I know you're tired of my clinical stories...
...but today was a pretty good day and I wanted to share it with you.
My classmate who was supposed to be there with me called in sick today so I was alone. The day started as normal and went well. I did get a whole bunch of checkoffs I needed and almost got a few that I had never done. I had to get an ABG on a patient who had an arterial line in place. This was exciting because it was the first one I had actually seen. Unfortunately it wasn't working too well because when I withdrew the thingamajiggy, the blood only came up about halfway.
The next thing I attempted was nasotracheal suctioning. Thats when you run the tube into the patients nose and down into the lungs. Not a pleasant experience for either of us (moreso for the patient, of course). To make matters worse, my teacher happened to be there. I only got the catheter about a third of the way down. The patient complained a lot during this process.
September 20, 2008 at 1:28 PM
It's a lot easier when the teacher is not there.
September 30, 2008 at 5:52 AM
I believe that if a patient is alert enough to complain about being suctioned, they didn't need to be suctioned in the first place. Make them cough.
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