Hello all-I found your site while doing a search for standard of care in the ER. I'm going to be the first to say, the only nursing experience I have is as a patient as I have just been accepted to a program. I will introduce myself more later, but currently typing this with one hand do to surgery yesterday (which is how I found this site)
Anyway, on Sunday I was getting ready to make dinner & handed my husband a sharp knife by handing it handle out. You can probably guess what happened next. I wanted to wait & see since I'm not one to head to the ER unless I think I need to go by medic. But this time, I knew the cut on my index finger was DEEP (arterial blood was squirting out). We have several major hospitals near us, we chose the closest because the bleeding was so heavy (soaked 3 bath towels in 15 mins)
So we arrive at the ER, lots of blood, taken immediately to a room, BP check and questioned by a few different people (a nurse and some others, not sure what they were, never saw them again). Nurse hands me a gauze pad and tells me to hold my hand over my head and keep the pressure on it. She goes over my medical history and then leaves. The clerk comes in to collect my $150 copay. About 20 mins have now passed with me spurting blood & everyone that comes into the room saying "wow, you're making a mess". 30 mins, doc comes in, pours saline on the cut and say "holy crap, we need a hand surgeon, I'm not touching that" and leaves, saying he will go page one. Now we've been there an hour, I've soaked my entire sheet, gown (they removed my shirt). I'm doing the best I can to keep my arm above my head and hold pressure, but I'm feeling sick, clammy and very dizzy. A radiology tech comes and when I get to the xray area, she tells me to take the pressure off and remove the gauze pad. I warn her I am bleeding a lot she says "I have to xray without the pad" so I remove it and blood immediately sprays all over the room. her clothes, etc. She gets upset, takes the xray while yelling at the other tech that "she made a huge mess, ugh I guess I will clean it up"
Then she wheels me back to the exam room. The ER is practically empty except for me, another guy who cut his hand and a teen with a sore throat, an ENORMOUS woman who wants pain meds because her knees & hips hurt and a bunch of toddlers crying and screaming (they are there with the "sick" people who bring the entire family) The nurse ONLY comes to check on me when my husband, who sees the large pile of bloody towels and then she finally says "I guess you want something for pain" to which I say "No, I want to stop bleeding!!". She sends in an aide who can only say "no, must keep pressure" and grabs my injured hand trying to twist it to put a new gauze bad, more blood squirts on HIM and he ends up scraping my leg with something in his pocket (leaving a 16cm cut on my thigh) and I yell in pain & he runs out of the room. Noone comes to check
Now we have been there for 3.5 hours and the bleeding has not stopped, even with pressure & holding it above my head (I can't do it forever I am getting weak). I feel like I'm going to pass out, I'm very thirsty and the nurse comes in with a percocet & a cup of water. My husband asks how much longer & what are we waiting on. She says "Oh, they're just working through the others (sore throat, hip/knee pain and other cut finger - they are treated first because they are there first, she says. He says "even with all of this bleeding?" and she shrugs, checks my BP again (which has dropped to 85/56 from 142/90 when I arrived) and leaves. My husband goes back out to the desk & is told they took the OTHER guy to surgery so it'll probably be 12+ hours longer wait for me. A physcian's assistant overhears and says "I'll sew her up but you need to have a surgeon come check her first" So I've gone from emergency, to ignored, to a dr afraid to sew me up because it's too deep to a PA saying she will do it.
My husband finds someone else who pages the surgeon, who leaves surgery to come check me. He asks how long I've been bleeding like that and everyone makes excuses. He VERY annoyed. He checks my cut & says "you've cut an artery, a bunch of nerves and the tendon, you have to have surgery but I'm in the middle of sewing the other guys thumb on, you should have been first!" and gives me a nerve block and instructs the PA how to put loose sutures in and tells me to be in his office at 8 the next morning (Monday), I'm immediately booked for surgery which has been done.
Is this the standard of care for an emergency? Should I have gone to urgent care instead? We went to the ER because it was 5 pm on Sunday and everyone else was closed. I thought bleeding like that IS an emergency, not a sore throat or something. I feel really traumatized. I was in HORRIBLE pain the entire 5 hours we were there, the surgeon said I lost A LOT of blood (the only way he knows is because I just had a CBC a week ago at a checkup and I guess he is able to figure it out from the blood he took from me?) He is SO upset that I wasn't given any pain med to take home, no IV, no blanket and wasn't kept warm with the blood loss, no antibiotics, nothing in the ER) The surgery took nearly 4 hours to repair because it was such a mess. I feel REALLY terrible and sudden lost my hearing in my left ear when I felt like I was fainting (and did lose conciousness for 2-3 mins until the PA came in and flicked me or something, it is all a nightmare to me.
