What Nursing School Doesn’t Prepare You For with Nurse Brenden

Nursing school can teach you the steps, but it can’t recreate the moment someone asks you to “boost the patient” and you realize you’ve never done it on a real person. We sit down with Brenden and talk about graduating in the COVID era of online nursing school, the confidence gap that shows up on day one, and how a solid preceptor can make the difference between drowning and growing.

Then we get into med-surg nursing, the specialty people love to hate and secretly need. We unpack why med-surg builds real prioritization skills, how you learn to manage multiple patients, and why “lower acuity” doesn’t mean “nothing happens.” Brenden shares the kind of stories only the floor can produce, including a patient trying to whip a condom catheter and a shocking bite incident that turns into testing, reporting, and a hard conversation about workplace violence in healthcare.

We also talk about nurse humor, dark humor as a coping tool, and how creating TikTok characters can help nurses and patients feel less alone. Finally, we break down a tense patient advocacy moment involving an insulin drip, missing orders, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes you have to push back on a provider to protect your patient. If you’re a new grad nurse or just curious about real hospital life, hit play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the biggest “nursing school didn’t teach me that” moment you’ve lived.

To submit your stories & comments, visit: https://simplenursing.com/podcast/

Transcript

Welcome To Bedpan Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:02

We got a code round. Welcome to Bedpan Banter with me, Nurse Mike.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Can I get a Bedpan over here? Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Bedpan Banter. I'm Nurse Brendan and I'm filling in for Nurse Mike. And today we're joined by Nurse Trixie.

Nursing School During COVID

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yaa! Yeah. Bedpan Banter. Woo! No, but in all seriousness, uh, thanks so much for the wig. Um, this is taken from a character that you portray, right? Yeah, Trixie. She plays a stupid nurse. This is uh nurse Mike, and welcome back to uh Bedpan Banter. All right, so Brandon, so you're a nurse. Uh you graduated in 2022, correct? So you went through Zoom university during COVID years, right? Yeah, basically. OMG.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yeah. It was honestly, I didn't know like what nursing school was prior to this, so like it's all I've ever known. But like hearing what people went through in their version of nursing school, like they got to go to like nursing homes. So you never got to do like actual skills or how many skills did you have? So we went, we were supposed to start in a nursing home, but we ended up going right to like a sim online simulation type thing. And then we went to a lab and we started IVs on like fake arms and stuff like that, which I think everyone usually does, anyways. Was it like your whole nursing school career? No, that was just the first two semesters. Wow. And then after that, we got to actually go into the hospital and we got to go to a med search floor. But even then, I don't feel like it gave me any type of experience of what it's gonna be as a nurse because we were sitting there doing our care plans and not actually doing patient care most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Huh. So it actually never gave you like the real world experience?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Oh no. I literally remember sitting there doing my care plans and studying for exams, and I was like, when do we actually like get to see a patient? Because I haven't seen one all day.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

So, how was it like uh being in your first shift like as a nurse? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So I literally remember one of the texts literally asking me if I could help boost a patient, and I never got that experience. And so I was like, What? What do you mean boost? Like I've never heard of that. Like, and what are the text like moving someone up and yeah, yeah, and so that already like sets me off like on a bad foot with like the text and everyone because they're like, Oh great, this nurse doesn't know what they're doing. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

And just like it's your first time in the hospital setting, it's like hello. Um, what about your skills? You probably never you probably were very limited on skills, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Oh yeah. I felt like a complete utter idiot walking into the hospital. And honestly, I still do someday, yeah. But um, I just remember just feeling scared because like we learned to start IVs on those flake, those fake plastic arms.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah, with like those little plump IV veins, and they look perfect, yeah.

