Back from the Dead

My last weekend shift at Big City ED ended up being one of my most interesting. I was given a patient early in the day who was a chronic alcoholic and was having some GI bleeding. Her hematocrit was very low - low enough to get a super quick, non-crossmatched blood transfusion. So, I had two large bore IV's in her, had her on the cardiac monitor and was transfusing blood in the course of about 15 minutes after her arrival in the ED.

Things went from bad to worse. The patient ended up intubated, scoped, and then decided to code. We worked on her for 25 minutes and then ultrasounded her heart and had no cardiac activity. Her husband was in the room and the ED attending broke the news to him. As I was turning off pumps and trying to kind of get her a little more presentable, I looked down and SHE WAS BREATHING ON HER OWN!!! We had been changing the paper roll in the cardiac monitor and darn if she didn't pop up in a normal sinus rhythm. So basically after 25 mintues of CPR and meds, shocked 6 times and probably 2 minutes of doing nothing this woman came back to life! We got her to the ICU and she was hanging in there.

I went up to check on her three days later and she had been extubated and was up and reading a book. HOLY COW! Apparnetly no neuro damage (go CPR) and she was breathing on her own. Crazy.

Yep - this is a new post!

So, I'm contemplating changing the name of the blog now that I have been doing this for a year and a half. I've precepted two cycles of new grads at this point so I don't really consider myself a new grad anymore. I'm thinking just Pissed Off Nurses or Pissed Off ED Nurses but that sounds a bit redundant since I have yet to meet an ED Nurse who isn't pissed off.

Big news at Big City ED! Last summer my hospital decided they did not want travelers in the ED anymore so they hired 12 New Grads and 2 new ER nurses at one time. What the hell were they thinking? Basically the 2 new ED nurses are great, they did wonderful since they were already nurses they just needed some ED experience. Now 11 of the 12 new grads came off orientation on the same day (one couldn't cut it in the ED). It has been horrible. There have been some night shifts where the entire staff other than the Charge nurse and the Triage nurse came off orientation within in the past month or so. This has resulted in much discontent among the "old" staff. So much so that 4 of us have moved on to other hospitals. Yep, that is right - I have left Big City ED and moved on. So, I'm sure that I will have more new and exciting stories from Slightly Smaller ED.