Am I a weirdo for this?! Sometimes if there’s an extra patient tray I will eat it. The food isn’t terrible plus it’s free but my coworkers think I’m a crazy. Do you guys eat the patient food?😂
"Increasingly disgusting the further I get into each shift."
Oh, this resonates in my soul. Lol.
FF/EMT here. This warms my soul.
Same and same.
I love it here 😂
Oh same I felt that deep 😂
Same I’ll eat 2 day old donuts from the break room if I’m desperate enough
And I bet you never got COVID
If donuts had covid we'd all be in trouble.
If pizza had covid the American healthcare system would have collapsed by now
Foreign govt spy here takes note.
1000% !!
Maybe they were individually wrapped donuts...that makes them covid-safe!
Haha nope! And I’ve done this but was 5 day old lemon bars
Same here. Our dietary aides will also occasionally leave treats from other, more critical, floors if the patient isn't there anymore and tell us we can have it.
I always snag the orange cake because it's amazing.
Orange cake?
I LOLed at that😂
Yep. Last month my pt had a meal tray delivered about ten minutes after they had been transferred out. Their lunch became my lunch.
Our lunch
This was my favorite. Welp, dietary won’t take it back, sooo bon appetit 🤌🏻
One reason I love night shift is because I get first grabs at all the “expired” sandwich boxes in the fridge. This Turkey on rye expires August 14th… I come to work at 7pm on August 13th, wait til the clock strikes midnight, and BOOM this sammie is no longer safe for patient consumption but boy am I hungry.
Damn. Love me a tasty midnight sammie
My old job had ham and cheese sandwiches...come expiry time, I put those bad boys in the sandwich press and made the world's best toasties!
We never got ham sammies because of ✨sOdiUm✨ as though our patients weren't door dashing Baconators anyway
This was day surg, so we happily loaded them up with all the custard and jelly tubs, sandwiches, tea/coffee, juice they wanted. Until it came back up occasionally 🤢
I never realized how good Graham Crackers and apple juice were together until I had a few day surgery procedures. Then, I bought some when I got groceries- nah, not the same! I guess being NPO and having residual meds and gas on board made them better. But we always had peanut butter in the staff fridge, and we all learned to love Graham crackers and peanut butter. And peanut butter is protein too, so there you go!
It's definitely the starving/still stoned combo. I had a guy post-ketamine who was so excited about getting to eat custard he punched a table on his way out of PACU.
You ever tried grahams and chocolate Duncan Hines frosting? Sooo goood.
DUDE I I've never had ANYTHING so delicious as the apple juice on the rocks they gave me post propofol/upper GI. 😋😋😋
Yep, eat up so you can take a Percocet and gtfo
Unless they bring their lunch, this is the only way night shift nurses at my 600+ bed hospital will eat. Our cafeterias are now closed after 1700. 🤦🏼♂️
Ours is only open 7-10, 12-2p, and 5-8p. They can't even find one staff member to work the register so we can get some pre-packaged food. Such bullshit, and cheap bastards considering how low the wages are of the kitchen staff.
Maybe they should consider an Avanti Market?
But you forgot ✨DoorDash✨
damn you get rye? we only get garbage white "bread" that I think is insulting to bread everywhere
Not gunna lie, if a patient died and the family didn't snag the snacks from the comfort cart we didn't let them go to waste.
My preceptor called Lorna Doones death cookies and I will never not refer to them as that.
I think you mean Lorna Doom cookies.
Omg 😂😂
You get Lorna Doones?!? We only get off brand vanilla wafers.
Those things are weirdly good for plain ass shortbread cookies
Lorna Doones dipped in vanilla pudding chefs kiss 🤌🏼
Oh that does sound good
I was the only one on my unit at my ltc facility eating them 😂 they’re awesome
Oh no! We had a couple ladies that loved them and now in dialysis one of the SNF ladies brings them in now and then.
They’re freaking amazing!
…come to think of it, I’ve never seen Lorna Doones in stores, only nursing home snack drawers…
and they have no business being that tasty lmao
You get them on airplanes! you can also buy them in stores. I make a pretty good shortbread crust with them.
Dollar general carries them and almost no one buys them lol
Cry cookies.
You mean...Lorna Dooms? i love them lorna dooms, they always seem to taste better from Comfort carts, i just cant put my finger onto why.