I don't want to be a nurse if this is the standard of care (which I am pretty sure it is not, I have been in other ER's for bleeding kidney cyst and was cared for VERY well in the ER and as an inpatient, this was a different hospital, a foofy suburban hospital. I am still feeling a sense of shock over all that happend
I can't respond to all of the questions about every little detail. You can believe me or not, at this point it doesn't even matter. My only reason for posting here was that I arrived at this site from a google search about was this normal care. I only wanted to know was what I experienced the norm for my injury. Yes, I have been in the ER a few times but never for an injury. I am a renal patient awaiting transplant and have had one instance where my potassium dropped very low, I was admitted through the ER, kidney stones & cysts bleeding, both of which are very painful. I went to the ER because my kidney doctor sent me there to get checked after routine blood tests, she thought the lab may have made a mistake, so she was being careful. The lab didn't make a mistake & she was right in sending me as I was admitted each time.
I only have this thread because I just found the site & joined. It was my first posting, I was just accepted to nursing school before I cut my finger so when I googled & found a nursing site & read through some of the posts of other people asking questions, I thought I was doing the right thing.
The nurse who reported the other nurse was the one who discharged me from the ER. She had only been there an hour and was the supervisor & was the one who was yelling at the others for not triaging correctly. I wish she had been there when I arrived, I wouldn't have suffered for so long. I received a phone call from her today checking on me and she apologized again for what happened.
My goal has nothing to do with "getting money" or "malpractice" or anything else I've been accused of. I was just trying to find out if it what I experienced was the typical treatment because I feel really upset about it and I know that personally I could not have left a patient like that so I am questioning my decision to even become a nurse.
I never said I was a specialist in anything - when I filled out the profile, I thought the question was asking what I would like to specialize in and what I was familiar with. Sorry I filled it out wrong.
I was discharged me on the advice of the surgeon who said that arteries in the finger will clot & stop bleeding if the cut is sutured shut. The PA did the suturing because the surgeon was still working on the other person. From what I've been told, both by the surgeon who did repair my injury & a friend who is an ER dr, this was all that could be done in the ER. The ER dr paged a surgeon because he felt my injury was too severe for him to repair. They did not repair the artery because it was "mangled" (the words of the surgeon who fixed my finger by repairing the tendons and nerves).
Yes, I know I could hold pressure on it myself, that is what I was doing. For 5 hours. That is a VERY long time when you are in pain, scared, feeling dizzy & terrified that the injury was so bad that they had to call a surgeon. I was I was concerned about the amount of blood lost because of the same reason. I am already waiting for transplant, stupid me thought that losing blood was as big of a concern as vomiting, sweating, diarrhea as far as my electrolyte balance. I was hospitalized for three weeks in october partly because of anemia so severe I had to have iron pumped back into me through an IV because I have cysts in my kidneys and liver that bleed a lot - I didn't even KNOW that I was losing blood or bleeding at that time so can't you see why I was so worried about seeing that much blood come out of me in a short period of time and feeling like maybe I didn't make it clear? It was after that stay that I was convinced that applying to nursing school was the perfect job for me. The nurses & PCA's that cared for me then were the difference between life and death at one point. They constantly told my husband how much they enjoyed having me as a patient, how patients like me made them feel good about what they do, etc. Whenever I have to go to that hospital to see my doctor, I always make a point to go up to their floor to say hello & to make sure they knew how much I appreciated what they did for me.
THAT is why what happened to me on Sunday (at a different hospital) has been so upsetting and confusing. However, like I said, the only times before I had been in an ER was due to kidney issues, never an injury so I didn't know if what happened was normal or not.
What is it that you want photos of? My bloody hand? The puddle of blood by the ER door (because we came in the wrong door and I had to stand there for 30 seconds while someone opened it and let us in? My stitches? My damaged finger? How would any of that change what I've told you?
I never said I was hooked up to a monitor. I said they took my blood pressure and temp and those both show up on a monitor that the assistant wheels around. I'm not a nurse so I don't know what it's called. Instead of jumping all over me about little details, why can't anyone show any compassion and understand I might not know all of the technical terms or methods?
