Ever leave work crying? - page 2

I have felt that way..........................Rest and recoup today.

renerian

Used to leave work crying alot ... then cut my hours substantially on my unit & pick up per diem in another unit (non-patient care) and find my stress level has gone down. We are all human -- we can only do so much at a given time ... can only push so much. I don't worry about doing things faster -- I just try to do my best and give safe care. That's it. You did great. That intern should have come up instantly when you reported a 50/30 bp. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see what was happening. The patient should never have been transferred from his ICU -- he wasn't stable. The intern should have intervened immediately -- you did great. Have more confidence in yourself and stop doubting your abilities. And, if you need help, ask for it, without feeling incompetent or guilty. Your skills and assessment kept this patient alive. Document...document. And keep up the good work.

And please be kind to yourself and take care of yourself.

Comes with time and experience, doesn't it? You are your patient's best advocate.

You are doing the best you can. You are a caring person, that is why you cried. I am glad to see someone like you as a nurse.

Hey CCU,
WE have all been there. I have been at this for 5 years and I can relate. You did all you could, you notified the doc and he chose what to do. Where I work the RN's wear badges that have a blue background, the docs have a red background. Whenever one of my friends feels like they missed something, and they did all they could I say...."Hey, you wear the blue badge!" " So remember you are an RN, you did what you were supposed to do. The rest is up to the doc, and God.

Remember, you are new at this experience comes with time, chalk it up as a lesson learned and go from there!

Had a similar incident happen to me not too long ago,,,,,,,,,,,Pt was having an MI with TOMBSTONE elevations...called MD on call and he brushed it off like it was no big deal......said to call Attending in the am........pt ended up dying....I just documented my butt off to cover my butt. I worked too hard to get my RN license to have some LAZY MD risk it being taken away!!!!!!!!!!

Nope.

Walked on water?????

I had a very similar incident with a GI bleeder in the unit. He ended up needing 6 units of blood, ffp, vasopressin IV push etc etc. They quickly become a very busy patient when they go bad.

My only difference from your experience is I called the GI guy and he came right in. He was excellent. Thats the difference b/w a crummy doc and a good one.

New Ccu RN,

I had a similar experience when I started as a new SICU RN. It took me four hours of phone calls to finally get my sedation and my lines from the resident. Like your situation, the intern was hopeless (person could not grasp the rationale for an ng tube on an intubated patient)... by the time I got someone to finally listen I was slamming the phone receiver down in frustration... the patient did make it. But remember, sometimes all the persistence in the world may not pay off and your voice may fall on deaf ears...pray, document, and take comfort in that God knows you did all you could to save one of his children.

I can't say that I've ever cried after work, but I have had to take a deep breath every now and then.

What I'm wondering is why this patient had an intern taking care of him. Why do you call the intern instead of the supervising physician? Isn't their a resident or better yet an ATTENDING physician on call? At my facility we only have family practice residents, so being in a CVSU, I don't get much interaction with them, but how is a nurse to know who to call in a situation like this if the resident or intern isn't doing their job? Maybe this is a whole other discussion, but I always wonder how other nurses dealt with this ordeal. In my situation, I'm kind of thankful that I don't have residents and interns, and that I have a somewhat decent working relationship with the surgeons. They know if I calll 2 or 3 times that they're is definitely something wrong, but on the same end they are sometimes lazy, and don't want to deal with things. So that leaves you with a lot of responsibility. Many times we have to do it on our own. At least the intern came to do the intubation. Sounds like you were persistent enough that the job was done.

Pete495