Glad I am a CNA=Dealing w/ Emergencies now

Published Jan 22, 2004

24 Posts

Hello & Howdy All,

I have repeatly said how glad I am that I became a CNA this summer before starting my RN program, not only have I gained a ton of experience and had a chance to become familiar with equipment, termanology and the environment in general but last night gave me another good reason...

Dealing with emergency situation before my lic hangs on the outcome :)

Here was the deal....I work in a med/surg ICU and we get a transfer from another hospital, pt(60's female native amercian) c/o of stomache pains, not eating, blood in stool....well middle of the night she c/o of nausea and with family in the room I answer the call light promptly....no sooner do I hand over the little kidney basin than she fills it by letting up with dark red blood and huge cots!!! I realize a couple of things need to happen quickly & calmly:

1st I make sure there is still a bit of room in the basin in case she goes again, then as I place a grad cylinder in the sink (gotta measure the loss) I ask the family to please step out into the waiting area so we can get her the best & quickest care possible (native american familys really like to be present 24/7 in the room), calmly (not shouting) ask the RN to join me (unusual request for me so she knew something was up), stepped back into the room (I stood in the doorway so I could jump to the beside if needed) and dumped the contents into the graduate, RN comes in and I go out to get another basin & page the ICU resident.

When I get back into the room the lady had given up 1700cc and it is bright red and the feeding tube had come up now also....not on the list of good things...make sure the RN is ok and off to page the Intensivist also...not quite a code but I like to get bodies moving...

All in all we got a stat endoscopy(sp?) and the fixed a number of varices (sp?) and no more vomiting bright red blood, she lost almost 3L and she is the quite type who prob wouldn't have hit the call light until she was swimming in the bed. A couple of other crazy things happened in the middle of it all that included me holding NS bags up with 1 arm and hand pumping with the other (couldn't get a pump into the room around the endo cart).

I was able to stay calm (previous career in law enforc.) and got to help with the endo and other stuff that gave me great experience....I know the ICU is where I want to be and this expereince along with codes we often have are so much easier to get used to know in my support role instead of coming fresh from school and risking a freakout :)

All in all I really encourage folks to work as a CNA in the area you want to work as a RN or at least extern all you can, the more to see/hear/touch before your lic is at risk the better.

Enjoy,

1 leg lance