I don't know why everyone keeps asking me if I am going to sue the hospital or why legal stuff keeps being brought up. I never said that, I've only said that I want to make sure that what happened doesn't go un-reported. I would NEVER want anyone treated that way. You may not realize what it is like being on the other side, but it is very scary. After posting here and reading the responses I've gotten from people who are supposed to be in a helping & healing field, I can't even tell you how terrified I am of any upcoming medical procedures I have scheduled. I've never smoked, I don't drink, I've never taken street drugs & only taken drugs as prescribed. I am very careful with ALL of my medications and both my husband and I carry the list & doses of what I take for my health issues with us and on this occasion, I happened to have my medical folder with me because it was in the car.
I don't know why so many of you are being so cruel, calling me a troll and other names, picking apart every little detail and acting like I'm not even a person with feelings on the other side of this screen. I don't understand what you have to gain from that or what you think I have to gain by making up a story. Some say my "story" keeps changing, I don't know what you mean by that, I haven't changed anything, just tried to answer the questions you've asked in hopes that I might be able to understand why things happened the way that they did.
To those few of you who have experienced this type of situation & who greeted me with compassion & well-wishes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart - even if you don't know me, it matters a lot to me that you took the time to do that. There really ARE emergency rooms that make mistakes. It DOES happen and it's not always the fault of the "stupid patient" that comes in daring to bleed all over "your" clean sheets, mess up "your" exam room and interrupt your quiet Sunday afternoon shift and to dare "complain" because you told them to hold their hand over their head & keep pressure on it for five hours while blood dripped into their hair and all over their clothes, whose husband annoyed you by checking in every 45 mins or so just trying to make sure you understood how much blood there was and that it was STILL bleeding despite pressure and wanting to make sure you knew that the patient in that room was a renal patient who seems to be feeling sicker and sicker and shouldn't she be drinking water or something to replace the blood she is losing?
None of this was out of malice, revenge or anything else. I am not only in pain because of my injury, I keep asking myself over and over again what I did wrong to make them attend to a sore throat and someone who was only screaming for IV pain meds before attending to me, someone who was bleeding. Apparently I asked the wrong people in the wrong place and possibly chose the wrong career path for me.
I can't respond to all of the questions about every little detail. You can believe me or not, at this point it doesn't even matter. My only reason for posting here was that I arrived at this site from a google search about was this normal care. I only wanted to know was what I experienced the norm for my injury. Yes, I have been in the ER a few times but never for an injury. I am a renal patient awaiting transplant and have had one instance where my potassium dropped very low, I was admitted through the ER, kidney stones & cysts bleeding, both of which are very painful. I went to the ER because my kidney doctor sent me there to get checked after routine blood tests, she thought the lab may have made a mistake, so she was being careful. The lab didn't make a mistake & she was right in sending me as I was admitted each time.
I only have this thread because I just found the site & joined. It was my first posting, I was just accepted to nursing school before I cut my finger so when I googled & found a nursing site & read through some of the posts of other people asking questions, I thought I was doing the right thing.
The nurse who reported the other nurse was the one who discharged me from the ER. She had only been there an hour and was the supervisor & was the one who was yelling at the others for not triaging correctly. I wish she had been there when I arrived, I wouldn't have suffered for so long. I received a phone call from her today checking on me and she apologized again for what happened.
My goal has nothing to do with "getting money" or "malpractice" or anything else I've been accused of. I was just trying to find out if it what I experienced was the typical treatment because I feel really upset about it and I know that personally I could not have left a patient like that so I am questioning my decision to even become a nurse.
I never said I was a specialist in anything - when I filled out the profile, I thought the question was asking what I would like to specialize in and what I was familiar with. Sorry I filled it out wrong.
I was discharged me on the advice of the surgeon who said that arteries in the finger will clot & stop bleeding if the cut is sutured shut. The PA did the suturing because the surgeon was still working on the other person. From what I've been told, both by the surgeon who did repair my injury & a friend who is an ER dr, this was all that could be done in the ER. The ER dr paged a surgeon because he felt my injury was too severe for him to repair. They did not repair the artery because it was "mangled" (the words of the surgeon who fixed my finger by repairing the tendons and nerves).