First Shift Shock And Basic Skills

SPEAKER_01 2:42

But then I like walk in and my patients are like edematists they just it looks it's nothing compared to the real life experience of being a nurse. And so I just never felt like I was ready for that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Honestly, I don't think anyone really is ready. So yeah, it just reiterates that nursing school primarily is not real world. And it's like, you know, it's just like this wig right here. It's uh it's tight, it's itchy, and it's not like not like, you know, flamboyant like the other one. But um, but I I always say that nursing school is kind of like a driving driver's ed. Or it's like not like real driving, you know, everything's kind of like almost like perfect-ish, if you will. You have to be like, you know, uh, there's a lot of you know, people watching you and like, you know, borders on, I guess. Bumpers on, I should say. And then real like real world nursing, like you have to like adapt, man. Oh yeah, for sure. Like there's so much they don't even teach you.

Adapting Fast With Good Preceptors

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Oh yeah, and I still like you're learning something new every single day when you're in nursing, anyways. But honestly, jumping from nursing school to real-world nursing, it's just a completely different shift. And I learned how to adapt super, super quick. And I'm thankful that I had such a great preceptor when I was first learning to be a nurse, and all my coworkers were so helpful, and so I never felt like truly like I was gonna be like just by myself and like isolated and trying to figure this out by myself. But I know some people do feel like that, and so but you just learn to adapt, honestly. And so you you work in medsurge? I work technically, my original stomping grounds are from a step-down unit, but when I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, I started working on a med surge unit. Oh, and so I got that experience on a step-down unit, and then I went to medsurge, and honestly, I love like a chaos of a med surge, so I'm gonna be sticking with medsurge for a while.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Now, I know medsurge gets like a bad rap, and a lot of like there's like a lot of negative people view medsurge as being like negative, yeah, especially as new grads. Did you view that?

Why Med-Surg Builds Foundations

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I know everyone talks so much shit about medsurge, but I literally feel like it set off such a good foundation for my nursing career. And I think honestly, if you like chaos and you love comedy, I feel like medsurge is the place to go because there's people literally the other day. I had a patient that would took off their condom catheter and was trying to like whip it at the nurses and I like we had a we were no, it literally was we were holding a pillow to try because he had ESPL in his urine as well. What? And so he's like literally trying to go like this with the condom catheter.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

You were trying to block sorry, you're trying to block the like pillow biting.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

But I mean, you you learn a lot in med surgery. Oh, yeah, you learn so much in med surge. It's honestly something different every single day. Yeah, um, patients are constantly getting admitted, discharged, so you constantly have that um like prioritization. Yeah, and you get to learn how to prioritize your patients, you get to learn how to take care of four or five patients at a time. And I just feel like it sets off such a good foundation for your overall nursing career before you go into another specialty like ICU, ER, anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

So, would you recommend that a new grad start in MedSurge?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Oh, 100%. I feel like everyone should, um, not everyone, if it's not what you want to do when you know that in your heart and soul, obviously don't do something that you're not gonna enjoy. I feel like medsurge is just such a good stepping stone for someone when they're just getting into the nursing career.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, there's so much things like uh early sepsis recognition, subtle neurochanges, cardiac issues. And since it's not like um, what is it, uh an advanced floor, or everyone says, like, oh, it's just step down or whatever, it's like lower acuity, but still like crap happens.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Oh, yeah, all the time. Like, there was like a couple weeks there where people were coding like every like once a week on our floor, and I was like, I feel like I'm in an ICU at this point, yeah, and people were just dying left and right. And I was like, I don't know if it's just me or what's going on on this role.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

It's like you're the new one, yeah. Yeah, literally.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I was like, what is going on?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

But I think it's unique because you don't get one clean problem at a time. Oh no. And that's when you stop thinking like a student and you have to start thinking like a nurse.

Chaos On The Floor And Priorities

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, I would say there's just so many things. I mean, nursing in general, like you just literally have to go from one room to another. Like you could witness literal death in one room, and then you have to put a smile on your face and go to your other patient's room. Wow. And so with MedSurge, like you could be getting screamed at about like a turkey sandwich, and then you have to like get called the worst names in the world, and then you just have to put on a smile and go to the next patient's room where you'll probably get yelled about something, yelled at about something else too. But so I would say that's definitely a negative. Um, taking on so many patients can be a negative too, especially if they are like higher acuity than like your previous day or anything like that. Um, but overall, I would say that it's more positives than negatives when it comes to med surge.