It's the essence a grateful ghost that died with dignity sprinkles on them as they float on past towards the pearly gates.
I KNEW IT!! Thats the secret ingredient!
I just heard this for the first time by my preceptor a week ago!
My intensivist grabbed a bag of pretzels from the bereavement tray. I told her she could only have them if she thought nice things about the deceased while eating them.
“My interaction with them was brief, but I was left more full afterwards.”
COVID gave me a lot of snacks this way… sorry 😅
God I've missed this dark humor since leaving bedside. Come to think of it it's really all I miss...
I’m the comfort cart hawk for the unit. Someone has to grab the bougie water before it goes back to the kitchen.
We use every part of thr comfort care where I'm from. Nothing is to be wasted!
My thoughts exactly. We need comfort too lol!
Chief use every part of buffalo.
That’s called being responsible!
The death cookies are soooooo good...totally agree
Why do the cookies always taste better when they are made for that💀
Death snacks taste sweetest.
Death cookies hit different.
I love fridays. So many people go home and theres so many food trays. You can choose. Sometimes lunch or also dinner. I 100% eat if it didnt go into the room because the food in our hospital is delicious and it would go to waste.You are no crazy...youd be crazy not to. :D
The last place I worked before retirement had food so good that we’d go down just as they closed to get any leftovers; they were gonna throw it away, why not? And employees from surrounding offices came to eat so much that they finally had to put up a sign reminding them that the cafeteria was for employees and they had limited time. I think they put some sort of restriction in how many “outsiders” could come in at once. I worked nights, so just heard about it.
It makes me angry when I see how much food goes to waste and they dont give it to someone, or are not allowed to take it home (many instances of this can be seen on r/antiwork, where bosses are telling them either buy the food or youre stealing) but rather throw it away.
There have been many shifts during my CNA days and my RN days where I went working through breaks. And let me tell you I have no shame about literally inhaling the food as long as the meal tray never entered a patient room and was kept covered.
Same
I once had a patient order extra ice cream so I could eat it with her. I declined because I have a trash stomach that can’t handle ice cream and it was in her room. But precovid with some stomach meds on board I 100% would have done it.
This is actually really sweet of the patient. Wouldn’t eat it, but a nice gesture
We don’t waste food in this house.
After it's been in a patient room? Never! Extra sandwiches about to expire in the nutrition room fridge, sure!
Absolutely! As long as its not gone in the room and stayed covered. Some of our cafeteria food is pretty good. As far as I'm concerned I'm doing my part to help stop food waste haha
💯
Nope but I drink the ginger ale and eat the saltines lol
Deff drink the sodies
There were days my body was sustained on graham crackers and blue powerade alone 😅
I drink all the apple juice and have a peanut butter or two!
You aren’t a nurse until you have chugged jevity because you are starving.
Guess I’m not a nurse yet…. 😳
sips vital AF from a styrofoam cup with my pinky up
Def Vital Af to drink that! I used to drink some of the drinks we would give to pts when they had trouble eating solid food. They come in these 240mL small boxes and they were delish, then i look at the nutrition label, and Im like, holy crap, this small juice box has more sugar than a can of coke, and more protein than a porterhouse steak. I really liked the peach-flavored ones.
love this!!!
That’s fucking hardcore 🫡
And fucking disgusting.
Add nectar thickener to it for a real treat, my dude.
We all just tried our new pump-top thickener. I immediately added, "Let me die if I have to have thickened liquids," to my "let me die if..." list. 🤮
Ok but try it with milk or OJ. It uh, might change your mind. PS med cups make for great shot glasses.
I’m still planning to add thickener to someone’s beer…some day.
In the interim might I suggest a sneaky spritz of a saline flush into any illicit open-top refreshments left unattended at the nurses'station.
(Don't do this to anyone's paid or made drinks or you'll end up Zelle-in' and regrettin')
Good idea. But I’d rather thicken the drink. Gag.
That "lemon" Hormel Nectar thickener tastes like cum, tbh..
That disgusting.
I will note, however, that glucerna tastes superior to ensure, and will get you through when you can’t leave the unit to eat solid food.
There's been a whole box of glucerna and ensure (chocolate) that was delivered by mistake sitting with our tube feeds/supplements. Each day I wonder about trying one on a shift where I'm desperate. How do they taste?