Yes, I know I could hold pressure on it myself, that is what I was doing. For 5 hours. That is a VERY long time when you are in pain, scared, feeling dizzy & terrified that the injury was so bad that they had to call a surgeon. I was I was concerned about the amount of blood lost because of the same reason. I am already waiting for transplant, stupid me thought that losing blood was as big of a concern as vomiting, sweating, diarrhea as far as my electrolyte balance. I was hospitalized for three weeks in october partly because of anemia so severe I had to have iron pumped back into me through an IV because I have cysts in my kidneys and liver that bleed a lot - I didn't even KNOW that I was losing blood or bleeding at that time so can't you see why I was so worried about seeing that much blood come out of me in a short period of time and feeling like maybe I didn't make it clear? It was after that stay that I was convinced that applying to nursing school was the perfect job for me. The nurses & PCA's that cared for me then were the difference between life and death at one point. They constantly told my husband how much they enjoyed having me as a patient, how patients like me made them feel good about what they do, etc. Whenever I have to go to that hospital to see my doctor, I always make a point to go up to their floor to say hello & to make sure they knew how much I appreciated what they did for me.
THAT is why what happened to me on Sunday (at a different hospital) has been so upsetting and confusing. However, like I said, the only times before I had been in an ER was due to kidney issues, never an injury so I didn't know if what happened was normal or not.
What is it that you want photos of? My bloody hand? The puddle of blood by the ER door (because we came in the wrong door and I had to stand there for 30 seconds while someone opened it and let us in? My stitches? My damaged finger? How would any of that change what I've told you?
I never said I was hooked up to a monitor. I said they took my blood pressure and temp and those both show up on a monitor that the assistant wheels around. I'm not a nurse so I don't know what it's called. Instead of jumping all over me about little details, why can't anyone show any compassion and understand I might not know all of the technical terms or methods?
I don't know why everyone keeps asking me if I am going to sue the hospital or why legal stuff keeps being brought up. I never said that, I've only said that I want to make sure that what happened doesn't go un-reported. I would NEVER want anyone treated that way. You may not realize what it is like being on the other side, but it is very scary. After posting here and reading the responses I've gotten from people who are supposed to be in a helping & healing field, I can't even tell you how terrified I am of any upcoming medical procedures I have scheduled. I've never smoked, I don't drink, I've never taken street drugs & only taken drugs as prescribed. I am very careful with ALL of my medications and both my husband and I carry the list & doses of what I take for my health issues with us and on this occasion, I happened to have my medical folder with me because it was in the car.
I don't know why so many of you are being so cruel, calling me a troll and other names, picking apart every little detail and acting like I'm not even a person with feelings on the other side of this screen. I don't understand what you have to gain from that or what you think I have to gain by making up a story. Some say my "story" keeps changing, I don't know what you mean by that, I haven't changed anything, just tried to answer the questions you've asked in hopes that I might be able to understand why things happened the way that they did.
To those few of you who have experienced this type of situation & who greeted me with compassion & well-wishes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart - even if you don't know me, it matters a lot to me that you took the time to do that. There really ARE emergency rooms that make mistakes. It DOES happen and it's not always the fault of the "stupid patient" that comes in daring to bleed all over "your" clean sheets, mess up "your" exam room and interrupt your quiet Sunday afternoon shift and to dare "complain" because you told them to hold their hand over their head & keep pressure on it for five hours while blood dripped into their hair and all over their clothes, whose husband annoyed you by checking in every 45 mins or so just trying to make sure you understood how much blood there was and that it was STILL bleeding despite pressure and wanting to make sure you knew that the patient in that room was a renal patient who seems to be feeling sicker and sicker and shouldn't she be drinking water or something to replace the blood she is losing?
None of this was out of malice, revenge or anything else. I am not only in pain because of my injury, I keep asking myself over and over again what I did wrong to make them attend to a sore throat and someone who was only screaming for IV pain meds before attending to me, someone who was bleeding. Apparently I asked the wrong people in the wrong place and possibly chose the wrong career path for me.
So you mean to tell me your husband took a pic of the Dinamap? Because in one of your posts, you stated your husband was "taking pictures", and also stated he took a picture of the monitor. So you mean to tell me the tech sat there and let your husband take a picture of the Dinamap while he was getting your vitals? Did he get a picture of the vitals too?
So now the nurse who mysteriously reported the other nurse on your behalf was the charge nurse (or supervisor) who came on in the "middle of shift change" but was able to give a full account of the incident from beginning to end? And before you say it, I know you didnt "say" those exact words, but I find that hard to believe.
