Nurse's intuition

Nurses General Nursing

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Have you ever had a premonition that a patient was going to code (and been right) without any obvious symptoms, abnormal labs, or vitals?

You bet your bippy...happened ALL the time when I worked in hospice.

I also give kudos to the pediatrician I used to work with when I was a peds nurse...if I called him and said, "I really can't give you any evidence to prove it, but I think this kid is gonna crash", he'd come in, and inevitably, something bad would happen.

Smilin': I had a hospice case that rattled me like that...feels terrible. (I was going to abbreviate your name "SBE", but that made me think of subacute bacterial endocarditis...not a good nickname!)

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I absolutely agree with trusting those "gut feelings."

I had a patient who was a frequent flyer...tell me one day that,"This admission is different. Most times I can see myself going home, but this time I can't! I'm sooo afraid to die!"

Bless her heart! She was such a brave, sweet woman who had been through so much...and she did die a few days later. It was a little surprise, as she had beaten the odd countless times before. I can still see her sweet face & recall the exact tone of her voice. She was only in her 40s. ;-(

We need to pay heed to those "gut feelings" or intuition, whatever you want to call it...

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Specializes in CV-ICU.

I trust my gut feelings all the time when I'm caring for/about someone. When I was a poor student nurse, and even though I couldn't afford it I had a feeling I should call home; the Uncle who raised me had had a heart attack that day. My intuition is quite good about my patients and I have pretty good rapport with the docs so they listen when I tell them I'm worried about someone.

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UHmm...have had "that feeling and was right "..it IS creepy... recenly had a dream that MY hands were chopped off. Woke up so distressed because being a nurse,your hands are your most vauable tool..one night that very same week a young mother MY age was brought in from a roll over MVC...her hands had been amputated....:eek: I strongly believe nurses have THAT intuition. I pray that I get to use it for the patients GOOD outcome..

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CMERN: THAT is strange!!!

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Most definitely. In EMS it happens all the time. Two patients with identical problems, one you don't worry about--the other you just know. Or when you find yourself following a slightly different procedure than usual, because instinct tells you to. And it saves their life.

It's the fighters that make it too--no doubt the ones who say "I'm gonna die" seem to always find a way despite our best efforts.

But then there's the other side, and I have funny story along that line. I was working as a med. assistant in a small clinic. A patient who was ill, but more of a hypochondriac than anything, came in with chest pains. His vitals, ekg, everything were the same as they always were.

"I didn't say goodbye to my wife this morning." "I know this is it, I'm going to die." he kept saying. We continued to offer tlc,and tried to get at the root of his pain problem.

Suddenly, the electricity went out and the room went black. No one moved, for fear of sticking someone, etc. As the lights came back on, the computer in the next room played it's turning on microsoft harp music.

"I really died, I hear harps!" the patient yelled. "It's okay, just don't look into the light!" the doctor yelled back. Theree's no cure like the laughter cure. ;)

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This has happenned to me several times. Also, 3 different times I have almost asked a pt who thier onocologist was that cared for them, and something held me back. All 3 of these pts had not been dx w/ CA yet, and I found out later that all 3 was diagnosed.:stone CMERN, that is wild! That would have scared me!!

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That 'little nagging voice' is generally correct...ignore it at your own peril. ;)

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Originally posted by Stargazer:

The who in the what now, baseline?

TNTC....Too Numerous To Count

__________________

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The way I was taught nursing, there was no such thing as nurses intuition. Rather there are numerous extremely subtle variations in patient behavior, appearance, reactions, etc, that lead you to know something has changed and bears attention. I think that's why you turn into a room, just to check. Something was seen and assessed, probably unconsciously, and demanded a look.

Too often I hear nurses denegrate the assessment part of patient care when it is the one thing that distinguishes us from other healthcare professionals. Nurses are assessing and reassessing their patients constantly. Even when you aren't thinking about it. Once you learn how to assess on the fly, you do it as automatically as you breathe, to everyone.

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I said this before, the hair stands up on back of my neck sometimes. That means Code soon.

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Originally posted by baseline

TNTC....Too Numerous To Count

Aaahh--thank you! That was driving me nuts!

Dr. Kate: to me, nurses' "intuition" is really a catch-all phrase we use to describe the subjective feeling we get about a patient after processing all known information both consciously AND sub- or unconsciously. Much of that is going to be assessement, whether you know you're doing it or not. That's why I take my "intuition" so seriously.

Maybe the term is misleading, because it sounds so New-Age-y and intangible, but to me, it's based on something very concrete.

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