I sustain myself on cigarettes and Zoa energy drink.
Those energy drinks are fucking nasty. Dwayne The Rock™️ Johnson has got me largely fucked up.
The pineapple coconut is the only one I like, and I really like it. If it wasn’t for The Rock though, I wouldn’t even bother. But the ol’ wrasslin’ fan in me can’t help it. And monster stopped making the Mule so that put me in a damper for a while.
you getting all your nutritional needs. Good for you.
I graduated in 94 and have never been this hungry and think I would puke it up as fast as it went down. I can smell it just thinking about it
I'm only a few out of my first decade but I've also never been this hungry....like I would whither away before ingesting fuckin jevity. Smelling it makes me gag
Stuff smells nasty! What does it even taste like?
My company provides meals on duty, it’s in my contract.
Wow lucky 😭
My job used to do lunch deduction if you wanted to order a tray...it was like 3.50 or something...and if you worked a double you got one tray free...even if you didn't buy one for the second shift. Sigh...stupid penny pinching powderpuffs.
All the time.
I’ve seen other nurses call down to the kitchen and tell them that the patient ordered something specific just so they could eat it themselves lol.
200 iq
Amazing
Inspiring work
hell yeah i do. no point in wasting it. sometimes i even put a regular diet in for intubated patients.
IM CRYING💀💀
I just broke out laughing so hard, alone, in the break room, one of the techs came in to check on me out of concern. Please, enjoy the only award I have to offer 😂
If the tray is untouched, unexpired, and never went into a patient room, then I'll sometimes grab a snack off it before it's trashed. On my medicine unit we would throw out so many untouched hard-boiled eggs and bananas each day. If I knew my patient didn't like those items, I'd sometimes set them aside before bringing it in and ask if they'd like them that day. They always said no, and then I could put them in the fridge and hand them out as snacks to other patients (or staff) throughout the day. I'm not sure what the official policy is, but the culture in my hospital is that we can eat it, although some colleagues will definitely judge. I hate food waste, especially when there are hungry people around. I don't always like the mystery meat dishes, but I won't say no to an egg or banana.
If it didn’t go into the room, sure. Some things are Ok, some terrible. I used to work nutrition lol.
This. As a former dietary aide, I also would eat the extra food. If management gets mad that I’m eating patient food, I think they have much bigger things to worry about. I literally worked in that kitchen and I can tell you that no one would care.
So much stuff gets thrown away. We could always grab some
Lol. I had a patient who hoarded bottles Gatorade, she got them with her meal trays. She hated Gatorade so never drank them. She was discharged, drawer full of unopened Gatorade’s. Instead of throwing them away I wiped them down and put them in the break room. Lol. 🤷🏻♀️ RN for over a decade. It’s ok if it’s unopened and wiped down.
We have room service. So, there's no extra trays anymore. And the patients get the bare minimum of their servings. Also, the stock food in our pantry room is paltry. They have totally pared us down to bare minimum, and on nights we are barely stocked.
But back in the day when we had extra trays, we had a couple of workers who wouldn't bring lunch because they'd eat the extra trays. The chocolate cake was very good.
ROOM SERVICE!! Great meals and lots of it, to the point that when I was a patient I’d tell them half-servings if the entrees, please. Wonderful quesadilla, tacos, chicken pot pies, and even the roast beef was tender and tasted wonderful. I loved the meals when I was an inpt!
Our patient menus are more limited than that, but I'm very happy to hear you had a good food experience!
I hope you are recovering well (if it was a recent hospitalization).
All the time. If it's unopened and hasn't been in their room it's fair game.
Once had a family member insist I take a couple donuts. Came out of an open box. Aaaaand the pt was in isolation for c diff and family wasn't wearing any ppe.
I threw them away once I was out of view. It killed my soul throwing donuts away, but it had to be done.
That's so nasty! I wonder how long the family passed around the C diff?
Absolutely. Our kitchen menu was made by a Michelin star chef or something equally fancy. Plus they only carry name-brand items. Hagen Dazs ice cream. Seagrams ginger ale. Milano cookies.
I saved a lot of money while in nursing school due to discharged and deceased pts. Ain’t no lie.
