I was just wondering if anybody has ever had this kind of experience....I've been a nurse for 10 years in Germany, and this is the first time that anything like this has ever happened.....
We had a really sick pt. on our ICU unit who has been receiving therapy for the last 3 weeks even though his case was pretty much hopeless....
After many days of consulting with his family and the courts, it was finally decided to discontinue treatment.
During my nightshift, it became apparent that this pt. was not going to make it through the night. The Doctor on duty (we have one on the unit 24/7) got really funky about the whole situation. My co-workers and myself didn't think much of it until all of a sudden, this pt. who up to then, had a blood pressure of only 80/40 and a SaO2 of 65% suddenly shot up to 140/90 with a MAP of 100! We weren't really sure what had happened, since we hadn't actively done anything to this pt. such as turning him, or giving him any meds. It took a few minutes, and then the blood pressure was back to what had been "normal" for this pt.
About an hour later, I was walking by this patients room, (who, by the way, was not my pt. that night) on my way to see to another pt. when I saw the dr. leaning over the pt. doing something to his central line. Immediately, the blood pressure started going up. I grabbed the nurse who was responsible for the pt. and we confronted the dr. who tried to hide something behind his back. It was a syringe filled with epinephrine! I couldn't believe it! :angryfire The dr. denied having given the pt. anything before that and tried to BS his way out of the situation by explaining that he was just curious to see what effect the epenephrine would have on this pt.????????
I guess my question is, what would an american nurse do about this situation? And has anybody ever seen this kind of behaviour?
