What would you do (PACU)?

Specialties PACU

Published

Hi guys,

Today was my first day off orientation. Lucky for me it was for the whole unit a day from H***! One of those days where the charge nurse is still trying to be there for you while she's doing charge, triage and taking care of the stork code from the ED!

So needless to say, backups were hard to find. I had a post C/S w/ a BG of 356. Called MD, was told to give 10 units insulin. Fine, I go to the close med room (in orientation I was told that that was the fartherest we could leave the room, as it is a 1:1 situation). No insulin stocked there. (don't let me even start on how the med rooms' Pyxis aren't stocked equally!). So I started calling folks. No one was available to get the insulin from the other room for me. I even stepped a few steps outside the rec room and it was like a ghost town. No one to be found.

So my question is... what if this was a REALLY critical glucose? The MDs and techs don't have access to the Pyxis machines. Would it be prudent to leave your fresh post op pt for a few minutes to get the med, or who else would you call?

Thanks so much!

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Never leave! Use your chain of command. Start with co-workers and go up. If you have to call your unit coordinator/manager, do it. That client is your first responsibility. You might try calling pharmacy. Hope things ended well and your client recovered without any further complications. I strongly encourage you to follow up with the issue of not having the supplies you need to do your job. Hang in there and may God bless your hands at work.

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Specializes in L&D.

I would not leave the fresh c/s patient in pacu to get the med. You need to insist that your charge nurse or another nurse either come watch the patient while you get the med, or she gets the med herself for you.

How did you get up getting the insulin for the pt?

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I had to wait until the hour was up (it was like 35 minutes until I could get it). My charge nurse was unreachable, and I called the front desk and asked the sec if she saw any nurse to please have them call me (we have those portable phones). It was so frustrating! I will have a chat w/ our manager tomorrow when I get to work. This was a Sunday, so she wasn't there then. I just kept thinking, if this patient was crashing, how would I, as a brand new nurse to this unit, handle it? I could not get ANYONE to help. The one nurse I did see during that time said she had a pt getting a repair and didn't have time to find the insulin.

I just think that both med rooms should have all the same meds stocked. It makes no sense to me that they don't, esp since we only can safely go to the one when we have a pt in PACU!

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Specializes in ICU, CCU, Trauma, neuro, Geriatrics.

Where I work we dial 5700 an any phone in the facilty and are able to overhead page in an emergency.... or if we cannot find the person we need in a timely fashion. Maybe your facility could use that simple system. I know on weekends it is effective as I supervise then. It took me twice today to get hold of my DON when I had to isolate my unit because of viral and probable influenze infections. I wasn't the only unit with that problem, and she was able to locate a dacron swab for the possible influenza patient.

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I getcha snow. But I don't see a BG at that level to be that much of an emergency to overhead like that. Maybe if the pt was symptomatic, but she wasn't. She WAS a brittle diabetic, but showing no other sx at that point. I just felt like it was a fine line, deciding whether to make a huge fuss about it or not.

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