If it comes straight off the cart ( pt was discharged) I do. My daughter worked in dietary through college and it’s crazy how much food is thrown away
Oh yeah lots of kitchens would feed the staff with whatever was extra/left over. To me it's a sin to waste food and their food is pretty good a lot of the time. Reminds me of high school food
If I was starving and hadn’t eaten, you betcha
As long as it doesn’t go into the patient room. That is why my goal was to get all the discharges gone right before lunch. The trays would show up and the patients would be gone. The trays would go right into the break room and everyone would get lunch on the house.
You are the real MVP
Once the death cart arrives all bets are off!! "I'm so sorry for your loss as I wipe away a cookie crumb from my scrub top".
If it's going in the trash otherwise, absolutely! I do check and make sure nobody else needs it first though. We had a young guy on our unit last week who I swear has a hollow leg or something.
Nutrition used to always stock extra breakfast trays on the cart just in case. If no patients needed them hell yes we ate them. Even if just the bacon and coffee. I would stalk dinner trays for any leftover trays that happened to have cookies on them
I’ve been known to scarf down a plate of meatloaf. That shit can be good when you’re hungry as fuck. Slop it up with a bun.
*pudding cup with whipped cream sits on tray table for 16 hours
“Don’t touch it, I was eating that.”
so true...
Individual wrapped cheese from the tray just hits different
Yes. We used to have grievance trays too for the family whose family member just died— comfort care pts. They never eat the cookies so we always ate them
My hospital makes this sugar free creme brûlée that is INCREDIBLE!!! Unfortunately they don’t sell it in the cafeteria so you can only it from an untouched tray. Fingers crossed that I can be a patient at my hospital so I can order that!!
When I was a young CNA struggling to get by in nursing school yes I’d eat patient sandwiches. The nursing night supervisor would let me have a couple instead of throwing them out the next day. Not just me but a few others just trying to get by. Sometimes they’d give us food trays that patients that left for procedures outside of facility.
It's funny, I used to smoke cigarettes off the ground in my 20's. But for some reason, this is a hard pass.
I work in a jail, food is prepared by inmates. Never have eaten the food.
I feel this is very much different.
Gross, no. The extra tray usually has the mystery meat special with congealed gravy, a side of canned green beans, and a warm vanilla pudding for dessert.
Agreed. Nothing about a patient tray looks appetizing. They don’t even serve the chocolate lava cakes at mine.
I can’t… anything off of a patient tray, even untouched, feels gross me to
Same. I hate food waste just like everyone else, but I’m not eating anything off that tray. I’ve gotten really weird with eating and drinking at work anyway, must be some kind of PTSD from pandemic times. Even I I bring in my own food, I’m nauseous for the rest of the shift.
Yes, as long as it is unopened.
I even sometimes “steal” snack boxes from other wards if Im desperate. One time I got caught, I just pretended that I work from the ward next door doing an agency shift and “a patient needed to eat”
We put put the Dc'd pts food in the water/nutrition room - it seems to be eaten every time. Doesn't bother me.
yes wtf i aint letting that pineapple go to waste
Hell yeah. I'll gladly swipe an orphaned tray off the cart.
I work in correctional psych. No I do not. lol
I used to have a dietary guy who loved to feed me. One day I could not get a break to save my life and he noticed so he brought me an extra tray. After that he would bring me trays of patients who had discharged or transferred to other units. Food wasn’t great but I didn’t have the heart to turn it away.
Absolutely not, half the time I can’t tell if I’m smelling a shit explosion, or the dinner trays have arrived.
My day yesterday, me & PCA elbow deep in hershey squirts all over a jevity tube feed immobile patient and then walk out of the room to the smell of meat loaf dinners being delivered to the unit for dinner, glad I had light lunch or I would’ve vom-ed all over!!
The smell of the broccoli when you remove the plate cover 🤢
Yes. Why waste it?
Omg yes!! Whatevers left over me and my coworkers go through it hahaha
If it is completely untouched and the cover hasn’t even been taken off, yep.
Not even little. Makes my stomach turn
It wasn’t off the patient’s tray, but one of our NPs is an absolute savage when it comes to making sure patients follow their diet as directed.
A couple years ago we had a heart transplant who’s family snuck him in Chick Fil A. The NP walked in the room, saw him taking it out of the bag, and snatched the sandwich right out of his hands. She looked him straight in the eye, took a huge bite, and said “that’s not on your diet, but thanks for lunch,” then walked out of the room. Probably the most gangster ass shit I’ve ever seen someone pull on a patient.
