Hydration!

One of my former instructors told us this story: She was with a student taking care of a CHF patient admitted for pneumonia. The patient needed some oral suctioning but the Yankauer didn't get much. The instructor told the student to keep working on it and left. The student remembered the fluids lecture and thought "increased fluids will help motility in clearing the airway" and increased the IV rate (patient was NPO for whatever reason). When the instructor came back an hour later, the patient was foaming pink froth at the mouth (but suctioning quite easily as the student pointed out). The instructor about had a heart attack. :eek:Moral of the story: hydration is good, as MunoRN pointed out but each patient has their specific needs.[/quote

True! Critical thinking to the rescue. This truly separates the novice from the experts. It will take time but it can be learned. I struggled in school and now I truly understand when nurses would say to have a balance between big picture thinking vs task oriented thinking