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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Dun dun dun...another one bites the dust

So when we were still having our acute care lectures our teacher Trudy taught us a good way to remember how fast a rate to do compressions (for cpr) by singing out loud the song "dun dun dun, another one bites the dust, dun dun dun". I have been in the ICU this week for clinical and was assigned to a patient who was fresh post-op from open heart surgery. Before he arrived in the ICU the charge nurse got a phone call from the OR saying that this patient was very unstable. A comment was made (it might sound horrible for all of you non medical professionals) that this one could be dust. Then two of the nurses started singing the song. I chuckled a bit. (FYI-patients are not allowed to die on the table)

The ICU has been pretty interesting. Open heart guy was too unstable for me to really do anything other than watch the nurses do their thing last night, but tonight I got to see some pretty cool stuff. I discontinued an A-line (arterial line), which is no big-its like removing an IV except you have to hold pressure to the site for about 5 minutes to keep them from bleeding EVERYWHERE! Then there was another patient who had a brain tumor that was wrapped around his pituitary removed. He had a HUGE incision with staples across the top of his head from ear to ear. That was pretty intense, but the best part was he also had a JP drain coming from out of his head. You could see where the tube was sitting under the skin on his forehead! I didn't help other than by holding the patients hand when the Dr. came in to remove the drain and stitch up the hole where it was, but that was pretty neat to see! Only one more week of clinical for this semester! I can't believe it!

1 comment:

Ashley BoDashley said...

Although I am glad I do not have to know all this medical terminology and other technical things- I am still so jealous! It's like Discovery Health 24/7. Awesome!