Use of stethoscope

[azalight90]

Hello

I am a student nurse in Scotland. What I want to know about uk nurses are this:

do you use stethoscopes to listen to bowel and chest sounds? Yes or no and why?

i ask because nurses from America say they use them all day. That it is an everyday event. However with all my time in hospitals here I have never seen it done ever even on a gastro ward.

So what do you do and why?

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

When I worked in the UK, also trained in the UK, we never had time and it was the doctors who did chest and bowel assessments. When you had 2 RN's to look after 28 patients you had enough to do doing other stuff. Doctors mon-fri was working on the ward so was part of their job. Certain areas like ITU, chest wards/clinics you may see nurses doing the assessment but not all nurses would do it

[GrumpyRN, NP]

Sounding chests/bowels are not a part of the nursing assessment except as Silverdragon102 states in specialist areas. As an ENP I will listen to air entry on patients with chest trauma but no other nurse in my department will. As stated, we don't have time for this on general wards, and, what would we do with the information anyway?

As a historical anecdote, when I trained (1980's) no nurses did IV's, they were all done by doctors. Even further back BP's were doctor only territory.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Wow...that is crazy. How different things are.

[Fiona59]

Have to ask, a few years ago I worked with a nurse from Ulster. She said she'd never given morphine to a patient as the doctors gave it.

Now, if you hear a patient is chesty, wheezy, do you call for a doctor to come assess it or use his PRN Ventolin order?

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

If the client was a known COPD/Asthma then I would give the ventolin and monitor. If a Doctor was about then I would get in touch with them. Either way I would try and treat first.

I think what you have to remember in the UK doctors are probably more accessible than what I see where I live. Here the GP's take it in turns doing Emerg and seeing their patients on the wards where as in the UK the patient is admitted under a consultant who is responsible for all cares and then goes back under GP care once they are discharged from hospital. This is how I see it working in my area of Canada

[Dan_lnd]

Hi I work in a critical care unit,and yes I use the stethoscope to assess my pt's chest and bowel.

And if you know that the patient has any chest problem give the prn nebs straight away;then let the nurse in charge know about it