodland creatures sing her to sleep each night. She writes a monthly advice column, "Ask Aunt Agatha," here on Scrubs; you can send her questions to be answered at askauntieaggie@gmail.com.

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