The Bite Story And Workplace Violence

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Tell me another crazy story that's happened in med surge because everyone thinks like med surge is just like, you know, boring or like, you know, even kill. Oh no. But a lot of things happen, man.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Oh, yeah. Like, especially on night shift. I feel like the patients just get crazier as the day goes. Something that happened that I'll never forget is we had a patient that came in for a stroke, actually, and they were trying to get out of bed. We were like, no, like you're unstable, you can't get out of bed right now. And we ended up having to restrain the patient because they were so admin on trying to get up, but they couldn't, like, they were gonna fall on the floor if they so we had to restrain them. This person literally rose up from the bed and yeah, literally, and then launched their teeth into the tech's arm. What?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

And launched their teeth.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Well, not like their dentures get flying out.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

I like how you described that, though.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

But they literally just like it looked like sh almost like an exorcism in a way. And literally they just came forward, lashed onto the tech's arm. It was honestly, everyone just kind of like stood for a second because we were like, wait a minute, what just happened? And because never in my career I've had someone get bit by another human being, and I didn't even think that was gonna be a possibility in this career because I mean, we didn't learn that in nursing school. I didn't know people were gonna be getting bit. And so we God, how did I deal with that? Now that I'm thinking about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Were you nervous that you were gonna get bit next?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Or that you know I mean, I was at the top of the bed, so like I wasn't like super concerned because I mean he didn't really have good easy access to as he didn't get it. Yeah, but I do remember like literally I had to physically grab him and like take him back, and there's just blood everywhere from the tech's arm. Yeah, so she got the chunk taken out, or was it she did have a pretty big chunk taken out of her arm?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Snap. Yeah, okay. So in the in that case, like obviously you have to do an incident report. Do you do you press charges as like because there's violence in the book?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Uh so I don't think I think the tech actually did think about pressing charges, but because the patient wasn't in their right mind, she wasn't able to pursue that any further. Right. But what happened with her is she went down to the ER, she had to get all types of testing done. We had to run tests on the patient to make sure that he didn't have anything that should could be transmitted to the tech. And then she went home. Honestly. What who? The tech went home.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Oh, just went home. All right, there you go. And like, what other career do you possibly get bit at work or punched? Uh, and then just, you know, okay, well, you know, go home. Here's a band-aid or here's like a rep. Or just like you said, right? You have the full life cycle of like, here's someone dying in this room, someone getting born in another room. Because I I worked in the ER and everyone's like, you know, oh yeah, that's like a real type of everything is going on in the ER. But yeah, but anything could be happening in med surge as well, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, I mean, we've had pregnant patients on the med surge floor before.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

But nothing, they weren't actually get actively giving birth. Yeah, yeah.

Dark Humor As Nurse Survival

SPEAKER_00 10:36

So obviously, so much craziness happens in med surge or in nursing in general. Um, and one way we deal with as nurses is like, you know, humor. And sometimes the darker, more realistic, uh, as well as sarcastic humor. Is that what inspired you to do this on TikTok?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Honestly, yes. Like, I have always used humor as like a coping mechanism. And I, once I got into nursing, I really had to lock it in with the humor because people, I remember in my first job, people were dying literally left and right, because I started on a step-down unit, and so it was a little bit more higher acuity before I went down to med surge. So, what is step-down for people who don't know? Step down unit is kind of I like to describe it as kind of like a bridge between medsurge and ICU. So it's kind of patients that are too high of acuity for med surge, but not high enough acuity for ICU. And so it's kind of just that gap in between and it can kind of go either way.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

And so, yeah, and so you'll routinely probably see like, you know, death, addiction, uh, people on the edge of in that in that in-between state. And is that how you used humor to, you know, cope with a lot of the craziness of nursing?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Oh, yeah, for sure. Because I would literally be like, oh great, so like this person's gonna die, and our Taco Bell's on the way. Like, I would just be like saying like stuff like that. And uh so, but like I was genuinely getting kind of like sad when I first started my nursing career, but I've just learned to use really dark humor to get through my shifts, and that kind of transpired into me making content and making TikToks and things to try to help people that are were feeling that type of way, like I was, because I remember coming home from my shifts and I literally would be crying because like I had little Mee Ma that I was talking to at the beginning of the shift, and she was dead by the end of the shift. Oh man. And I was like, what is going on? Yeah, and so I just learned to use comedy to actually get through it, and I still do it every single day. Like, I'll be joking about really things that I probably shouldn't be joking about, but I do anyways.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

