THE WRITING GAME Prompt "SENSES"
Mar. 8th, 2012 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
basricTITLE:What a nurse needs to know
AUTHOR:basric
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 559
FEEDBACK: On
SUMMARY:How a nurse uses eyes, sense of smell and sense of touch
PROMPTS:Senses
If a new nurse is lucky enough to get a good preceptor to help her put what she/he learned in nursing school applied to living patients. During this period what she/he learns can make the difference in life or death of a future patient.
First she/he needs to realize there is the perfect world taught in nursing school and then there is real life. For example nursing books say you can only try to stick a patient three times to get an IV. But if a patient has small veins or even large veins with small lumen and a patient must have fluids or antibiotics or fluids with vitamins, you have to do whatever is necessary to get a catheter in a vein. You may have to call another floor and have a nurse with more expertise come to stick the patient. Or you may be lucky enough to have a hospital or Medical Center that has an IV Team.
The new nurse should be taught that while you examining your patient your eyes tell you his color. Is he jaundiced, grey, or blue from lack of oxygen?
The new nurse’s sense of smell will start to recognize, when walking onto the floor, that a patient in some room on the floor has a certain bacterial infection.
For example gangrene permeates the walls out all over the floor when present. Pseudomonas bacteria, though in the blood, walking into a patient’s room you will recognize its distinctive smell, as does C-diff a serious, highly contagious, bacterial infection causing relentless diarrhea.
But if she/he has a good teacher they will learn that touching your patient is the most important sense you can use. The skin will give you first warning signs of an impending health crisis.
Is the skin clammy? Is it too warm? Is it too cold? Is the skin dry and tissue papery? Is their pulse rate too fast or too slow? Is the IV site viable and is there swelling around it? Does the patient’s skin have edema (fluid filled)? The list goes on.
As a nurse becomes more experienced, she/he can use her/his senses to anticipate a stroke, an impending seizure, a patient going into respiratory distress or heart failure.
Sometimes a call to a doctor and a drug can be given to prevent it, the other times when it is inevitable it gives the nurse time to notify doctors or surgeons so the damage to the body is controlled and minimized.
For twelve hours a nurse must be vigilant and whatever the floor’s protocol may be (regular floors are usually every four hours, while StepDown Unit is every hour. However, ICU may be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes) they must not just stick their heads into the room and see if the patient is asleep and not want to disturb them but actually walk into the room an check the IV site and touch their skin.
When a patient complains you woke them, I have learned you need to remind them they are not at home but in the hospital.
So if you or a loved one are in the hospital and a nurse comes into your room in the middle of the night, instead of being irritated at being woke, be grateful you are lucky to have a nurse that really cares.
AUTHOR:basric
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 559
FEEDBACK: On
SUMMARY:How a nurse uses eyes, sense of smell and sense of touch
PROMPTS:Senses
If a new nurse is lucky enough to get a good preceptor to help her put what she/he learned in nursing school applied to living patients. During this period what she/he learns can make the difference in life or death of a future patient.
First she/he needs to realize there is the perfect world taught in nursing school and then there is real life. For example nursing books say you can only try to stick a patient three times to get an IV. But if a patient has small veins or even large veins with small lumen and a patient must have fluids or antibiotics or fluids with vitamins, you have to do whatever is necessary to get a catheter in a vein. You may have to call another floor and have a nurse with more expertise come to stick the patient. Or you may be lucky enough to have a hospital or Medical Center that has an IV Team.
The new nurse should be taught that while you examining your patient your eyes tell you his color. Is he jaundiced, grey, or blue from lack of oxygen?
The new nurse’s sense of smell will start to recognize, when walking onto the floor, that a patient in some room on the floor has a certain bacterial infection.
For example gangrene permeates the walls out all over the floor when present. Pseudomonas bacteria, though in the blood, walking into a patient’s room you will recognize its distinctive smell, as does C-diff a serious, highly contagious, bacterial infection causing relentless diarrhea.
But if she/he has a good teacher they will learn that touching your patient is the most important sense you can use. The skin will give you first warning signs of an impending health crisis.
Is the skin clammy? Is it too warm? Is it too cold? Is the skin dry and tissue papery? Is their pulse rate too fast or too slow? Is the IV site viable and is there swelling around it? Does the patient’s skin have edema (fluid filled)? The list goes on.
As a nurse becomes more experienced, she/he can use her/his senses to anticipate a stroke, an impending seizure, a patient going into respiratory distress or heart failure.
Sometimes a call to a doctor and a drug can be given to prevent it, the other times when it is inevitable it gives the nurse time to notify doctors or surgeons so the damage to the body is controlled and minimized.
For twelve hours a nurse must be vigilant and whatever the floor’s protocol may be (regular floors are usually every four hours, while StepDown Unit is every hour. However, ICU may be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes) they must not just stick their heads into the room and see if the patient is asleep and not want to disturb them but actually walk into the room an check the IV site and touch their skin.
When a patient complains you woke them, I have learned you need to remind them they are not at home but in the hospital.
So if you or a loved one are in the hospital and a nurse comes into your room in the middle of the night, instead of being irritated at being woke, be grateful you are lucky to have a nurse that really cares.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 04:42 am (UTC)I found the detail here really interesting. Is it all true? I hate to think about gangrene like that, it's creepy! (I would make the worst nurse in the whole world, without question).
no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 06:17 am (UTC)The hardest thing for a new nurse is making the transition from The perfect world of books to the real one.
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Date: 2012-03-09 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 11:14 am (UTC)A
Date: 2012-03-09 11:36 am (UTC)Re: A
Date: 2012-03-09 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 02:42 pm (UTC)The new nurse should be taught that while you while you're
For example gangrene permeates the walls out all over the floor when present. I'm not sure I understand this sentence, doll. I think a reword, here, though I'm not sure what to recommend.
be grateful you are lucky to have a nurse that really cares I totally understand the sentiment behind this-- people are ungrateful as a whole-- but I also think that when you're in a place where you can't really sleep and you're being poked every twenty minutes and you haven't really eaten well... that all plays a significant part in patients being assholes. =D
So, I can't really tell if this is fiction or more blogging, but I do like it! I love the gritty, no-nonsense edge you bring to all your writing. You have confident and competence and I think that's a huge strength for you in what you do (both in the real world and on the page)!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-09 02:50 pm (UTC)I wasn't happy with this piece.The prompt shut my brain down, so I turned to work for something, anything to write on.
One nurse should have stopped at three tries on you and gotten another nurse to try. If you are ever in that position again, after the third stick demand another nurse. The nursing books do say after three sticks no more.