Should Student Get the Dead Baby From the Morgue?

mstigerlily · Oct 21, 2005

In my second semester we were assigned a patient on a morphine drip/comfort care who died during our shift. We suctioned the guy's mouth then turned him to the side. 20 minutes later went back and there was no noisy death rattle anymore, just silence. He looked yellow and waxy. My friend and I stared at each other. Finally I said, "He looks...different."

We told the RN taking care of this patient and she said, "Oh I should have let you know sometimes suctioning them or moving them around is the trigger that finally kicks them off" GREAT, thanks for telling us.

We d'cd the foley (quite nasty as he was severely dehydrated) and the IV. We brushed his hair and washed his body and dressed him so the family could view him. No one ever came. So we bagged him, tagged him and brought him down to the morgue. It was quite the experience, one I've not had to do again. But we did it.

Dead babies though...yes, more disturbing. But if the baby was already in the morgue, he/she was most likely already bagged. So I think the instructor was right. Technically it's part of her job. Sounds like the instructor gave her an out if she wasn't up to it. It never occurred to me to refuse this task. Nursing school is kind of like boot camp and lots of nursing instructors believe in tossing you into the pool to see if you can swim.

This has been bothering me since Tuesday, so I finally decided to start a thread. At my clinical site a student is working on the oncology floor. A woman had cancer that had spread everywhere, and she was 17 weeks pregnant. She and her husband decided to terminate the pregnancy (I don't know the reason why), and they would not release the fetus to the funeral home, so it was frozen in the morgue. This student was assigned to her for the clinical time, and the parents of the fetus decided that they would release the fetus, but they wanted someone to go down and get it and bring it up to them so they could get some closure. The instructor told the student "Well, you don't HAVE to go, but you really should do it since you're the one taking care of her." This is our first clinical, and I know that nurses have to see and do all kinds of things that are difficult to handle, but this seems to me to be asking too much of a student. Am I way off base? I guess the instructor gave the student an out, but it was implied that she would be doing a bad job if she didn't go to get the baby, and the instructor is grading the student......I might really be off here, but I wondered what others thought.

fergus51 · Oct 21, 2005

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect students to be exposed to what real nurses are exposed to. That's why they are there isn't it? I do think someone should have gone with her and she shouldn't be forced into it if she finds it too disturbing.

klone, MSN, RN · Oct 21, 2005

I don't think there was anything wrong with asking the student to do that. It was also nice that the instructor gave her the option of not doing it.

And yep, I've also done postmortem care as a student, too.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Oct 21, 2005

Someone should go with her to get it.

rn/writer, RN · Oct 22, 2005

This is not something a nursing student should be asked to do by herself.

For her sake, I would hope someone--the instructor, the patient's staff nurse, the chaplain--would walk her through it. We wouldn't think of having her take on other tasks for which she was not prepared. At the very least, she should have been talked through the prodecure of retrieving the body from the morgue and checked out to see if that part presented any problem. Then, once she had the baby back on the floor, she should have been accompanied by (or been allowed to follow) someone with more experience in handling such a delicate situation.

Which brings me to my second observation. If the instructor was of the "sink or swim" ilk (and we don't know if she was or not), that's hard enough on the student, but there's at least a limited justification for it. But what of the poor parents? Don't they deserve better than to have this electric moment delivered to them in the hands of an uncertain--and possibly freaked out--student?

It would have been good to have the student accompany the patient's staff nurse into the room with the baby and observe as she helped the parents to both receive and then relinquish their child. Many times babies are dressed in special garments or buntings that are specially made for even the tiniest fetuses. Nurses need to know how to handle the baby so that the body isn't unnecessarily damaged.

The parents should be warned that the body will feel cold and hard to the touch. Delicate fetal skin can deteriorate so they should also be prepared for any visible damage. They should be given the opportunity to have pictures taken. Then comes the hard part of giving the baby back.

This is a challenge to a seasoned nurse. A student should participate and learn, but to put her in charge of such a sensitive situation is grossly unfair to both her and the baby's parents.

elkpark · Oct 22, 2005

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect students to be exposed to what real nurses are exposed to. That's why they are there isn't it? I do think someone should have gone with her and she shouldn't be forced into it if she finds it too disturbing.