Oncology/palliative care RN here... if snacks are left on the comfort care cart and they weren't in a contact room- we're clearing them out haha
We all love those comfort carts! 😆
No. But I'll house some graham crackers and peanut butter from the nutrition room!
I was always taught that eating a patient's food is unethical. But that's more before it goes into the room. One place I worked, you had to grab the trays for your patients as soon as they came up, or the techs would steal the cookies. Which made me so mad!!!
Once it's gone into the room, no thanks.
Even if it's not going to a patient (made NPO, guest tray and no family to take it), it feels icky to me.
I worked with a nurse at a pediatric hospital and whatever the kids didn’t finish off of their tray he would eat it! #DISGUSTING
We do it every day in our hospital because the in-House kitchen usually prepares some more food to account for us. What we don’t do is eat something that comes out of patient rooms, except a the candy bar or everything which is sealed for short
If it's something prepackaged, like a cookie or muffin, hells yes. Or a banana that didn't go onto a room.
No way u can sanitize something enough for me not to think of all the vomit and shit that food tray has touched
Nope. But I don't eat on shift because I don't want to shit away from my bidet. So I have my own weird.
Haha those little old ladies that offer me the food off their plate. It’s so sweet but I’m thinking… I’d rather eat cat vomit than eat that. If it’s packaged and never entered the room, I don’t see an issue. But our plated hospital food is mostly disgusting.
No, I've seen the hospital kitchen...
When i worked in an LTC we had a nurse who would eat food from trays that patients had already touched. Like if the patient ate the potatoes but didn't eat the meat, he would eat the meat. The first time I saw this I almost puked right on my shoes.
Absolutely not.
However, I will say, I've had patients offer me food off of their tray. They say things like: "why don't you eat the rest of that or give it someone so it's not thrown away", to which my response is usually: " oh... no."
If it’s free, it’s for me.
Absolutely!! Also I might have always added a person or two to the actual number of bereaved family, when calling the kitchen to have a more plentiful bereavement tray. More options for the family and more left overs for us!😅
We are fancy. Starbucks gives us their leftovers for the day.
Extra tray? Sure. Leftovers? NO WAY
yes and i occasionally love to indulge in a turkey sandwich. people often get grossed out about me drinking from the same water dispensers, but my mentality is: if i dont wanna eat it, why am i giving it to my patients? (also i dont want to be dehydrated my whole shift)
Yep I like to try it and my work encourages it and to critique it too that way they can improve it. And guess what we have the highest rated food for a hospital. I've even tried mechanical and puree the puree is not bad. But ya all the nurses will share a plate it's just a part if the culture there.
No. Never. I've seen nurses and aides fired for it, twice
Omg seriously? What happened?
Heck yeah. Most of our patients get food from the outside world and I'm not about to let things go to waste.
I take the itty bitty water bottles
Yep
I do. If it is sealed or a patient never touches it, then I go to town. However, if the patient is way too dirty for my comfort once their tray hits the table then no chance.
When I used to work at a hospital that sent trays for every room, yes. Now it’s to order.
No. The thought of eating the food grosses me out. Granted, the hospital I am at uses pre-packaged microwave steamer meals for dinners. They don't look or smell very appetizing.
Yes. So much yes.
You have no idea how many ensures I’ve drank off of patient’s trays who didn’t want them
Those things are expensive!
Wow - do y'all need more pizza?
Ewww no way but do you
Jeez I thought you were eating the last few French fries or half sandwich left on the tray when I started reading 😂 anyway, I work corrections and their food sucks, also I have a pretty strict diet so I never ate the food trays at the hospitals I worked at before. I am not ashamed to say I have eaten tons of Lorna doones, saltines, and popsicles.
Okay so if we have a discharge earlier in the day they’ll still send up meal trays for lunch and dinner. Personally, I’ll take the side salads and fruit cups but I don’t eat anything else from those trays.
one of my patients gave me their cookies once!! those were so good 🤤 literally tasted like homemade cookies hehe
You're goddamn right I do. All the time.
If it's in an unopened wrapper or didn't go into the patient's room, absolutely! But I'm increasingly disgusting the further I get into each shift.