Close calls...IS there a "guardian angel or delivery God?"

[mother/babyRN]

last night there was, at the beginning of my night shift, only one patient in labor....no big deal. looked like a little uterine irritability and occasional "real" contraction...she had just arrived and was telling the evening people "hurts a little" she was 34 weeks and had a h/o ptl with her first child. had been on the unit earlier in the day with similar vague complaints. was never checked...sent home...now i get report ( i am the only delivery nurse on ) and just as the evening crew is walking through the door, the patient tells us she thinks she has to move her bowels and feels a little pressure. still not looking too uncomfortable, but the eve nurses and i, veterans of delivery, all look at each other...we'll hang around, they say....we try to beep the doc.. the heck with him, he isn't calling back and forget the policy of us not checking someone under 36 weeks without prior notification from the doc. we can't find him....he calls back in the midst of the exam...from the huge eyes of the eve nurse, i know it isn't good....7 cms with bulging membranes....too late to ship...we are going to have a baby. an early baby....doc arrives, and eve nurses stay. i have only them for back up..thankyou delivery god! arom by the doc...large bloody..abruption on a 34 weeker....good outcome...baby with some resp problems...had pt come in any other time, who knows what would have happened? i see and experience this more often than not...couple of winters ago during a blizzard, we had someone in labor crash big time during (of course) the night shift. no way anesthesia or any or people on call could get to the hospital on time...but, by some miracle, they had come in just an hour earlier to take a stabbing vic to the or...they were just ready to go and the placement of the knife in the victim was in a non lethal place. he had missed all his crucial organs so could be bumped for our section....baby saved.....i was just wondering how many of you would like to share some stories of miraculous saves and cooincidences that led to them...we had no patients one entire night shift and the incoming doc called by phone to tell us he was on the way. unknown to us, outgoing doc left a few minutes early as it wasn't too busy for the last 10 hours. that puts us roughly at 0630. as i hung up from incoming doc (on his car phone, to which i do not have the number), in comes a pt via ambulance-gravida 7 para6....she is in labor. i look at her pants and ask her what color they are..she tells me white. they are totally red. we have an abruption. i call the call room ( i then find out no one is there and pp tells me the doc left early). nursery has just sent all their babies to the moms. they are now my backup. we have the foley, iv and that stuff done within 5 minutes. incoming doc walks through the door with a mean look on his face. i tell him i swear it just happened...just so happens this early anesthesia is there and ready to go. from decision to incision 12 minutes. good outcome...but if it was any earlier...who knows? for the miracles that happen to us, i have gotten into the habit of thanking "delivery god?" what about all of you? i know you all have similar stories to relate.....and probably not just in ob...seems so much more pressing and crucial in ob somehow, at least to me...

[mother/babyRN, RN]

If I were you, I would write up a lengthy complaint and send it to the director of the place (if it is him then send it to him AND the board of directors). There is absolutely no excuse for being treated in that manner. I would absolutely NOT let him get away with that without calling him on in it in a written form. I feel as though we should apologize for such a dunderhead.....

[SmilingBluEyes]

Yes, what mother/baby rn said. I agree! I am SO VERY SORRY ABOUT YOUR LOUSY treatment. NO excuse for it!

[sandstormsdust]

I know this is no thread for this but since we're here we're here....

I have tried to make a complaint at this Centre... it is a callaboritive effort between a number of medical and healthcare agencys.....

Everyone I have spoken to (ie - media relations personal, office personal etc... ) has said there is no board of directors.

I'm trying to get in contact with the personal who hired the doc for the position in the first place. But that will be with LOTS AND LOTS of luck.....

[Debbie, RN]

Yes, I do believe in the "delivery God", actually I believe in God himself but I had an experience once where a VBAC pt. in response to the CRNA's question "Are you comfortable?" stated "I just feel like something is ripping open", when she pointed to her lower left quadrant - sure enough she was taken to the OR immed. and was experiencing uterine rupture from her old scar. Good outcome, baby got good Apgars, did fine, pt. was very grateful that the staff had the knowledge to predict what was going on, excellent display of teamwork, etc. Whew!! That was scary!

And Sandstorm, as for your awful experience with your delivery, I have witnessed a patient "firing" a Dr. right there on the unit, pt. was in early labor with ROM, physician was ugly to her, having a bad day (although this Doc frequently chewed out Nurses and was reprimanded several times by the Chief of Medicine-with privledges suspended for the way she treated Nurses I might add)! Anyway, the patient fired her right there on the spot, the staff had to kinda scramble to find someone to do her delivery but we (Nurses) were so proud of that pt. She said she was lousy to her on almost all of her prenatal visits and this was it - the straw that broke the camels back.

We need to remember that we are the patients advocate. I have told more than one Doc that the patient had a complaint about how they or their collegue treated them. Hopefully, it sunk in.

[judy ann]

Sandstorm, I am so sorry that you had such a lousy experience at such a wonderful time of your life. If you can't report the doc to his clinic, can you report him to the hospital? The medical staff there might have some influence on him. That whole story is awful!!!

