The LEAST critically ill kid you've cared for in PICU :)

WoosahRN, MSN, RN · May 6, 2014

An ingrown toenail surgery. It wasn't my patient and I have no idea why they were even admitted much less to PICU.

Our neuro surgeons will not admit kids to the floor. They refuse. So we get everything including skull fractures with no bleeds (and not depressed fractures either). Basically we babysit them and discharge in the morning.

WoosahRN, MSN, RN · May 6, 2014

Three of the sickest patients I ever took care of were Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Horrible deaths and very, very quick deterioration. One went from talking to starting ECMO within 8 hours and was taken off support 12 hours after that. Dead within 24 hours of admission. I can understand those PICU admissions.

~PedsRN~, BSN, RN · May 20, 2014

LOL -- I'm a floor nurse, but have enjoyed reading these. We have our fair share of "stupid" admissions... the best coming in July when the new residents hit the floor running. Last summer we admitted a kid with swimmers ear. Why? Because it was accompanied with dizziness.

No ****, sherlock. :wacky:

NurseBedi · Oct 3, 2014

One of my intensivists has a saying, "if they can walk, talk(scream), pee, poop and eat.... time to ship them out!" The other nurses and I know in our PICU if the other intensivist is on, all we have to do is keep the door open to the screaming childs room during rounds and magically, transfer orders are written ;-)

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · Oct 9, 2014

I'm not a PICU nurse, but a hospital I used to work at had the policy that any child w/ a trach was admitted to the PICU. Well this one night the PICU was full, so I had an overflow pt in my adult SICU. I don't remember his dx but he was 15 yrs old, rock stable, sitting up in his chair playing with his Xbox all evening. No pain, on room air, didn't even have secretions he needed me to suction. I think I gave him scheduled meds twice and checked on him hourly...otherwise I was going around practically begging my colleagues for things to help them with. This kid was my only pt; I had the admit bed w/ no admits. That was an extremely long 8 hours!!

Pumpkinn · Mar 11, 2015

Not a PICU nurse but would transfer my fair share of "why was this kid ever in the ICU?" patients to the floor when I worked in the hospital.
I would say the most common one that I encountered would be kids with known seizure disorders who had a prolonged seizure at home or increased seizures and their parents brought them to a local community hospital. Said hospital would hear "child with seizure" and immediately sedate, intubate and transfer. They'd arrive to the hospital intubated so would buy themselves an automatic admission to the ICU, where they were immediately extubated and would usually start asking for food and toys. They'd be booked to transfer to the floor the next morning.

This happened to my son on Sunday, he had an 80 minute atypical febrile seizure. He wound up in PICU was extubated and sent to paediatrics. We were just discharged today.

prnmed · Mar 12, 2015

Sigh. Every one of our post bt-shunt/norwood sano babies who cry on the step down and turn blue. Get rapid response on the floor, sent to us, pop a paci in the kids mouth, swaddle and off to sleep with sats in the low 80's (normal for these kids). What irks us is that these kids CAN'T be left to scream for hours on end (yes, they will eventually code if they do) but they are ignored until they can't be consoled and then they bounce back to us, which totally stresses the parents out. We don't have an in between unit and sometimes these kids bounce back and forth multiple times within a week or two!

Totally hear ya, but man you just can't trust a BT shunt patient!