Learning Thread: Med/Surg

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I don't know if you guys have read the thread in the learning one in the ER section. I think is cool so I thought maybe we should start one here too. When ever you learn something new in your floor or interestiong that nurses should know post it here. We can all learn something from it. We can make it a triva questions like the ER has done.

Ok I will go first this is an easy one:

You have a pt with type 2 diabetes in the hospital with a serious illness and has been controlling her diabetes with oral meds. Now you are giving this pt Insulin. Family is freaking out. Don't understand why now you have to give their family member insulin. What do you tell them?? Why is the pt on Insulin??

Specializes in Private Duty Nursing : 1 year.

Last response was from last year? Gonna get my questions ready! Keep posting here!

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Specializes in Transgender Medicine.

Here's one for everybody. This is really embarassing for me, too... I swear to God Almighty no one ever taught me this, and I learned it today b/c I screwed it up. Setting: Your pt has an NG tube that is hooked up to suction, and they have a small bowel follow through scheduled in radiology. They go down for the test. They come back up 4 hours later and radiology tells you that they need to continue the test in another couple of hours because the pt's body isn't moving the oral solution that they drank quickly enough through their system. This pt has A LOT of abd distention going on and puts out about >1000cc of NG drainage per 2 hrs. So what do I do? I get him comfortable in bed and hook him back up to suction. I explain the need to continue the procedure later...

Well apparently you aren't supposed to attach a pt to suction until the small bowel follow through is completely finished! Can't help it. Nobody has EVER told me that. The only reason it came up was b/c I called radiology to ask how much solution the pt had drank (small) so I could add it too the I&O records. They freaked out on me, yelling about how that can potentially suck out the solution. I had figured after being down there for 4 hrs, the stuff should have been well past the stomach, but oh well. Won't do that again. Actually, I will. Because I don't feel comfortable letting my pt wait for many hours unhooked when he has so much drainage per hr building up. I actually called the surgeon to ask him about this b/c I was worried, and he said if the pt became nauseated when the tube was clamped to then just attach him again. Guess what? 30 minutes unhooked = puke. *Sigh* Another day...

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Specializes in ER and Med-Surg.

That sounds like a great idea, but isn't petroleum jelly flammable with oxygen? Our hospital doesn't use it, we usually use KY jelly because it's water-based instead for everything. So, I will try that. Thanks for the tip!

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Specializes in MED/SURG.
I thought in CO poisoning that the skin usually never presents as cyanotic, but cherry-red or pink and flushed?

This is what I was taught as well.

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