Topics About 'Code'.

I have the rare and distinct honor of working in the ICU of one of Chicago's most prestigious and longest-standing hospitals. Don't get me wrong, I busted my backside getting here, with a large helping of luck along the way. When I started this past ...

You're standing at your computer, charting on your patients. The end of the shift is nearing, and you really want to get this done so that you can get home. As you are typing, you hear a loud snoring noise coming from your patient's room. Suddenly al...

We do the best for our patients and then we don't try not to take the job home or let it bother us. But I give credit for those floor nurses who are busy taking care of our grandma's, grandpa's, mom's, dad's, siblings and friends because in a way, th...

I’m looking for ways to improve our organization and efficiency in a trauma room situation. We get mix up in roles, people running for supplies, general chaos, and such a crowded room that people can’t get to the patient. How do you avoid chaos in yo...

So I've been at my new job for almost 3 weeks. I won't say that I like it. Truth be told, I hate it. I don't know anyone, so I can't be myself. I just show up and try to do my best for my patients for my shift. 90% of the time, I question whether I r...

Earlier, the paramedics found her--deep in the winter of her life--lying like a rag doll in a man's lap. Shocks and drugs refocused her heart's energy. She is whisked to the emergency room and then transferred intensive care. Now, the team of nurses ...

I was one in a crowded room of the receiving team of nurses that lifted this man: a father, a grandfather off the golden Stryker that carried him from this fateful father's day into the emergency room. He was still dressed to fit the occasion: a polo...

The cockroaches moved with us from the decrepit original hospital to the brand new building. I'd never seen a cockroach before moving to the big city, and my mother raised me to believe that the presence of a roach was an admission of bad housekeepin...

I was a relatively new and inexperienced nurse and was orienting to the hospital on a chaotic medical-surgical unit. The orientation began by following the nursing assistant(s) for a shift and participating in basic patient care tasks. This was to pr...

Many years ago I worked in a CCU, before many of the sophisticated machines, medications, and treatments we now use daily were available. We knew we were progressive because we got our patients out of bed very soon after their MIs. I met Bruce when I...

One thing I've had a really hard time with ethically, especially in the past few months, is when an alert, oriented, informed, patient is admitted- usually a COVID patient- and makes themselves a DNR/DNI. Then, as they become hypoxic and hypercapnic,...

When do you accept that it is futile to code or prolong a code? I had a patient maxed on 5 pressors. He was saturating in the 70s on 100% vent settings and gradually dropping lower. He ended up being coded twice. It was a combined time of over an hou...

It all started simply enough - a usual day at the station house. We checked in, we checked out the rig, we did our station duties and filled out the logbook; we looked up our duty roster for the day and we even started working on CE's. There are morn...

I was fresh out of nursing school, working my first nursing job in a large emergency department. I was with Marie*, my preceptor, a wonderful nurse. She managed to be strong and got her job done quickly and well, but yet was gentle and had a huge hea...

I hadn't been a nurse for very long, but I was asked to team lead, do charge and supervise nursing students. "Don't worry," I was told. "These are our students, so they can help you out." As the first BSN grad ever hired in our hospital, I took a lot...