[rubyriggs]

I'm a pediatric nurse of 20 plus years and we are monitoring pediatric patients during a procedure such as an EEg or MRI after administration of Chloral Hydrate and am the only one responsible for monitoring this patient. I have PALS but should I have more credentials am and what credentils or competencies should I have to assess the airway immediately prior to procedure. As a RN can I do this. I am in a hospital setting but I don't have anesthesia with me but I could bag mask until anesthesia could et there which would be in the building..I am looking to follow JACHO and NY State Dept regulations.

[cemaki0]

Hi Ruby,
I am a pediatric sedation coordiator. In the past 2 years I have been involved in well over 3,000 sedations. I work with pediatric intensivists. In our program we use propofol as our main sedating agent. Nurses who work in radiology use choloral hydrate for their sedations. Once our hospital has enough intensivists we plan to take over all of the sedations and not use chloral hydrate unless it is our last resort. I examine the patients before sedation. We evaluate their airway using the Mallampati scoring system. When we sedate in MRI we have the radiology nurses recover the patients. Monitoring during sedation includes all VS as well as ETC02. For recovery all patients are placed on a pulse oximeter as well as a monitor that can measure blood pressure and EKG. All of our radiology nurses are PALS certified. Do you have oral airways in your department that are readily available? This can often times be the difference between being able to ventilate someone with a BVM device. There are many positioning techniques that I have learned as well. I am not sure about your state regulations but all of our sedation policies are based on JCAHO regulations. If you have any specific questions I would be happy correspond with you. Feel free to PMl me.
best of luck to you!
Carrie