Team work

I love the people I work with. Our unit (as I'm sure you can tell from some of my recent posts) tends to be pretty "heavy" at times and sometimes just because of the way the patients are, some nurses end up getting really busy assignments. The fabulous thing about our staff is that everyone is always willing to help out. There are a lot of other units where nurses just watch their coworkers run around like a chicken with their head cut off while they're sitting around doing nothing. Our unit is absolutely not like that.

Last night one of our patients blood pressure started to drop (the same pt. I talked about who got pain medicine every hour is and extremely sick, needing 1-to-1 care). His heart rate was in the 130s, and his BP dropped to 80s/50s while we were giving him blood. We actually ended up pulling the code cart next to his room because we were certain we'd have to code him. We had all 4 nurses in his room at one point and after the first hour of this going on (because yes, this intense ICU-type care went on for more than a hour), we all kind of tag-teamed it so that we were able to have 2 nurses in his room at all times. It was fantastic team-work and I love that on our unit you can automatically count on the other nurses helping you out. You never even have to ask - help is always offered. Believe me, it makes all the difference in the world. Our patient population can be an absolute nightmare, but ask anyone who works on our unit - the nursing staff is what helps you through the day. (Danielle, when you're looking at where you want to work, definitely look out for how helpful the staff is and how all the nurses interact.)

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In case you were wondering about our patient... His pressure initially dropped and we brought the code cart over starting at about 0245. We woke up our doctor, Dr. V and starting hanging more blood (he has 2 IV ports and we had blood going in through both of them). He took one look at him and said, "I'll go write the transfer orders so we can get him to the ICU." He came back 10 minutes later and said that the ICU attending did not want to admit him yet - he wanted to wait and see if he responded to all the treatment. Hey Doc, of course his pressure will hold steady if you're infusing 2 units of blood simultaneously at an ungodly fast rate (although really, I wouldnt exactly call 90s/50s all that great). But what happens when we stop pumping all that fluid into his system? Do you really think his pressure is gonna hold? Considering that his g-tube proceeded to put out 450mL of frank red blood, I think not. Dr. V called the guy back at 0400 and gave him the recent update and the doc still said dont transfer. Mind you, we've had at least 2 nurses by his bedside for the last hour trying to keep this guy stable. This continued for HOURS. The stupid doctor refused to transfer him. Thank goodness all other patients were stable and we were able to help out, but its not like we didnt have other things to do. At 0630 we got the managers involved and the patient was FINALLY transferred to the ICU at 0730. FIVE HOURS after all this started. ugh. Have I mentioned that I hate doctors sometimes?