Yesterday, I met with some friends and told them about a patient I had which had HELLP Syndrome and how I correctly “diagnosed” it. I also told them, that the baby was on the way and especially the manly parts of the groups looked at me with a kind of glare in their eyes…a man who does not panic when a baby is beeing delivered.

1. Knowing how to handle a pregnant women
   As a male nurse, you are especially obliged to spent some time on the OB/GYN – Ward, with tough OB/Gyn Nurses (I really tell you, OB Nurses are danm tough nurses!)   pregnant women and mad future fathers. The situation, where her waters broke and the contractions start within 15min intervals is usually unique for a future father. I’ve had them many times, I’ve seen it many times. I’m not sure if I handle it with the same level of profession if it’s my own baby, but I guess it’s even better if I know something about it.
2. Knowing what to do during labour and delivery
   Press…press…press….! Well the best way to manage a delivery is letting the women do the job. No stupid shouting, counting or cheering up like “Come on, Come on, the last one!” Just the way she wants it. Then looking out for complications (umbilical prolaps or shoulder distortion) nothing new to me. I only witnessed 3 natural deliveries and countless C-Sections during my Anaestesia time, but better some preparation than no preparation.
3. Know how to take care of a newborn baby
   Feeding, changing diapers, changing clothes, washing, bathing…handling them around….I guess I’m lucky that I’ve done all that and that I have been tested in it. Sometimes when I see student nurses handle babies, you see some kind of arkwardness in their handling. I had to work with newborns for three weeks, no magic just practice
4. How to make a bed in very little time
   Making a bed with a classic bedsheet lacking any “helping corners” is a lost art. It is lost because nobody uses these old bedsheets anymore…nobody except hospitals and the army. But it’s a remarkable skill by itself. Sometimes I have to make 5-10 beds per shift, this has to go fast because nurses have NO time.
5. Diagnose  diarrhea by smell
   Sometimes I see or smell diarrhea from a patient, and go straight to our doctor on duty, telling him: The patient in C has diarrhea, I think its rota-virus and they ask me…how do you know without microbiological stool analysis and I say: I don’t know it, I smell it. Norovirus, Salmonella, every germ has its odor and by time and experience you know how the trick.
6. Guess the weight of a persons correctly by just looking at them
   I may have admitted and discharged more than 1000 patients in my time, and one crucial question is:  How much do you weight. With seeing and knowing their weight, you learn a feeling about the weight of a person. You can ask me about the weight of any patient, I can tell you right away and in 90% of the cases I’m +/- 2 kg right.
7. Identify a pill by just looking at it
   As nurses, we prepare the oral intake medication for each patient mostly during the nightshift, and we have to check the medications on the following shift.  Many times, some obnoxious patients ask me “What is this pill ?” and hand me over the dispenser, where there is no obvious sign on the pill itself. With the experience in preparing the pills, after some months in the job you can tell the patient “This is amlodipin, this is cephural, this is ibuprofen, this is pantozol, this is metroprolol” and as a former ICU Nurse I can tell you for what these medications are given for and explain the pathology of the sickness with the pharmacological details.
8. Move a 100kg patient in bed ; alone
   People with a lot of weight usually are not able to move by themself, especially not after operations. I can move a 100kg person to the side and let them sit on the edge of the bed, without any apparent help. There are some tricks based on phyics and leverage, some of them may seem complicated and arkward, but they work!

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