Well not much of anything to say right now! I am at my per diem job at a free standing ER and it is SLOOOOOW. I'm bored and so here I am creating a blog where I will discuss things that I observe and stuff that happens to me at work.
I am a Registered Respiratory Therapist, I work at a large university hospital in the PICU, NICU and Pediatric general care and stepdown floors. I graduated from Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica NY in 2006 so I'm still fairly new at this.
Anyway, thanks for looking if you did and I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to tell in the future.
Oh actually I just thought of one! How about this nurse in the PICU that we will call "nurse death" for purposes of this blog. Not once, not twice, but THREE times she has left a ballard half way down an et tube or trach and then wondered why her PT is desaturating. Hmmm I wonder how that could be?
So the other day I'm walking by a room and nurse death and the fellow are looking at a PT looking rather perplexed. Now this happens to be a infant who is trached and on a vent so I poke my head in to see if I can be of assistance. Nurse Death goes on to tell me, "well I think he needs to be suctioned but he is desatting really bad right now". SPO2 on the monitor is 65%, and I look at the PT. Hmm well here's the problem: the suction catheter is AGAIN about four inches into the tube basically occluding it. I hit the suction button on the vent to give 100% FiO2 and pull the catheter out.
I'm telling her "you can't leave that in there! At all! See the wye right there? That's where the ventilator connects to your patient. If you block it they can't breath! You are lucky he didn't arrest!"
"Oh, I'm sorry I'm sorry" she's babbling.
I just don't see how someone could do this over and over again and be a critical care nurse?
OK, rant is done
Have a great day
2 comments:
There's always one at every hospital. And why is it that nurses are so bad at hitting that 100% O2 button before they suction? Drives me bananas.
Welcome to the respiratory therapy blogosphere!
You need to report these incidents to the charge nurse and then follow-up. Maybe even speak with risk management before she kills someone!!
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