November 8, 2011
Today I was assigned to care for an individual who had been in a car accident. This case struck me particularly because it was such an unexpected and violent event. The last few patients I have taken care of all were older and was kind of expected, or was a result of their own poor health choices. This was another experience with the family that was a great learning experience for me. I learned to talk to the family through this incredibly difficult time, as their mom and dad were both in the hospital. Today I also learned how to draw blood from an ART line, measure CVP, ICP and drain an EVD. It was a little intimidating at first to try and grasp all the complex equipment this patient had. I also got to help monitoring and maintaining the patient on continuous dialysis. It is very time intensive. I had to count five different drains every hour on the hour, record their outputs on a flow chart, and determine how much fluid the dialysis machine needed to take off. By the time I finished it was almost time to do it all over again! Overall it was a very long day on my feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment