blondie

For clarification, it's a t-tube for biliary drainage. I asked a couple of other nurses last night, and there was some confusion. The frst nurse said she didn't know, and the second nurse said she flushes toward the patient because that's what she was told to do by yet another nurse. She said she was concerned that she might be flushing unwanted stuff back into the patient, but that's what she was told to do. In my mind, "forward only" means with the flow of drainage, and that would be away from the patient. I'm on my way in now, so, hopefully, I'll find out.

Please help. Tomorrow I will be assigned to a patient with orders to flush the T-tube with 5 cc normal saline. The order reads "flush forward only." Forward? Which direction is this? After I unscrew the two parts of the drainage tube, do I flush the smaller tube (the other end would be in the patient), or do I flush the larger tube (the other end would be in the drainage bag)? This situation does not occur too often in LTC. Thanks!