NICU week 2
Well, I just got home from day 3 (of 4) in the NICU. It further solidified my beliefs that that is where I want to work. I just wish that the one we do our clinicals is at were a little closer. It's about an hour and a half drive from here.
The day started ok. I got there and found out that the night shift had a patient airlifted to a bigger hospital. One of the therapists had to go with them. We also had a patient on the ventilator. Remember, last week we had no vent babies so I was kind of excited to go see. I got to actually suction out the ET tube which is more difficult than you'd imagine with the isolette, circuit, and cables all in the way.
After lunch we got called to the delivery room for a 36 week meconium baby. When we arrived the patient was intubated and the umbilical cord was really green. They said he had been swimming in the meconium for a while it seemed. We got the baby down to the unit and the NNP and doctor struggled to place a umbilical artery catheter and umbilical venous catheter. It looked like I was going to give surfactant (which is like the holy grail for RT students in the NICU here. It's so very rarely done). The chest x-ray came back and there was a pneumothorax. The doctor was preparing to place a chest tube when I left. It's looking like the baby will be on the oscillator (wait til you learn about that one) in the morning. Maybe I'll get to give surfactant then. I'm really feeling like there's no doubt the NICU is where I belong.
