FAST & EFFICIENT OR INPATIENT & UNCARING?
It was brought to my attention on Thursday that I am "inpatient" and "don't take the time to sit and talk with my patients". At the time I was a little offended, but agreed b/c just that day I didn't want to sit beside and listen while one of the patients (not mine...) sang 3 songs like 'Que Sera Sera'...I'd much prefer to be doing my work on the other side of the room and tell the pt that was nice once he is done. Also, what about the other pts in the room. Should we even be encouraging singing b/c i'm sure they don't enjoy 24 hour signing when they're trying to rest....but whatever. So I went home thinking I was a bad nurse, but knowing in reality that we don't have time to sit for 20 minutes with a patient talking about which soccer team won the world cup 30 years ago or spending all day trying to get a pt in delirium to teach me Hebrew...(maybe as students we have time, but not as a real RN).
On Friday however I had a really busy day with my pt. What I thought would be a boring day started off with morning VSS and Head-to-Toe Assessment. Charted what I found, helped him with his am cares and then went down to the 6th floor to watch a Bronchoscopy on him. It was pretty cool to see what the lungs look like on the inside! After we got back upstairs we was chocking/foaming at the mouth from all the Na and Lanocaine pushed down his thought, so we hooked up a yanker to the wall and suctioned that out. Checked his vitals again and noticed his O2 sat had dropped to 85% so I quickly got the nasal cannula and bumped him up to 2L/min O2 and it went back up to 99% after 30mins so I lowered it to 1L/min and then finally he was OK without the NC. After all that commotion we had some downtime, so i found his shaving bag and helped him shave his face...i told him he'd have to tell me what to do since I'm only used to shaving legs! He had told me his wife and 2 daughters had been in to visit yesterday and was hoping they'd be in today, so shaving and having his teeth brushed and his body washed was great. We were just finishing up shaving when the pt beside him had his IV pump alarm ring. Air in the Line. I unhooked everything and tried to shake/bang the bubbles out. My instructor is pretty good with a syringe at getting them out, but me not so much...finally we fixed it though...then I was informed my pt was to receive a blood transfusion soon. So we took blood to compare his B rh - blood with that from the blood bank. Set up the blood set and primed the line. Once the transfusion was started I had to monitor his vitals q15mins x 4 in case he was going to react to it. On the second reading his BP spiked at 189/109. We slowed the rate from 400cc/hour to 50cc/hour and went to get a second opionion on whether we should continue. When told he reacted like this last week and was fine, we bumped him back up to 400cc/hour. He said his back was really hurting and he was really uncomfortable so I fussed with pillows and put him on his side and finally got him comfortable with the pillow under his knees in a semi-Fowler's position (30 degrees). By this time it was 1430 and time for me to write my progress notes and leave. Throughout the day I talked with the pt alot about his family. he confided in me that he was scared b/c he'd been in the hospital for 3 weeks now with invasive tests almost everyday and still nobody knew what was wrong it him. The nurse that I was working with for the day told me I was going to be a good nurse.
I know there are no 'perfect nurses' but I don't think I am inpatient and uncaring. it's much different being in the hospital with one patient rather than 4.
Anyways, this post is pointless and i'm sure boring, but the point i was trying for was that I doubted my ability to interact with pts but realized Friday that I do, I just like to do it while providing care. whatever.
posted by paulette at
5:48 AM
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5 Comments