This is absolutely not the standard of care. Patients are triaged based upon seriousness of condition and THEN by time. It's never the other way around. Unfortunately, sometimes things get out of control - paging different specialties, waiting on them to call back/show up, other patients/families yelling for various things - - it's a chaos unlike any other when you work in an ER. Because of this - you have to be your own advocate or have someone with you to do this. I would hope that a situation like this would never, ever happen - and I'm so very sorry it happened to you. Please trust that it is almost never like that. It can be insanely busy but the sickest are seen first - period. Always remember that you are in charge of your care - - you make decisions, you make choices, and you always have the right to demand the supervisor in charge at that time or leave and go else-where. I don't advocate leaving - only because you can get worse - but remember you have the control. Again, I'm so sorry this happened - - it's really unacceptable and I would be calling the medical director of the ER and the nursing supervisor.
Thank you very much for saying this. My biggest concern was that it was something I did or didn't do that caused this to happen. I understand that ER's are busy, crazy places and that it must be very frustrating to have people come in who should have gone to urgent care or their family doctor. I've never had this happen to me before, but I've heard stories like this over the years. I'll even admit that sometimes I wondered if what they reported was as bad as they said it was. Until it happened to me. I've never said all nurses are bad, all ER's are bad or anything to that nature. I was just telling what happened to me and how upsetting it was. I considered leaving to go to another hospital (and heard another patient threatening to do so but she was upset because she wanted pain meds and they wouldn't give her what she wanted). I didn't know (nor did my husband) who to ask for or how to escalate it, even if it meant that they thought I was being obnoxious. I suffered in silence and I have already spoken to the admins of that hospital (they approached me) so I hope that means that how they decide which people to treat first will be changed or at least looked at. But thank you for your kindness.
So you mean to tell me your husband took a pic of the Dinamap? Because in one of your posts, you stated your husband was "taking pictures", and also stated he took a picture of the monitor. So you mean to tell me the tech sat there and let your husband take a picture of the Dinamap while he was getting your vitals? Did he get a picture of the vitals too?
So now the nurse who mysteriously reported the other nurse on your behalf was the charge nurse (or supervisor) who came on in the "middle of shift change" but was able to give a full account of the incident from beginning to end? And before you say it, I know you didnt "say" those exact words, but I find that hard to believe.
There was nothing mysterious about it. The shift changed at 9pm and that was when this nurse came on duty. From what I could understand, the shifts were 4 or 12 hours, I could be wrong. The nurse that was supposed to be taking care of me said she had been there since "this morning" and she was not there when I was discharged which was close to 11pm. Or at least, a different person was sitting in the seat she had been sitting in. The one who filed the report was a supervisor. She told me that when she was talking to me about how long I had been there, discharge info, making sure that I didn't want to stay and be moved to a room, making sure I understood what the surgeon had said, etc. I don't know how she knew the info she knew, don't you know? Don't nurses, drs etc talk to each other and tell what patients they are looking after and why when the new person comes into work to take over? That is how I guessed she knew. And she specifically said she was the supervisor and it was her that was yelling at the others when she came into work. I don't know the exact time, I just heard her yelling about triage and that they didn't do it right and that you don't take care of a sore throat before a bleeding laceration. I know she talked to the er DR and the PA who sewed me up but I don't WORK in an ER, I was the patient so I don't KNOW how information is gathered. I just know what she told me and that was later confirmed when I picked up my records.
If a Dinamap is a little machine on wheels that takes the temp & the BP and displays them on a screen, then yes, that is what I mean and yes, that is what my husband took a photo of. He got into the habit of doing that when I was hospitalized before and maybe someone didn't write down the info like they were supposed to and would ask me if I remembered what my BP was. Also, my kidney doctor asked me to keep a chart of my BP's (I take them at home with a wrist thing) because I have kidney disease and mine has gotten very low before because of a medication I take and I didn't know it was that low or how often it happened. The tech wasn't "sitting there", he was standing and had a folded paper in his pocket. He wrote down the BP & temp on the paper. And he didn't "let" him take a photo, my husband just took it when it popped up. Just like the new, good tech let him take a photo of my sutures before he wrapped them up and the PA let him take a photo of her suturing. Neither of them acted like it was unusual or weird and tech new tech even said that he himself had cut his finger the week before and took photos in the ER too. Who cares why someone does that? It helps me to remember and it was helpful to see that she put in 11 black sutures for the temp and when I came out of surgery, I have about 20 bright blue ones.
Well, I believe that their are EDs that are that bad. I don't believe the OP beacuse with each post, the story got more and more sensational. First she was bleeding profusely, then spurting blood with each heart beat, next time she was practically in shock, and, finally, she has friends in that ER (which she never mentioned in the other 5 rants). Every time someone points out an inconsistency, she adds something else to make her side of the story "more right."
