JenICURN

We're having more and more pts come straight from the OR, especially at night--they'd rather send them to us than staff the PACU adequately! Annoying and a danger to pts, especially since these patients are rarely 1:1.

Sometimes, the most moral thing to do is to withdraw care. When you've got a patient who's on the max amount of pressors, high-level vent support, continuous dialysis...when all of their organs have shut down, and the only thing keeping their body alive is the machines, and there's no chance for any kind of recovery; when their heart keeps stopping and they have to be run through the whole ACLS protocol, including multiple shocks, compressions that break ribs, etc; when there's absolutely nothing left of the person that once was there. Continuing care in that situation is nothing more than torture.

Just out of curiousity, do you know what happens with babies that were born out of the hospital (homebirth, in the car on the way to hospital, etc)?

I'm not sure what kind of action could be taken against a nurse with bipolar or ADHD--mind talking about what you've gone through? For the record, I have bipolar and OCD.