Nurse knowledge and Ibuprofen vs. Tylenol - page 3

What...I think this could be an interesting thread. Not only are these types of threads interesting and sometimes funny but they teach.

The winner of the my stories of things I've observed RNs doing during work is my famous wound change story. You would think that it would have been while I was working but it happened while I was actually a patient.

It began when the nurse came to change my wound vac dressing which was a deep lateral left knee wound from an infected surgical scar. They did the dressing post surgery and it had been on for 5 days. When the RN took off the clear film she then positioned her hand at the top of the sponge and it looked as if she was positioning her hand to a good grip as she was going to just rip it off...WAIT!; what are you doing I said calmly as I guided her hand away from my knee.

She explained to me that her theory was to just rip it off so it wouldn't hurt as much similar to ripping off a band-aid...she actually said that. I asked her how many wound vac dressings had she changed. Her answer was shocking; she had changed many and no one had complained. Obviously she hadn't changed one on an RN.

I instructed her to get sterile saline and then I would show her how it's done. It took us a little over 20 minutes to soak the sponge out because of the depth of the wound. If she would have ripped it out the resulting damage of the wound bed would have been very bloody (not to mention the pain I would have experienced). It did hurt, but not as much as it could have. I made her promise to use sterile saline in the future when warranted.

I did go to the DON and tell her what happened. I felt I had to. The DON assured me that the nurse wouldn't be punished for it but educated. If a hospital is doing wound vac dressings I believe all the RNs need to know how to change them under various situations. I know that many of those types of dressings are not deep but the majority of them are that I've seen.

It's astounding how many little things RNs need to experience to learn. There are many trial and error types of learning going on. An RN can't know everything when they first start but need help from experienced nurses to learn.