Elenaster

I was inspired by the looonngggg "you know you're a nurse if..." thread on the Nursing Humor forum, and thought we could do one based on our specialty. Here's a few I came up with and please feel free to add on! You know you're a Neuro nurse if: Your...

If a bone flap was removed to allow more room for the brain to swell, it's very possible there is an area with no protection to the brain tissue itself. This procedure is often resevered as a "last ditch" measure for hydrocephalus refractory to other...

I wasn't implying anything and my post certainly wasn't directed towards you. Just trying to add my perspective as an experienced neurosurgery nurse and educate those that are new or unfamiliar with that particular scenario. Additionally, the propofo...

I agree that propofol is a far superior drug for providing sedation in ICU patients under most circumstances, however it should be noted that some patients experience a sustained drop in blood pressure that limits its use, particularly if they have i...

In my experience, barbituate comas are still used, but only as a last ditch effort for cerebral hypertension (not hydrocephalus) refractory to other treatments, such as mannitol in addition to what Gwenith stated. Barbituate comas have some very nega...

As a former Neuro ICU nurse and a current PACU nurse, I hope I can offer some well-rounded advice: 1. Tell your staff that neuro patients and EVDs are not that scary and with a little training, they can care for this population with confidence. 2. Fi...

I've been working weekends only in ICU for close to 2 years now. The plan at my hospital pays us for 80 hours in 2 weeks when we only work 60 (3 days one week, 2 the next). The majority of people that do it are parents with young children and student...

Erin, I had the exact same problems working nights that you described and after a year, I told my manager that I either had to get on days or I was going to have to leave. I just couldn't physically do it and I think that there are some of us whose b...

Having worked both ER and ICU, I have to say that paying diff to ICU and not ED is certainly unfair. I also have to agree with the part of the argument that most all hospital nurses work very hard and each area has differing aspects of the job that a...

We haven't experienced a shortage recently, but our peak aneurysm season is over and we've had far more crani for tumor and head injuries lately, so I haven't been giving as much Nimodipine. As for Nicardipine, I attended a presentation last summer b...

Rach, Because this woman was still conscious, I would assume that she was put on a morphine gtt or some other comfort measures were taken to ensure that she would have as peaceful death as possible. I'm sorry you were so freaked out, but consider tha...

Good thinking NurseyBaby - that's why we make sure the EVD is leveled properly every hour and with any movement of the patient. Also you wouldn't want to LP a patient with a suspected or confirmed spinal cord injury because it's very important to mai...

Bluesky, Sorry about the old bat projecting her misery onto you. Just ignore her as best you can and see if you can get one of your co-workers to swap assignments with you. Try to do it when you're going to be working several nights in a row so you c...

Greetings Paul! Here in the USA, you can come right out of nursing school and work in the ICU, with a training period that varies from 3 to 6 months. ICU here is highly specialized and units are generally broken down by specialty like neurosurgery, c...

I've seen DNI patients stay on Bipap as long as a week, but IMO it seems like torture. Just watching a tachypnic patient trying to blow off CO2 on one of those things is exhausting. Longer-term use of bipap also results in some freaky ABGs.

Great answer CritterLover! I might add that Nipride is extremely potent and any sort of "accidental" bolus, even a really small one, could bottom out the patient's pressure, and trust me, you do not want to ever have to code someone in the scanner.

After feeling the crispy-fried burnout of working very high acuity ICU, I've been looking into a job in OB/GYN recovery. It's a weekend position, which is what I work now, with some call thrown in. I'm assuming since it's weekends only, there won't b...

Thanks for your reply. I'm afraid I worded the "I might get bored" part of my op rather badly. What I mean is, I may get bored if it's very slow. If I have a steady stream of patients to recover and then take to their rooms all day, I'll be perfectly...

Well, he was sick as "you know what" the first day (Friday) and was requiring a truckload of Morphine and Ativan (both gtts) to keep him chilled out. Problem was the gtts kept dropping his pressure, which wasn't great to begin with, so we had to chas...

okay, i had to revive this thread because we had a patient over the weekend who was admitted with a blood glucose level of 2290 38 y.o. with 8 yr hx of severe etoh abuse that decided to replace booze with kool-aid and apparently went through a 5lb ba...

I'm an ICU nurse and I frequently took MRSA and VRE patients when I was pregnant. In my opinion, I would have rather taken care of those that were identified and in isolation so I would take proper precautions. What I hated (and still do) is finding ...

It depends - I've seen patients with seemingly minor injuries become complete quads, while others with more severe insults recover quite a bit of function. I don't think that you're necessarily giving the family false hope, just to be sure and paint ...

That's a really good protocol. Ours varies, but we're mostly q1h on an insulin gtt and q4-q6h on sliding scale, which our critical care docs are going more and more towards managing glucose in the chronic patients with NPH and custom sliding scales. ...

My other patient: Admit from PACU, no es habla englais, take to MRI, patient goes bonkers, versed vacation, still moving around, scan sucks, trek back to unit.

Got report, listened to rounds, turn down sedation in bolted GSW head, doesn't tolerate, turn gtts back up, talk to family, give report.