RT Student Blog

I usually don't come here after a really long day but today was different. So many of my readers have spent time in NICU's I thought I would check in. First off I must tell you that this unit was huge. It has about 40 rooms.

The day started slow. We had no patients on ventilators and only 2 on nasal CPAP. We went and did the CPAP settings check and entered our stuff in the computer. It was pretty slow. Most of the kids were on a Nasal Cannula so it was no big deal. We had a patient going to the OR to get a bowel resection. Not real sure what that is but me and one of the RT's went to the OR hoping to see something cool. With such a tiny baby the doc, surgical tech, nurse anaeshetist, and anesthesiologist were crowded around so I couldn't see anything. We were there about an hour and a half.

When we returned to the unit the nurse told us that the other RT had gone to a delivery. Twins at 28 weeks. It was about to get exciting. They came in and as is usually the norm the first twin (twin A) was in better shape than twin B. We had ventilators on stand by and a nasal CPAP in each room. I think they weighed about 1200 grams each. We got twin A settled first and focused on B. It (I hate referring to the babies as "it" but I don't want to give away any more personal information because of HIPAA) was grunting and had very noticeable retractions. The baby was in respiratory distress. We got it on a CPAP but the grunting was still present. They decided to give the baby surfactant. That is where you push this liquid straight into the baby's lungs. It helps decrease the surface tension of the alveoli in the lungs so they will not collapse when the baby exhales. The RT intubated the baby and instilled the surfactant. It was an amazing experience to see that.

The rest of the day was relatively quiet. We just basically kept an eye on the babies from then on out. I was a little nervous at first because the babies are so tiny. I had never seen anything like it. You definitely get a satisfied feeling when the babies condition improves. I think this might be somewhere I'd like to work. I still have 3 more clinical days so that opinion could change. I'll definitely tell you more about it.