i'm a relatively new grad; i just finished my first year on a telemetry floor. last night i had my first patient code. now i've assisted with other code blues, but have never had it happen to my patient. i had only been her nurse for 2 hours, and had spent most of the hour prior to her condition changed in her room. i just had that "gut feeling" something was wrong, and had told my co-workers that. i was at her bedside when her r/r suddenly increased to 48 per/min. i quickly assessed pt, vitals, 02 sat, heart and lung sounds. everything was at her baseline, excluding the r/r. had charge nurse stay with patient while i called the doctor.
i had to get a little forceful with the doctor to get him to take the situation as serious as i felt it was, but i got the orders i wanted. i was finishing writing the orders, while the charge nurse was getting patient ready for transfer to icu. when all of the sudden i hear a rapid response called to my patient's room!
the patient had quickly become unresponsive and cyanotic, sats in the 70's. i paged doc stat, informed him that he needed to see her now! while on the phone with doc, i hear the code blue called! er doc comes up; primary doc comes in shortly after. patient was quickly intubated, but passed a short time later.
everything had happened within minutes (change in condition, rapid response, code blue); she just went downhill so quickly! i just feel so guilty, like i could have done more! i keep replaying the entire night, over and over. i feel sick to my stomach. do you ever get over it? do you ever quite blaming yourself?