So far as thr God of delivery--Yes, She exists. We call her the Big Finger. The Big Finger comes down and pecks you on the shoulder and says "Pay attention. I've got a good one for you!" We often see the "first peck" happen to new nurses. The look on their faces is priceless!:kiss :wink2:

[Flo1216]

I wish all of you wonderful OB nurses were there for my mother when my brother was born. She was 40 at the time and was breech the entire pregnancy. She wanted to discuss a c-section with her doctor but the doctor refused to see her.He said there was still time for the baby to turn. She was 9 months pregnant, footling breech with a hx of precipitious labor (3 previous deliveries all under 2 hours). She never saw a doctor, only a midwife. She was labeled high risk the entire time...I didn't think midwives were allowed to handle high risk. The midwife told her that if the baby didn't turn by 42(!) weeks they would do a non-stress test. She was also told that if she went into labor before then and the baby didn't turn that she should call the hospital and then they would call the doctor and she would come in and have a c-sec. Well, at 41 weeks, she had some bloody show and she called the hospital and they told her to come in and that they would be waiting for her. Well, she gets there and they hadn't even called the doctor yet. She was changing into her gown when she felt something hanging out of her. She was too pregnant to see so she called my grandmother and my grandmother said it was the cord. So she told the nurse, " The cord is out, " and of course everyone started freaking out. They rushed her to the OR so fast that they were banging the stretcher into the walls. They STILL didn't call my mom's doc because they wanted to " wait for the house physician, " Put it this way, " 25 minutes later they were paging overhead, " ANY doctor,OR- STAT" No one came. In this high risk OB clinic, not ONE doctor responded to the overhead page.(the hospital was virtually empty and there were no codes that night, we found out later) They didn't call my mom's doctor till 15 minutes after the cord prolapsed(and it was a COMPLETE prolapse). There were about 20 people standing around helplessly in the OR and there was nothing they could do, except try to keep the baby off of the cord. No one ever thought to put my mom on a monitor. When my mom's doc finally arrived and did the section and got my brother out, he was gray. He had apgars of 2,3. He was intubated and then airlifted to a trauma center. He is 6 now but is physically like a 1 month old. Luckily he smiles and laughs. My point is that this could have all been prevented but my mom had no one to advocate for her and I wasn't in nursing yet. I wish I had known then what I know now.

[shay]

Ohhh, God...I am physically ill after reading Flo's story.

Flo, I hope your mom sued the pants off that doc. I hope that doc paid DEARLY for his mistake and incompetence. I hope she went after every slime ball doc in the joint who DIDN'T come to the OR when the nurses paged overhead. God bless both your mom and your little brother.

Sandstorm, I agree w/canoehead and motherbabynurse and the rest of the folks who said your treatment by your doc was totally inappropriate and NO, you were doing nothing wrong. If the idiot was stupid enough to ask you WHY YOUR LEGS WERE SHAKING (which is a VERY common occurrenc in labor), I seriously question his competence.

Finally, yes, I believe in the delivery God. Sometimes he's been in my hands guiding out the baby's head, sometime's he's been in the nursery in the form of the pediatrician who was off call who just 'happened' to be there when we had an uuuuuuuuugly stat section. Sometimes he's in the form of a much kinder partner in an OB practice who shows up for the delivery when the meaner, colder partner is blessedly tied up in GYN surgery downstairs....

[Flo1216]

After the incident a lawyer approached my mother and offered to take her case pro- bono. We also have a medical expert that is testifying for free because she was so disgusted by what happened. The trial starts in September. One of the things that they will bring up is that my mother had 3 ultrasounds and the 3 one showed that the cord was not in a favorable position. No one ever bothered to look at it. Not to mention the fact that footling breech and post-term pregnancies increase the risk for cord complications. By the way, we found out that the doctor who refused to see my mother has 9 lawsuits pending against him. One of them was because he gave pitocin to a woman who had had 3 previous c-sections and her uterus ruptured. Her baby died.After my brother was born, this doctor retired. The scary thing was that when he was deposed by the lawyer, he admitted that he never met my mother and that he didn't know she was high risk or that she had a hx of quick labor. It was all in the chart, which he never bothered to read. He admitted to signing off on everything though. He was also asked that if he had to do it all over again, would he have scheduled a c-section and he said , " No, because the baby had time to turn," It's doctors like this that make malpractice insurance premiums so high.

[shay]

OMG....that doc is so freakin' scary. Uuuuughhhh...that just makes me queasy.

Well, I'm so glad you guys are suing the pants off him. Take him to the cleaners.

[Flo1216]

We are not just suing him..we are also suing the midwife. The midwife was supposed to be the liason between my mother and the doctor. She knew she was high risk and did nothing. I almost think she wanted to deliver a breech baby. She also told my mom a lot of things that were not true, such as if my mom stood on her head the baby would turn. Of course, she denied it in the deposition. She is also suing the hospital because they labeled themselves a high risk ob clinic yet after 25 minutes of overhead pages, not one single doctor responded.By the way, my brother's nurse was recently in the ER of that hospital and there was a sign saying " If you should develop complications during your pregnacy or are considered to be high risk, you will be referred to a facility that can better accomodate your needs, " What a coincidence.The nurses are being sued for not calling the doctor and "waiting for the house physician, "Not to mention they never did a FHR. The only ones not being sued are the surgeon and the RN who held the baby off of the cord for 25 minutes. He was a male RN and probably the only one with the strength to hold him up that long. If it were not for him, my brother would be dead. By the way, during all of this, my mother went into shock and we almost lost them both. I know that there are a lot of good doctors and nurses out there, but this was an example of a bunch of lazy asses. Inaction is just as bad as the wrong action. I would rather have a doctor scream at me and be able to sleep at night than jeapordize the life of an innocent baby.

[NStephenRN]

I read your post with tears in my eyes. That was the most blatant example of incompetence I have ever heard. I can't imagine how that doctor sleeps at night. Not to mention the midwife. My heart goes out to our family.

[NStephenRN]

I read your post with tears in my eyes. That was the most blatant example of incompetence I have ever heard. I can't imagine how that doctor sleeps at night. Not to mention the midwife. My heart goes out to your family.