I had the chief resident today give me an a** chewing because I had turned off the Pitocin of a pt who had persistent episodes of hyperstimulation. I had only turned it down a few minutes before he came in, so I had not informed him of this. He asked why I turned it off, and I showed him on the strip the pts ctx pattern. He looked at it and said, "Well, there's no fetal distress." I told him I understood that, but the pts uterus was not getting any rest between ctx. He then proceeds to tell me, "You need to call me before you do anything like this again, this is my pt." It took everything I had to keep from saying, "No, she isn't your pt, she's our pt, and it is my license on the line should something happen at your wanting to misuse the Pit." I didn't say anything though. So, I restarted the Pit, but only after I saw the pt had resting tone, and I started from the beginning, 2mu/min. She handled that okay, but when I got up to 6mu/min, she started having the ctx one on top of the other again. I pointed this out to the resident and he said, "Keep upping the Pit until there is distress, then you can back down on it." OMG, my tongue was almost bleeding by this time! Well, lucky for me, but not for the RN who followed me, this was right at change of shift, so I'm not the one having to deal with the aftermath. Which hopefully, there won't be one.
You know, I know I am new to this whole L&D experience, but when I have my preceptor and my RN educator agreeing with the actions I took, I can't help but think my actions weren't that far fetched.
I'm sure I left tons out, but I think I covered what I wanted to.