Also, I honestly believe your story involving your dtr (and I know that when I get a migraine, I can't take any PO meds or else I will throw them back up)....and this is more of a comment in general, not really a response to that situation...anyway, why is it that an ED must give IV narcotics or it did not do its job?
I have a friend who is a nurse in that ER. She was at a wedding last weekend. She was not there. What is so odd about that? I also have a friend who is an ER doctor. She does not work at the ER. What is so strange about that? Why would I even mention that, neither has anything to do with what happened. I add things on because I am answering questions that you ask me. If I don't answer immediately, you all jump all over that too. I can't win.
I was bleeding profusely when I arrived, that's why I was there in the first place. I wanted to stay home and wrap it up but my husband pointed out the amount of blood all over the kitchen, my clothes and the hallway. This all happened in under a minute. I kept pressure on it the entire way to the ER. When I arrived, they took the cloth off of my hand to see what was wrong and of course, it started bleeding again. Then I soaked through the pad, the tech came it and pulled it OFF of my hand to put another one on, it started bleeding again. Then the ER doctor came in, took the pad off so HE could look at it, it started bleeding again. The xray tech did the same thing telling me she couldn't take "the pictures" with the pad on. I didn't state every single thing that happened every single second I was there because I thought this is a nurses forum and that you would know what things generally happen. I wasn't the one that said I was practically in shock, I said that I was bleeding a lot and they took my vitals when I arrived, then I calmed down and the bad tech came in a took them again and they were low. I felt dizzy, clammy skin, felt like I was going to throw up. All of these things you are accusing me of is exactly my point - you keep pointing out all of these things that couldn't have happened or never would have happend because maybe in YOUR ER they would never happen. That was why I was asking if what they did was typical or not and if that is how you're supposed to treat someone with my injury. Is it how you would have wanted to be treated or how you would have treated a patient, that's all I'm asking. I can see that no matter what I say, most of you have decided I made this all up for whatever reason. I've answered every question the best I can. I'm not a medical professional, I haven't even started nursing school, I'm just a regular person who maybe doesn't know the technical &medical terms for things. That doesn't mean I'm lying or anything else. I had general anesthesia with my surgery on Tuesday & strong pain meds, I might not get every single detail exactly perfect. I'm just glad some of you are able to never be wrong about anything, it's pointless for me to even answer or clarify because you just call me a liar, crazy or some other insult and it's not making me feel any better or helping, which is what I was hoping for and that's all. I am a real person with feelings. I hope you all feel good about yourselves for the things you have said to someone just asking for help
There was nothing mysterious about it. The shift changed at 9pm and that was when this nurse came on duty. From what I could understand, the shifts were 4 or 12 hours, I could be wrong. The nurse that was supposed to be taking care of me said she had been there since "this morning" and she was not there when I was discharged which was close to 11pm. Or at least, a different person was sitting in the seat she had been sitting in. The one who filed the report was a supervisor. She told me that when she was talking to me about how long I had been there, discharge info, making sure that I didn't want to stay and be moved to a room, making sure I understood what the surgeon had said, etc. I don't know how she knew the info she knew, don't you know? Don't nurses, drs etc talk to each other and tell what patients they are looking after and why when the new person comes into work to take over? That is how I guessed she knew. And she specifically said she was the supervisor and it was her that was yelling at the others when she came into work. I don't know the exact time, I just heard her yelling about triage and that they didn't do it right and that you don't take care of a sore throat before a bleeding laceration. I know she talked to the er DR and the PA who sewed me up but I don't WORK in an ER, I was the patient so I don't KNOW how information is gathered. I just know what she told me and that was later confirmed when I picked up my records.
If a Dinamap is a little machine on wheels that takes the temp & the BP and displays them on a screen, then yes, that is what I mean and yes, that is what my husband took a photo of. He got into the habit of doing that when I was hospitalized before and maybe someone didn't write down the info like they were supposed to and would ask me if I remembered what my BP was. Also, my kidney doctor asked me to keep a chart of my BP's (I take them at home with a wrist thing) because I have kidney disease and mine has gotten very low before because of a medication I take and I didn't know it was that low or how often it happened. The tech wasn't "sitting there", he was standing and had a folded paper in his pocket. He wrote down the BP & temp on the paper. And he didn't "let" him take a photo, my husband just took it when it popped up. Just like the new, good tech let him take a photo of my sutures before he wrapped them up and the PA let him take a photo of her suturing. Neither of them acted like it was unusual or weird and tech new tech even said that he himself had cut his finger the week before and took photos in the ER too. Who cares why someone does that? It helps me to remember and it was helpful to see that she put in 11 black sutures for the temp and when I came out of surgery, I have about 20 bright blue ones.