As usual, I agree with Fergus.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Oct 22, 2005

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect students to be exposed to what real nurses are exposed to. That's why they are there isn't it? I do think someone should have gone with her and she shouldn't be forced into it if she finds it too disturbing.

I agree.

(my message is too short so I'm typing in this.)

prmenrs, RN · Oct 22, 2005

There is absolutely NO WAY you should have been asked to go to the morgue for any reason whatsoever. Man, that just frosts my cookies!! If you wanted to accompany an RN or the instructor when they went, that would have been fine. And I would have expected that you might want to help mom and dad while they had the child, but having a student go to the morgue alone is SO inappropriate--if I were the program director, that instructor would be suspended or terminated!

When I was a supervisor, I never let a new nurse take a pt (adult or child) to the morgue alone (in that hospital, the Security Guard goes too); I wanted an experienced nurse along, usually me.

Going to the morgue is a "rite of passage", I guess, but not one to be taken too early in one's career. Esp not while a student.

Phew. Sorry for the tirade!

mariedoreen · Oct 22, 2005

Had I been the instructor I would have asked the student how she felt about it. If she was up to it I would have walked down to the morgue with her, assessed how she was handling the situation, and then dealt with that accordingly. If she was not up to it I would have let her know that was okay, while also pointing out to her that it would be a necessity for her at some point in her career.

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Oct 22, 2005

There is absolutely NO WAY you should have been asked to go to the morgue for any reason whatsoever. Man, that just frosts my cookies!! If you wanted to accompany an RN or the instructor when they went, that would have been fine. And I would have expected that you might want to help mom and dad while they had the child, but having a student go to the morgue alone is SO inappropriate--if I were the program director, that instructor would be suspended or terminated!
When I was a supervisor, I never let a new nurse take a pt (adult or child) to the morgue alone (in that hospital, the Security Guard goes too); I wanted an experienced nurse along, usually me.
Going to the morgue is a "rite of passage", I guess, but not one to be taken too early in one's career. Esp not while a student.
Phew. Sorry for the tirade!

:yeahthat:

Agree 100%.

mstigerlily · Oct 22, 2005

I didn't get that this student was "in charge" of the situation or asked to talk to the parents - just bring up the baby from the morgue. Of course a student could not be expected to handle a situation like dealing with the parents alone. And yes, someone to go with her to the morgue would be nice, preferably the instructor to walk her through things. But it's not unreasonable at all to ask her to be involved by simply bringing the baby up to the parents.

This is not something a nursing student should be asked to do by herself.
For her sake, I would hope someone--the instructor, the patient's staff nurse, the chaplain--would walk her through it. We wouldn't think of having her take on other tasks for which she was not prepared. At the very least, she should have been talked through the prodecure of retrieving the body from the morgue and checked out to see if that part presented any problem. Then, once she had the baby back on the floor, she should have been accompanied by (or been allowed to follow) someone with more experience in handling such a delicate situation.
Which brings me to my second observation. If the instructor was of the "sink or swim" ilk (and we don't know if she was or not), that's hard enough on the student, but there's at least a limited justification for it. But what of the poor parents? Don't they deserve better than to have this electric moment delivered to them in the hands of an uncertain--and possibly freaked out--student?
It would have been good to have the student accompany the patient's staff nurse into the room with the baby and observe as she helped the parents to both receive and then relinquish their child. Many times babies are dressed in special garments or buntings that are specially made for even the tiniest fetuses. Nurses need to know how to handle the baby so that the body isn't unnecessarily damaged.
The parents should be warned that the body will feel cold and hard to the touch. Delicate fetal skin can deteriorate so they should also be prepared for any visible damage. They should be given the opportunity to have pictures taken. Then comes the hard part of giving the baby back.
This is a challenge to a seasoned nurse. A student should participate and learn, but to put her in charge of such a sensitive situation is grossly unfair to both her and the baby's parents.