daisee

I recently posted on the Op Room site regarding a rising incidence of neck/shoulder injuries in our theatre unit that now has six people out on 'special' duties or leave. (Occurring over the past 12 months among scrub/scout female staff, new and experienced, 30 - 40 y age group.) No one specific incident can be pinpointed. So far the replys come from general ward areas grappling with individual large patients or unwieldy devices. This, however, for us is a new phenomenon, and I wonder if anyone else out there has noticed the same occurring in a reasonably conscientious unit. I am considering the new lifing techniques - the hovermats and slippery slide sheets we use for patient transfer - and the pulling on the handles of heavy metal instrument trays to place on setups or shelves etc. Anyone else think of any recent innovations that might alter our patterns of injury?

ShirleyM, thanks for answering. What were they doing? Thats the point: there is no one thing. Our unit is +++occ health & safety conscious, and it seems this injury is replacing ye olde back strain. I'm interested that some people mention the 3 litre fluid bags, we do a few of them for pulse lavaging dirty wounds, but the people involved haven't have done many of those. Pulling heavy metal instrument cases off shelves and trolleys by handles might be one repetitive action; perhaps hauling people around on hovermats and slide sheets is transferring stress to our shoulders from our lower backs. Women mechanically are weaker in upper body strength.

Dear Kathy, we do 'brain death' harvesting in the twilight zone of the wee small hours with surgeons who swoop in from their various specialties in different institutions in the nearby major city and depart clutching their booty (We are a major regional center on the main highway about two hours away) Besides the fact that harvesting takes up the emergency theatre, with the likelyhood of on call staff get dragged in - leaving holes in the following shifts - and you know you're entrusting precious organs to an ice bucket on a notorious freeway, I, as scrub RN, was 'priveleged' to witness the liver dr fighting with the cardiac drs over clamping times and seniorority, not unlike vultures fighting over carrion. Scissors were waved, voices were raised, people stormed out and back, all while I thought it probably inappropriate to call them to order, although if it happened again I probably would. All I did was report to my nurse manager, as did my scout, and we got debriefed by the transplant co ordinator strssing the wonderful nature of the gift of donation etc etc... After the bunfight departed (and continued elsewhere) I was left with the gutted carcass of someone's 30 year old daughter who had gone to sleep one night and never woken up (?cerebral bleed I recall). I've done harvesting previously prior to brain death legislation when the race was on to get the kidneys ASAP, and saw the skin incisions made as the ECG began to waver, I must have been younger and more resilient. I know I won't be leaving my body to the contemptuous ministrations of disrespectful and ungrateful people.

We now have four RNs put out to pasture with neck/shoulder injuries all within the past year. Two were part-time, two full-time, ages late twenties to late thirties, and no specific specialties - busy regional trauma center. And from time to time my right shoulder niggles too! (and I reckon I'm fairly fit and sensible...) Anyone else experiencing an upsurge in this injury? Any thoughts? Is this a new phenomenon related to ?extensive Casecart usage, or altered lifting procedures, or something else introduced relatively recently ...

God bless'em. We tried Aesop for a little while to hold laprascopic cameras, but he/she/it required too much respect, not to mention precise ennunciation, for a surgeon with places to be to be bothered with. And there was simply no satisfaction to be had from swearing at it either... Will we need more theatre nurses to prepare Penny? Who will factor in all the potential complications for each surgery? Will Penny believe what her creator, Lord and Master says? Or, disillusioned, evolve into the Terminator scenario... Somehow - call me a Luddite - I don't think so dearies. Perhaps they'd be better off working on motorised walking frames and ceiling harness' so I may be kept working, as our illustrious treasurer Mr Costello desires, into my 70's. Humanity: where the rising ape meets the falling angel

My mum, 92, partially blind and pretty deaf, fell and broke her right arm last week. She lay on the floor till my dad, also 90 but fit as a bull found her. He rang around all the 'help' services, as they always told him to call, but finally discovered noone could help. Finally he rang 000 and got an ambulance. In hospital in a you-beaut swish-bang high-tech renal ward(?), blind, deaf and in pain, she sat, unable to fill out her menu let alone feed herself. The nurses seemed totally unaware of her difficulties, despite 15 min blood obs etc etc and were surprised to discover she wasn't just ignoring them! Is nursing entropying? Just how indifferent are we becoming ?

Are you suggesting you don't do a count for some patients depending on size? Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I thik once you start choosing who you'll bother to count for you'll unleash pandora's can of worms. So maybe you won't lose that sponge in a neonate, but at least you can stand before the judge and say 'I always do a count and inform the surgeon of the results ... That's been my policy and crutch and I suspect would be AORN's also. Cheers Why do we keep reinventing the wheel?

Why are you buying your own scrubs? Are you washing them yourself at home? Are they fresh and clean every day? Is this a language problem and these are not the tops getting covered in blood, vomit, and any other possibly infectious material? Is this an infection control issue? I certainly wouldn't want to wash my work stuff in with the family's ...

we were threatened with 12 hour shifts recently I think due to the imminent nursing shortage. It has been discussed in this forum previously, and in the operating theatre pages. I think it comes down to personal preference and stamina as to its benefits.

I find this all very hard to credit. I MET Chip (or was it Dale) many years ago, and he/she/it struck me as a sensitive new-age squirrelly chipmunk swimming-with-the-dolphins kinda mammal. Is this change in behaviour akin to the canary down the mineshaft? We have possums in our neck of the woods, and the cats like to hang out on the verandah of an evening and share a smoke with them, cheers

Brilliant! What a fabulous piece of writing! I never realisied squirrels were so gung ho - or is the pressure of modern life creating 'squirrrel road rage'? Reckon you could work that into a short story and sell to a magazine. Look forward to the next installment. Cheers