I tell you what, if I caught your husband taking pictures of me while I did my job, I'd had security escorted him right out the door. Taking pics (as well as video taping on your cell phone) are all evidence for building up a lawsuit. And if you are video taping or taking pics WITHOUT my permission, I would kindly asked for a visit from the big boys to give you a talking to. People don't just have a "habit" of taking pics of the staff and machines while someone is in the hospital unless there are other ulterior motives.
And to be honest, I didnt read all of your long winded response word for word, it seems like rambling to me.
Yes, nurses get ongoing and offgoing report, but each nurse needs to assess the situation for his or herself. As far as "don't you know", you tell me? Didnt you put in one of your posts that you OVERHEARD report about all the patients that were there? Then you have your answer. Still don't understand how the supervisor can file a report on your behalf, without even speaking with the nurses involved (and if you heard the YELLING, I'm quite sure she would have ask to speak to the nurse involved and maybe you overhead that as well). And just who did this supervisor report the nurse to?
I have read your posts, including the OP, and there are just some things I find hard to believe. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
And the more you come back to try to "clarify", the more things seem to be getting bigger, and more over the top.....
I've heard some good stories working in the ER, but this one is just.......
Specializes in Mental Health, Medical Research, Periop.
The staff will probably close this soon (it appears a staff member is reading this according to the list below, I could be wrong), but you have to expect an array of opinions from this site. Everyone is different and not everyone is going to say what you want to hear. I do not even know why anyone would think this was typical ER treatment (you really do not have to be a nurse to recognize poor customer service). But anyhow, you got everything you needed pics, names, times, chart copies, and info on how an ER is run. No need to keep defending yourself, it's most likely not going to change peoples opinions of you. Good Luck to you.
Whether a person's posts appear to have discrepancies or not, there are ways to request clarification and even express skepticism without using an accusatory or attacking tone. This is especially true in the case of someone who is not a nurse and who may not know all of our jargon or typical procedures.
In the future, please report posts that you deem to be troll-like or messages that appear to have ulterior motives. Taking someone on in the thread can lead to piling on a person who is a legitimate poster or it can result in usurping staff duties by chastising a mischief-maker. Neither is a good option.
To the OP: What you experienced is not the norm. I'm glad that you were able to find the hand surgeon who repaired your injury, and I hope that putting all of this into words (and having a number of people connect with you positively) has been cathartic and will allow you to feel a sense of resolution.
Best wishes with your kidney transplant and with nursing school down the road. I predict that your future practice will include great determination to see that your patients' needs are met in a timely fashion.
keikei
28 Posts
I can't respond to all of the questions about every little detail. You can believe me or not, at this point it doesn't even matter. My only reason for posting here was that I arrived at this site from a google search about was this normal care. I only wanted to know was what I experienced the norm for my injury. Yes, I have been in the ER a few times but never for an injury. I am a renal patient awaiting transplant and have had one instance where my potassium dropped very low, I was admitted through the ER, kidney stones & cysts bleeding, both of which are very painful. I went to the ER because my kidney doctor sent me there to get checked after routine blood tests, she thought the lab may have made a mistake, so she was being careful. The lab didn't make a mistake & she was right in sending me as I was admitted each time.
I only have this thread because I just found the site & joined. It was my first posting, I was just accepted to nursing school before I cut my finger so when I googled & found a nursing site & read through some of the posts of other people asking questions, I thought I was doing the right thing.
The nurse who reported the other nurse was the one who discharged me from the ER. She had only been there an hour and was the supervisor & was the one who was yelling at the others for not triaging correctly. I wish she had been there when I arrived, I wouldn't have suffered for so long. I received a phone call from her today checking on me and she apologized again for what happened.
My goal has nothing to do with "getting money" or "malpractice" or anything else I've been accused of. I was just trying to find out if it what I experienced was the typical treatment because I feel really upset about it and I know that personally I could not have left a patient like that so I am questioning my decision to even become a nurse.
I never said I was a specialist in anything - when I filled out the profile, I thought the question was asking what I would like to specialize in and what I was familiar with. Sorry I filled it out wrong.
