[postmortem_cowboy]

well, in all actuality, that was the second patient of 2 that had surgery in a 24 hour period from a single surgeon that boffed both. The other, was a patient that was under anesthesia for over 10 hours in a hip replacement that got botched, the doc, broke the head of the femur off during the course of the surgical proceedure, and didn't have the necessary screws and all to fix the head of the femur, so he decided to close her up, and do the fix and the hip all at the same time once the right materials came in. Upon final count out in OR they came up a sponge short..... so.... they had to reopen her, get out the sponge and close her up a second time. When I came on shift for my night M/S shift, this was the first patient that I had to deal with, patient was 10 hours + under ansesthesia, markedly non-responsive and back on the floor X's 2 hours when I got her. One blown and one pinpoint pupil later and she was down getting a CT and being rolled into ICU. This gentleman was the second mishap from the same damn surgeon, and same day surgical proceedure that I had to deal with... sort of makes you stay on your toes when a couple of surgeries go bad all in one shift. Like I said, alot of things should have happend, and didn't but the patient didn't feel comfortable with speaking to the female nurse about a problem that had arisen since his surgical proceedure. Now it's all too possible that the bleed into the testes happend hours after he'd gotten back and the signs weren't apparent until I came on shift.... he woke up noticed what was happening, and saw a male nurse and brought it to my attention. Very possible that he came back from recovery with little-no visible signs of this at that point and she hadn't missed anything.


Wayne.

[gitterbug]

Cowboy,
Understand better now. Wow, I am sure glad I do not have to worry about having any type of surgery from this guy. I do not profess to know all of the in's and out's of a THR, but I am sure the surgeons at our trauma center cover every possible problem before they go in. Hubby has had many, many ortho problems, and with cardiac problems on top of that, I have been very aware and involved in his recovery processes. I do not mean to sound snippy about the other nurses' assessment, but I do know that deep sedation is necessary for most ortho procedures, so a through assessment and a recheck are vital to insure a patient does not suffer an unnecessary problem. Your patients are lucky to have you for a nurse, you sound like a competent and caring nurse. Male or female, a nurse just needs to do the job to the best of their ability. I hope you have a great day.