Check for Bowel Sounds?

During phone report to the receiving nurse on an ortho floor to whom I was discharging my pt,the nurse tried to lecture me about giving water in PACU without listening for bowel sounds first -I was already a bit irritated with him anyway -he is one of those nurses who interrupts YOUR report,because he has his own agenda -rather then waiting until the end to ask anything you haven't covered. He also said "and you've done all of the postop blood work?"....ah,no....we don't do that here... (I felt like adding "this is where pts recover from their ANESTHETIC,we are not a postop nursing unit"**) but because I try to be professional,I don't say it.

** of course,if we have an ICU case, blood is sent off for a full panel of testing immediately postop, and anyone who is ordered blood work for PACU is done...but not routine b/w for the floor (that's not done until the next am anyway)

Anyway,we don't give a lot of water to drink here -we're pretty conservative -but we DO give po Tylenol 975mg with water very frequently - this is well after the gag and swallowing reflexes have returned.I did a little survey here yesterday,and no one seems to check for bowel sounds (I am talking about non-abdominal surgery/fairly short procedures ~ 2 hours). Anything abdominal is NPO in here -except for mouthcare with iced water spongettes. And I'm fairly certain that nurses in the Post Recovery Lounge don't check for bowel sounds before giving a snack to those pts going home...

What is the practise in your PACU?

Thx,
jen