Burn Codes in shower and Defibrillation

[Caroline Keith]

Hey there burn nurses!

I feel dumb asking this question, and it's just for my own knowledge. I started Burn ICU training but ended up going to Cardiac ICU, so I never experienced this issue. If you're doing a burn shower (hydrotherapy, however you like to call it) with a patient and they code into a shockable rhythm, can we defibrillate safely? Obviously we would dry off chest quickly to apply pads, but the table we have is metal. The floor is some sort of rubber, but water can some times puddle if you're not careful. I know we have to ground ourselves and not touch the patient, but is there something else we have to do? Or can we let it rip? I'm not even going to be near burn patients for years now but I can't stop thinking about it!!

Thanks!

Caroline

[marienm, RN, CCRN]

Our hospital has said that it is safe to defibrillate on our shower table.  The table is padded but like yours has metal railings.  Our plan is the same as yours--dry off the chest to apply pads.  For burned skin, though, we'd need to use paddles and it would be really difficult to do this on our table without touching the table itself (and without any part of the patient touching the metal parts of the table).  If a patient is becoming unstable in the shower room, we get them back on their regular bed and back to their room as quickly as we can.