bethem

bethem

Med onc, med, surg, now in ICU!

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About bethem

bethem specializes in Med onc, med, surg, now in ICU!.


RN in ICU transition program and loving it!

Latest Activity

  1. Albumin administration rate and IV tubing

    In ICU we slam it in stat.
  2. A/C vs. SIMV

    What do you guys (US) call what I know as Pressure Control Ventilation plus Assist? It's a Draeger mode on the Evita models. It delivers breaths at a set rate, with a pressure limit. The breath is delivered until the pressure limit is reached, theref...
  3. I'm an ICU nurse, so the thought of not knowing my pt's SaO2 is downright scary! Of course there are signs of hypoxia which may be picked up in a good assessment, but why wouldn't you just pop a probe on a finger and make sure?
  4. Bad room

    We've got 2 bad rooms out of 16 beds! Bad mojo in our unit.
  5. Hypovolemic Shock

    We would fill first, then use a more alpha-adrenergic pressor like noradrenaline. Dopamine tends to be used as an addit to norad, and only when the norad is maxed out and still ineffective. The reason you would want vasoconstriction in hypovolemic sh...
  6. Endotracheal tube securement

    We use cloth tapes tied in a particular way. There is some movement to get the EndoTrachead Attachment Device (ETAD) in our ICU which is an adhesive thing - like Comfeel with a zip tie on it.
  7. Question about ICUs

    In my ICU (in Newcastle, not far from Sydney but more 'rural' even though we are a level 6 ICU), we do CRRT and the dialysis nurses do haemodialysis. Hope that helps.
  8. night shift (7 on 7 off) 12 hour shifts

    That's what our docs do. They do three days and four nights, each 12 hours, then 7 off, then four days and three nights, then seven off, every month. I dunno, it seems to work for them. They don't make the nurses do that, though. I think 7 nights in ...
  9. Intra-Abdominal Pressure Monitoring

    We do it when indicated; we have a set of criteria for indicating IAP monitoring. Every trauma gets it, some abdo surgeries and some other stuff that I can't remember - it doesn't happen all that often. I had a guy with a nasty intra-abdominal sepsis...
  10. Have you had this happen to you?

    It has happened to me; we use bite blocks to ensure the patient can't bite, and do qshift tape changes during which we reposition the tube and the pilot line. Good idea to check for snaggleteeth and other hazards to the tube though. If you have arte...
  11. Please help...got ICU interview and I'm sooooo nervous!

    This might sound weird, but... pretend, just during the interview, that you ARE confident. Imagine what a confident person would say and how they would act, and do that! It got me a job in ICU, despite my being cripplingly shy. I was asked a clinica...
  12. Consider going for MD?

    Is that that dodgy Oceania University thing in Samoa? Where you do your theory on line for the first year or something and then you organise your own clinicals? Yeah, they advertise in our Aussie journals too, but they say RN to MBBS (B Med/B Surg, a...
  13. My mum had a miscarriage between my brother (now 23) and my sister (now 20). She had two doctors seeing her in the ED. One was all concerned with the paperwork and the dispo. The second pulled a chair up to the bed, sat net to my mother and held her ...
  14. biased workplace!!

    I know some hospitals prefer new grads in ICUs because they haven't learnt any 'bad habits' yet, and can be moulded into the very model of a modern major ICU nurse. I personally think a bit of experience is a good thing prior to going in to ICU - but...
  15. A Cert IV in australia is actually a certificate 4 - the IV is roman numerals, not an abbreviation. Cert IVs come from our technical schools. Don't worry, IV meds are only given by nurses in Australia too! Good luck Matt, sounds like the working visa...