Nurse Steals Pain Meds, Tells Patient to “Man Up” Before Surgery

Thursday, 10 February 2011 | by Pat's Picks

The Minneapolis Star Tribune says a nurse is accused of stealing a patient’s pain medication moments before he was wheeled into surgery. The 33-year-old woman allegedly told her patient to “man up” because she couldn’t give him anymore pain medication. Why not? Because she’d already injected it herself. The man then underwent surgery to remove kidney stones with only 150 of the 500 micrograms of pain medication he should’ve been given, an experience he described as feeling like “very long needles going through my skin and down into my kidneys.” The nurse’s co-workers say they became suspicious when the patient seemed to have an unusual amount of pain. Their suspicions were confirmed when the nurse fell asleep on the job.