Now most who know me…know that I hate controversy and will do everything I can to avoid it. I would much rather just do my job or go on with my own business…of course avoiding the controversy as much as I can. But we all need to vent every now and then. So here goes.
It really aggravates me when people become nurses who don’t seem to want to be nurses...you know the ones I am talking about…they sit on the computer all day, talk on the phone consistently, avoid patient rooms, or don’t adequately care for their patients. I mean really, why are you in a profession that is all about caring for people, if you would much rather avoid people and patients????
I arrived at work last night and learned that there had been a new admit about 15 minutes before I was receiving report. Now I understand that in the last 15 minutes of a shift there isn’t a lot of time to get stuff done, or you are just so busy trying to finish everything that you might forget about or not do something…believe me I’m really understanding and normally I’m fine with doing whatever wasn’t done…because I know you tried your hardest and did your best…but when I walk into the nurse’s station and I hear “There is a new patient in this room…I got report…but I don’t really know anything about them…well I do know that they are mentally retarded but that’s about it”…REALLY!!!! WTH!!!! Gee was that really your report??!!!
As I looked over the patient’s orders I noticed that the patient had STAT lab orders (for 10 vials of blood)….these orders were put in at 1830…it was not 1930 and the blood had still not been drawn…of freaking course!!!...
As I was gathering everything I would need to get the blood…the phone rang…It was radiology checking to see if the pt was ready for a CT scan… WHAT!!!!??? I explained that the patient was not, I didn’t know that there was going to be a CT scan and wasn’t even sure of why the pt was in the hospital…the radiologist seemed to know more about the pt then I did (there’s something wrong with that picture)…
I called the primary medical team…and started asking questions…the pt was here for an abscess in the face and may need surgery…the CT scan was to determine if surgery was going to be necessary…As I was just about to hang up the phone, the dr informed me that the pt was going to be sedated for the CT scan. Okay that’s fine…not really my problem…was my thinking at this time…
I returned to getting all my supplies to draw the blood. I decided that since the pt was mentally stunted, I would draw the blood from the IV (of course I would have to be careful to not blow the IV). When I entered the room, I saw two caregivers with the patient. I explained who I was and what I was going to do… “Um…there isn’t one yet.” I looked at the caregivers and explained that I would go ahead and put one in since it was needed for the CT scan…Although what I really wanted to do was scream… “Are you kidding me!!!???”.
This patient had arm flapping, which meant it was going to be almost impossible for me to start an IV in the arms…and I was a little concerned that if I could get the arms to hold still long enough to try, the pt would not help keep the arm steady and would most likely jerk away just as the needle went in which would lead to 1) a blown vessel 2) an unsuccessful IV start, and most importantly 3) another attempt at starting an IV…Now I’m what you might call a nice nurse that really doesn’t like sticking my patients more times then I need to…so I decided to start the IV in the next logical place…the foot.
Just as I was about to start the IV, my fellow nurse told me there was a dr on the phone for me. It was the radiologist asking if I was going to be coming down to recover the patient after sedation since they didn’t have any nurses that could do that…I explained that I would not be able to…but that I would call the team to see if the pt could be sent to the PACU after the CT scan…After finally getting everything figured out, I went back to the pt’s room to finish the IV.
I had never started an IV in a foot before, but “oh well, there’s a first time for everything”. I grabbed a 20 gauge IV (since it had to be a bigger IV, because of the CT contrast). Finally there was IV access…OH CRAP!!!, I forgot to get the blood for the labs!!!!” I tried to draw back blood…but alas, the IV would not draw…I was going to have to stick her again. I was able to get the blood with no problems…the pt did an amazing job…but decided that I was not the most favorite person and anytime I came near, there was an involuntary flinch for the rest of the night. :(
By the time, I got this all figured out, it was midnight and I still had not even started any of my own work, because I was too busy playing catch up from the day shift…I thought that I was going to get back on track…but not so lucky…I had to keep playing catch up until about 2 or 3. It was a very frustrating night that made me want to stack the patients the next morning and give the nurse who had handed me off her patients, really hard patients so that she would know what it was like…but once again…I’m a nice nurse and managed to get everything done so that the day nurse would only have to do her part of the patient care.
No comments:
Post a Comment