I was discharged me on the advice of the surgeon who said that arteries in the finger will clot & stop bleeding if the cut is sutured shut. The PA did the suturing because the surgeon was still working on the other person. From what I've been told, both by the surgeon who did repair my injury & a friend who is an ER dr, this was all that could be done in the ER. The ER dr paged a surgeon because he felt my injury was too severe for him to repair. They did not repair the artery because it was "mangled" (the words of the surgeon who fixed my finger by repairing the tendons and nerves).
Yes, I know I could hold pressure on it myself, that is what I was doing. For 5 hours. That is a VERY long time when you are in pain, scared, feeling dizzy & terrified that the injury was so bad that they had to call a surgeon. I was I was concerned about the amount of blood lost because of the same reason. I am already waiting for transplant, stupid me thought that losing blood was as big of a concern as vomiting, sweating, diarrhea as far as my electrolyte balance. I was hospitalized for three weeks in october partly because of anemia so severe I had to have iron pumped back into me through an IV because I have cysts in my kidneys and liver that bleed a lot - I didn't even KNOW that I was losing blood or bleeding at that time so can't you see why I was so worried about seeing that much blood come out of me in a short period of time and feeling like maybe I didn't make it clear? It was after that stay that I was convinced that applying to nursing school was the perfect job for me. The nurses & PCA's that cared for me then were the difference between life and death at one point. They constantly told my husband how much they enjoyed having me as a patient, how patients like me made them feel good about what they do, etc. Whenever I have to go to that hospital to see my doctor, I always make a point to go up to their floor to say hello & to make sure they knew how much I appreciated what they did for me.
THAT is why what happened to me on Sunday (at a different hospital) has been so upsetting and confusing. However, like I said, the only times before I had been in an ER was due to kidney issues, never an injury so I didn't know if what happened was normal or not.
What is it that you want photos of? My bloody hand? The puddle of blood by the ER door (because we came in the wrong door and I had to stand there for 30 seconds while someone opened it and let us in? My stitches? My damaged finger? How would any of that change what I've told you?
I never said I was hooked up to a monitor. I said they took my blood pressure and temp and those both show up on a monitor that the assistant wheels around. I'm not a nurse so I don't know what it's called. Instead of jumping all over me about little details, why can't anyone show any compassion and understand I might not know all of the technical terms or methods?
I don't know why everyone keeps asking me if I am going to sue the hospital or why legal stuff keeps being brought up. I never said that, I've only said that I want to make sure that what happened doesn't go un-reported. I would NEVER want anyone treated that way. You may not realize what it is like being on the other side, but it is very scary. After posting here and reading the responses I've gotten from people who are supposed to be in a helping & healing field, I can't even tell you how terrified I am of any upcoming medical procedures I have scheduled. I've never smoked, I don't drink, I've never taken street drugs & only taken drugs as prescribed. I am very careful with ALL of my medications and both my husband and I carry the list & doses of what I take for my health issues with us and on this occasion, I happened to have my medical folder with me because it was in the car.
I don't know why so many of you are being so cruel, calling me a troll and other names, picking apart every little detail and acting like I'm not even a person with feelings on the other side of this screen. I don't understand what you have to gain from that or what you think I have to gain by making up a story. Some say my "story" keeps changing, I don't know what you mean by that, I haven't changed anything, just tried to answer the questions you've asked in hopes that I might be able to understand why things happened the way that they did.
To those few of you who have experienced this type of situation & who greeted me with compassion & well-wishes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart - even if you don't know me, it matters a lot to me that you took the time to do that. There really ARE emergency rooms that make mistakes. It DOES happen and it's not always the fault of the "stupid patient" that comes in daring to bleed all over "your" clean sheets, mess up "your" exam room and interrupt your quiet Sunday afternoon shift and to dare "complain" because you told them to hold their hand over their head & keep pressure on it for five hours while blood dripped into their hair and all over their clothes, whose husband annoyed you by checking in every 45 mins or so just trying to make sure you understood how much blood there was and that it was STILL bleeding despite pressure and wanting to make sure you knew that the patient in that room was a renal patient who seems to be feeling sicker and sicker and shouldn't she be drinking water or something to replace the blood she is losing?
None of this was out of malice, revenge or anything else. I am not only in pain because of my injury, I keep asking myself over and over again what I did wrong to make them attend to a sore throat and someone who was only screaming for IV pain meds before attending to me, someone who was bleeding. Apparently I asked the wrong people in the wrong place and possibly chose the wrong career path for me.