Okay, so I'm a pre-nursing student who wants to work in the NICU someday. Well, a couple days ago a group of pre-Nursing students-myself included-talked about looking forward to Nursing school. I said that I couldn't wait to be a NICU nurse. One pre-nursing student replied, "But you'll have to watch babies die!" And I answered, "Yeah, but I'll be able to save babies' lives as well."
Another pre-Nursing student, who I find to be smug and abrasive, stated, "Nurses rarely save lives." ***** I wanted to slap him for making an ignorant statement.
So, is his statement true? Do Nurses "rarely" save lives? How many lives have YOU saved?
I just turned off my patient's PCA with a basal rate yesterday. Why? The first thing I noticed in the am was her slight change in mental status. Blood pressure was slowly creeping down and I had to turn her 02 up. BP was 100/50 and 02 sat was 93% on 3 L O2 when I turned off the pump. It was 93% on 2L, so I had turned it up and BP was generally in the high 120s-130s range. Patient was way too sleepy. She couldn't stay awake. On top of that, she was taking seroquel. After I turned it off (at the end of the shift), I text paged the PA that her dose needs a decrease given the patients vitals and mental status. The PCA was discontinued a couple minutes later. If someone wasn't at the beside (aka me and the night shift RN), this could have gone on all night.
kanzi monkey
618 Posts
This is true if by "doctors" you mean "Akira504" and if by "lives" you mean "a 3-year-old thread on an online forum"