Vent help............!!

[dreamrider_212]

I am a new grad and have very limited knowledge in vents and settings etc (we didnt cover this at school!). Does anyone know of a good website or book I can get which will give a very basic understanding of functions and terminology. We had a vent pt yesterday who coded and I was at a loss to know what to do.......I feel like a real dummy and am VERY stressed at this point.

thanks

[HogNurse]

Hey, as a new grad I would also be super-scared workin' with vents my first job out of school. Granted, I don't feel completely retarded, but put in an autonomous position as a real nurse I probably would...Good luck, you'll learn a lot!!

[CritterLover, BSN, RN]

in the case of a more stable or long term vented patient i agree; however, if you have a vented patient, you need to know about some of the dynamic processes at work. i agree, that in most cases we will not make or change settings on our own; however, we need to understand what is going on and how vent therapy will effect our patient. this is much like knowing in depth the pharmacology of the medications we administer to our patients. you could argue that we are simply following physicians orders when giving medications; however, we still need to know what these medications will do and how they act on a physiological level.

in addition, i still stand by my recommendation of taking a critial course. sure, it may be over kill for a tele unit, but if you have the ability and time, additional knowledge will do nothing but help you in your career. i will agree, that perhaps a more basic level course or vent orientation will help with the fundamental aspects of understanding vent management.

in conclusion, i think we agree on many points; however, we may have to agree to disagree on the simplicity of vent management.

i agree in the importance of icu nurses understanding vent settings.

i don't care if you have rt available in your unit 24/7 (which would be a luxury in most units); you need to understand what that vent is doing to your patient.

more importantly, you need to understand what that vent is telling you about your patient.

it really bothers me when an rn needs to call rt for every single vent alarm. you should be able to troubleshoot most of them yourself, and only have to call rt when you can't figure out what is going on.

it really is beyond changing vent settings.

vents collect very important info that can tell you a whole bunch about your patient. i didn't learn about this until i worked in an icu that was in a hosptial that was very short staffed with rt. we had 5 different icus, two different ers, and 6 differnt floor units. most nights, we'd be lucky if we had 3 rts scheduled. the rns had to pick up. we routinely made vent changes, vent assessments, and did troubleshooting.

while i don't think that rns need to be able to do rts jobs, they do need to understand what that vent is telling them.

the icu faqs website has a ton of great info. and even if you don't need to know this informaiton for your job, the knowledge can only help you in caring for your patients.

[pagandeva2000, LPN]

I want to learn vent care, but would prefer to take a class specific to vent care rather than an entire critical care course. I say this because as an LPN that is interested in managing vent care at home, the entire critical care course may be a bit over my head and would be sitting through an an entire expensive course obtaining information I am not sure I would need. My agency has many vent care cases managed at home by LPNs, but I don't want to just be oriented to that particular case, I want to know all of the ins and outs of vents in general. I just discovered that a friend of a friend has a three day course in vent care that may better suit my personal needs. I want to understand all that is needed for comprehending vent care, more towards that specific focus. I hope that I get what I need there.