We do it all the time as nurses as well. And I think it's great that you just brought it uh to the forefront on social media. Yeah, there's only so much trauma you can take on.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, if you don't laugh, you're gonna cry.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Oh yeah, and then that's gonna lead to you know you carrying it home with you. Yeah, and then you're gonna be on antidepressants and it's just gonna be one thing after another. And it has anyone told you that that your videos have helped too? Oh yeah.

TikTok Characters And Creative Support

SPEAKER_01 12:58

I've had all kinds of it makes me feel so good when I actually get like a DM from a fan or like, well, I guess I shouldn't say a fan, because that makes me feel kind of icky. Uh from a follower. From a follower, yeah. But a fan follower? Yeah. Okay, okay. And so like when I get a DM from a follower and they tell me that their videos sometimes it's not even people that work in healthcare, it's people that are sick and they go to the hospital uh and they feel like like my videos help them get past being scared of going to the hospital and stuff. Because a lot of these people have had bad experience in healthcare, and they feel like my videos help them not be so afraid of going. And but I do, it just makes me feel better. Like so many people say that they get through their shifts watching my videos, and honestly, that's all I can hope for.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Now, in some of her videos, you have a co-host uh that's a female. Who is that?

Insulin Drip Orders And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_01 13:52

That's my best friend, Sophia. Shout out Sophia. Sophia woo-woo! She typically plays a character named Betty in my videos, and Betty's kind of like the person that started like all of these videos, and it kind of has transpired from Betty to like I have Gary, I have Trixie, like I have a bunch of different characters now, but Betty was the original one. Sophia helped me out so much in creating this kind of like almost universe, like in a way, and so I'm very thankful for her. I actually just moved away from Charleston, South Carolina, and so I had to leave her behind. And so she won't really be in videos anymore unless she comes in visits and everything. But I do have another story. If I I I've never shared this before on social media because I was working at that hospital and I was working there for two years, but I had a provider that was a PA, and our floor transitioned from a med surge floor to a almost step-down floor. So we were taking insulin drips, and I knew that we yeah, and so I knew from previous experiences that we were taking like from taking insulin drips, that we're supposed to have like BMPs every four hours, we're supposed to have flu carrier fluids running with it. None of that was ordered.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

And you're not talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Are you allowed to do that on the floor you were on? We were at that time because we were transitioning from med surge to a more step-down unit. So we were allowing it was it was the very first insulin drip on the floor. And the provider that I was working with that night was like refusing for some reason to put in any orders for this patient. And so like I'm sitting there literally in an I'm the type of person that like I'll be nice at first, but after a while, I do get very, I don't want to say aggressive, but like I just wanted to like advocate for this patient because like being on an insulin drip's scary enough. And so, like, I'm like, why are we not getting orders in for this patient? She was like, refer to day shift. I was like, no, we're not gonna refer to day shift. It's 8 30 p.m. Like, we're not gonna do that. Day shift's not gonna be here until the morning, literally in 11 hours. And so I posted a TikTok that I probably shouldn't have posted, but it just literally said it was the start of nurses week, and she I put a thing that said nothing is more nursing core than getting in a fight with doc a doctor during the start of nursing week, something like that. And she printed out the picture and she hung it up in the hospitalist dictation room and she put beware of nurse Brendan. Oh my god, what the heck? And so it became like a whole like HR thing and everything. Yeah, it was a whole thing. I didn't get in trouble. I actually got an award for like advocating for the patient. That's what I'm talking about. So yeah, and so I was like, so, but that just definitely put kind of a some tension between us, yeah, my floor, because she kind of I feel like was taking it out on our unit too.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Because if if she was doing it to you, you weren't the first the nurse that she was doing. Oh yeah, we had many problems with this provider. That's really interesting you say that because so many times we look at the provider as being like, you know, the authority figure, if you will. But and you gotta question the provider, you gotta speak up, you have to advocate for your patients. And honestly, that provider sounded really petty. You're gonna meet a lot of petty providers if you're watching this new grids. Um, you've probably met a lot of them too. Oh, yeah, yeah, complex. Yeah. And then they think they can do whatever they want sometimes, you know? And it's like how unethical it is to like print something out on your personal social media and then put your name on it in a uh what's it called? Like a staff area. Yeah, no, it was literally like a public setting.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

