Most awesome page ever, which woke me at home at 5:30AM:
Nurse: "The patient's blood pressure medication order says to hold it if the systolic pressure is under 100. His pressure is 107/69 and his pulse is 79."
Me: "So?"
Nurse: "Should we hold it?"
Me: [very sleepy but still able to do simple math in head that 107 > 100] "No, give the medication."
Nurse: "Give it anyway?"
Me: "Yes!"
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the reason we constantly get harassed and reminded about hold parameters is so that the nurse doesn't have to call us at 5AM to ask these questions.
I am a nursing student about to graduate.. This person is either new or pulling your leg!
ReplyDeleteMaybe you'd made her mad before?
ReplyDeleteEven if you're new, knowing the difference between systolic and diastolic is the absolute basics. It's like the nurse didn't have a clue.... :/
ReplyDeleteIn my hospital i would have chopped that persons head off
ReplyDeleteMy best page ever (at 3 a.m.): "Oh, I was just showing the student how to use the paging system.
ReplyDeleteOMDG: I didn't know the nurse, so I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteTricia: I don't think she was having trouble with systolic/diastolic as much as just thinking it was close to the cut-off so wanted to check. But the whole point of making the cut-off is that you don't have to check.
@thingspatientssay You DEFINITELY had made that nurse mad. ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is what actually happened in my Gynac rotation. I'd dozed off at my table in the Labour Room. Thankfully, all the post-op cases had been transferred and we didn't have any FTNDs that night. However, the nurses' schedule was badly messed up. So, its 2am and this nurse wakes me up and says to a fresh nursing student who'd just shown up for her shift, "This is the intern on-call tonight, wake him up if you're having any problems. Sorry for waking you up"
ReplyDelete"The order says to phone if temperature is more than 38.5C. Her temperature is 38.4. We gave her Tylenol. Just letting you know."
ReplyDeleteI never know what to do with this. I know it's my own FYI order that I wrote myself, and I can't NOT write it... But still, do I really want an FYI at 3am??
Best ever page.
ReplyDeleteNurse: Patient was hypertensive so we gave the PRN medication for hypertension and now the blood pressure has dropped.
Me: Ok...what is the blood pressure now
Nurse: Oh, hold on, i'll just look, umm its 120/80
Me: Right, so now the blood pressure is normal
Nurse: Yes
Me: Ok, so the medication worked, why are you calling me?
Nurse: Because the blood pressure has dropped
Me: Yes, you gave them medication to drop it, what's the issue
Nurse: well i just thought you would want to know that their blood pressure has dropped
Me: ....