Too many attempts at a spinal tap?

[Moe75_Rn]

I just started working on a unit. There was a patient (not mine directly)

that needed to have a lumbar puncture. Long story short, atleast 5 attempts were made, all by residents, with no success. The parents of this patient were not informed of all these attempts, and the patient only being one day old could obviously not speak for himself. Is this an acceptable practice, and would you speak to someone about it. It just eats me up inside everytime I think about. I feel that if the residents didnt get it on the first try then the attending should of been called in. I am planning on saying something to my manager but I want to see what you guys think as well. Thanks for the help.

[KellNY, RN]

This resident left me with permenant damage, and I can't sue. It was a teaching hospital.

You should speak to a lawyer (and if you already have, speak to another one). I work at a teaching hospital, and we sure can get sued! Our residents, attendings, nurses, etc have been sued in the past.

(Which is not to make our facility look bad, lol. I'm not saying EVERY res, attending or nurse has been sued or that we are disproportionately sued, but we're a very large facility and often take care of the people that the other hospitals can't handle, so...)