I was that's so like livid, yeah. Like flabbergassed. I was livid too. I was like, why are we printing pictures of me? Like, that's actually insane. Yeah. But yeah, don't be afraid to call providers out, honestly. Like, they don't know everything. I mean, we don't either, but like, no one knows everything. We're not encyclopedias.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

No, of course. Would you in a situation where the doctor refuses to listen? And in this case, did you have to escalate it?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Or I was calling nurses from other floors because it was the very first insulin drip that we had taken on the floor. And so I was calling like the ICU and I was like, hey, like, I have questions, like, can you come? And they all knew that the orders was wrong too. And so by the time that I actually was like wanting to call the supervisor, it was almost shift change, and the day shift team came on and they instantly took care of the um. Do they call a supervisor or what did they do? So no, they just put the orders in. The day shift providers did. Wow. And so But how I mean, that's almost like negligence. Almost, yeah. It's negligence.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

And that's why I got an award for it because she likes and that's what I'm saying. Like, what like she backfired herself because she wasn't doing her medical duty of taking care of the patient, and she was more focused on social media than someone calling her out for not doing her job.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

The TikTok that I had posted, it said that I got into a fight with the doctor, and she was a PA, so the roles weren't even the same. And she like, and I don't know what she was even doing on social media, anyways. Like, she was monitoring.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

She didn't follow you.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

I know.

Advice For New Grad Nurses

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I was like so yeah, totally different roles, and uh yeah. Yeah, it was just a crazy situation. But you know, if the shoe fits, you know, then why not? Okay, so let me put you on the spot here, real quick. Okay, just real quick. If for all the new grads out there, is there any piece of advice that you wished you would have known before you started?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Um, I would say definitely don't be afraid to ask questions because I went on to my original unit and I was so scared to ask questions because I didn't want people to think that I was dumb or if I was asking a stupid question. And a lot of the times people do have the same questions as you do, and I know that probably sounds so like something that everyone says, but honestly, it's true. Like, I asked so many stupid questions, stupid. Um, but everyone was like, No, I was wondering that too. And but yeah, like we literally have people's lives in our hands, so like don't be afraid to ask if you're even second-guessing yourself. Definitely delegating to like delegating is something I still have trouble with because I just want to be able to do everything by myself because I mean, in my head, like no one can do it better than me. And so like that's just like, but I know that I can't do everything by myself, but you don't want to stress yourself out more. So if you have techs or like other nurses that can help, like, definitely ask for help and don't be afraid to ask for help.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

If you don't take initiative, yeah, like and learn how to do that. How did you take initiative and learn how to delegate? Because it probably wasn't easy.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Oh no, I definitely kind of just like watched other people and like how they delegated stuff and took stuff from what I saw on the floor and what I saw other people do and kind of turned it into my version of nursing care, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

Where To Find Brennan

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Of course, that makes sense. I mean, I th I think at the end of the day we all learn by simply emulating or modeling ourselves after other people's behavior. Yeah. So that's amazing, yeah. Well, Brennan, thank you so much for being here. Where can our listeners and viewers find you? TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. And there they can find all the characters, Trixie, Trixie, Gary, Gary, Code Blue Cindy. CodeBlue Cindy. Well, y'all, that wraps it up. Nurse Trixie here. Thank you so much, Brennan, for being here. Yeah, thank you for having me. Bad Pat Banter, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

And don't let the bad pants bite you.

unknown 21:13

Woo!