ccnurse

I am a CCU nurse, and no we are not allowed to intubate. The only people that intubate at our codes are the ER docs. I was a medic for 10 years and have extensive experience intubating but am not allowed to intubate in the hospital. I personally think that we should be trained to intubate because it would give us quick "full control" of the airway (which was drilled in my head as a medic). We use OPAs and bag, but if you don't have someone who actually opens the airway correctly how much O2 is the pt actually getting? Our CCU, ER, and MICU nurses are always head nurses of the code teams and we have a lot of codes, so I think we would be able to keep up with the skill. Plus, if you documented the number of times that someone intubated within a certain time frame, required X numbers of intubations within that time frame, and sent them to the OR for intubations (if they didn't have X number of tubings within that time frame) I think it may be successful. I do think that if a nurse would rather not take the responsibility, he/she shouldn't have to. We have some nurses that hate to go to ACLS training, but I think all ICU nurses should be adequate in ACLS. It just kills me to hear some nurses complain about ACLS. The first time I took it was back in the good old days when they really drilled you. I know that I learned it a lot better back then than what it is taught now. I see them now giving people ACLS cards that only made it through the stations with MUCH coaching during the station. While I don't think it should be as tough as it once was, I do think it should be tougher than it now is.

I work in a 300 bed hospital in the CCU. We used to have to float to the floors, but no more. The problem I had with floating to the floors is trying to treat them all like ICU pts. I am used to doing total pt care and am not used to having a CNA. I caught myself a million times doing thier job! Our manager is great and had the policy changed. We now float only to MICU, SICU, or ER. She said the same thing as above, "if the floor nurses can't float to the units, then why should my nurses float to the floors?"

Our CCU has 8 beds and we take care of IABPs on a regular basis. The problem comes in with not having them on a regular basis, as well as not enough training to start with. We had a 4 hour class on them, but also have at least one nurse on each shift that has good expierience with them. IABP pts used to be a 1:1 pt for us, but not anymore. It the pt is bad enough, we can insist on it being a 1:1 and will usually get our way. One thing I always do is to keep info on the balloon pump available at work and each time I have a pt on one, I make myself review during the shift. We have good info available at work for troubleshooting and all. And no, we don't have a perfusionist available to us either. Stand your ground and don't risk your license because if something happens, guess who they are gonna blame?