Pulling epidurals

[Elvish]

Crissrn27's other epidural thread got me thinking...[EVIL]dangerous, I know[/EVIL]

Ok, when you pull it, you are supposed to document that the catheter tip is intact. Got it. Has anyone ever pulled an epi and NOT had the tip intact? What did you do (besides call anesthesia), and what happened to the pt? Just curious. It has never happened to me (knock on wood) and I'm NOT inviting the possibility.

[vandermom]

Not great for the patient because anesthesia is not in house 24/7. Many times they must wait an hour to get a bolus. The new thing for us will soon be PCEA we can't give a dose but the patient can give it to herself. Hmmmm give her a button with instructions to call us before pushing it. Like that will work 100%.

We have one doc who loves to do spinal epidurals. Great for the slow moving primip with no tolerance but multips at 5 or more. Now we have a mom with no use of legs at all... guess who gets to hold them up to push? Yep that would be us.

Ok I've whined enough for one post!!! Merry Christmas all:Santa1:

[LDRNMOMMY, BSN, RN]

I used to work in NC before we moved to Germany. We had just been allowed to pull epidural catheters before I left. We had to attend a two hour class given by a CRNA. Then we had to pull two under the supervision of a CRNA and we were able to pull them on our own.