Most blood products in one shift, ethics

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  1. What is the most blood product you have ever given in a shift?

    • 0
      zero
    • 45
      1 to 20 units PRBC's
    • 6
      21 to 30 units PRBC's
    • 0
      31 to 40 units PRBC's
    • 4
      41 to 50 units PRBC's
    • 4
      51 plus units PRBC's

56 members have participated

Related to another thread I just read on blood transfusions, what is the most blood you have transfused in one shift?

My record, is forty plus units or so (this includes some FFP cryo, and platlets) over 70 minutes while in Angio taking care of an unstable pelvis with a grade 5 liver lac. That patient died within two hours.

Also, what are your thoughts on using large amounts of blood like that on clearly unsalvagable patients?

A funny note, is one of the things new hires from the floors have the hardest time getting used to, is giving a unit of blood over the space of a few minutes. Freaks them right out. Ummm,, shouldn't that go in over say four hours, with frequent temp checks? Answer, sure, you just start forty IV's and we will get right on that. grin.........

Craig

Specializes in LDRP; Education.

Most I've ever given in one shift is 8, and I think that is including one neonate as well as one mother who was bleeding out after severing the uterine artery during a crash C-section.

As far as "wasting" blood on a "clearly" hopeless cause, I guess I don't see anyone as hopeless, especially neonates. Neonates and infants are typically the most resilient. As far as adults, well, we've had several cases of severe hemmorhage in Labor and Delivery that I guess by all practical purposes shouldn't have made it, but they did.

It's never over until the fat lady sings.

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Specializes in medical/telemetry/IR.

I've only given 3-4 in a shift,

But look I've made 50 posts. Am I a senior member now?

I should get off my butt and do some work around here.

Don't worry I'm at home not at work.

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I remember a young-ish 45 yo man with a ruptured AAA....cracked his chest in the room and rode the bed to the OR....had a level one infuser on him....plus two blood pumps...I think it was 48 units of uncrossed before we got to the OR.....don't know how many more were given in the OR, except that I stayed through the surgery on a blood line and pumped everything they handed me. (Sans mask, cap or anything in the way of surgical attire-but no one else was gowned or masked either.)

Believe it or not, he walked out of the hospital two months later- aorta, heart, brain, kidneys and all else intact.

Had anyone asked me during the show, I would have said it was hopeless and why are we doing this.

It's so very easy during the efforts to say that it is hopeless and want to quit.....unless you happen to know the person to whom this is happening. The 45 year old was my brother's best friend...with whom we had eaten supper two hours before all this happened.

That last comment is purely incidental...I will do my utmost no matter what. That's why I come to work each day...to do my best for the patient.

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