Thedevinestman

Latest Activity

1. Dopamine?

   Thedevinestman posted a topic in Critical

   I work on a cardiac unit and the other day I had a patient who had come in in the middle of the night with chest pain and positive troponins. During my morning assessment she was doing ok, vital signs at baseline, alert/oriented, fatigued, cardiology...

2. What is a cardiac stepdown?

   Thedevinestman replied to Thedevinestman's topic in Cardiac

   Thank you everyone for your comments. It's nice to know more about other hospitals and how they run their units. Warm Regards

3. How do you deal with unexpected death in the ICU?

   Thedevinestman replied to YP CVSICUnurse's topic in Critical

   The head CT was a good call given all the agitation, but I think the intensivist killed that patient by extubating early. You clearly did all that you could and I wouldn't loose sleep over it. Imagine if that same patient was in a third world countr...

4. What is a cardiac stepdown?

   Thedevinestman posted a topic in Cardiac

   I recently started my first nursing job on a cardiac unit. Many of the experienced nursing staff have voiced their opinions regarding the patient populations we are serving and that the acuity of these patients is too high. My hospital has two genera...

5. Will paramedic be useful for ICU job?

   Thedevinestman replied to BradS's topic in Critical

   There are two former EMT's that work in my ICU and they are both excellent nurses, especially during codes. It could be that these are just two great nurses that would have been great anyway, but not likely. In your case I would avoid paramedic and g...

6. Treat the patient, not the monitor

   Thedevinestman replied to offlabel's topic in Critical

   Excellent topic. I've heard the phrase used by old jaded nurses many times, and I'm of the opinion that it isn't entirely useless. But really, as someone said earlier, it's just a reminder that not every patient follows the rules clinically speaking....

7. Womp, womp, womp...

   Thedevinestman replied to TheBlackDogWaits's topic in Critical

   Unfortunately, if you enjoy talking to patients than a CRNA career probably isn't right for you. Unless of course you're doing it for the money, in which case keep on trucking. I was a surg tech before going to nursing school and the OR is really a d...

8. ET tube questions

   Thedevinestman replied to Thedevinestman's topic in Critical

   Thanks guys. I just started in the ICU which is why I asked; I know its a pretty basic question. What I've seen the most of is nurses just adding slack to the vent tubing when turning the patient away from the vent. But I can tell the general consens...

9. ET tube questions

   Thedevinestman posted a topic in Critical

   I'm fourth semester nursing student and an ICU nursing assistant. I'd like to know a little bit more about ET tubes, in particular, how much the can be safely manipulated during pt. positioning etc. Thanks guys. Warmest Regards