Vent Session

[Lorien_LPN]

Ok people let me paint a picture:

I am a nursing student and work as a monitor(telemetry) tech at a large local hospital. I used to be proud to work here but within the past couple months I am almost done. I do not want to start my nursing career in an enviromen such as this or be hospitalized in this enviroment.

Tonight we had a patient on the monitor. He was on a cardiac/telemetry floor and been doing okay. Atrial Fib with rare PVCs. Well about shift change he started having runs of torsades de pointes. We informed the nurse and she promtly with an attitude informed us he was having tremors. We shrugged this off and continued to document it as torsades. The runs continued for another hour and everytime the nurse denied any problems. Then the patient went into sustained torsades and then v-fib. 10 minutes later the patient died.

This same evening another nurse decided to place the patients PO medications on the side table next to him all shift. At shift change again this patient begins to have problems and is coded but does not make it. Again this is a cardiac floor with telemetry.

It's very frustrating to try and help the nurse care for the patient and be snapped at because the nurse does not want to think something serious is wrong with her patient.

[esrun00]

I am sorry this has happened to you. I always listen to my monitor techs. If they call I go look at the monitor screens and verify and then take action.

Do you have any back up plan if you feel the nurse is not taking action, like calling the charge nurse or nurse manager? If I were in your shoes, and felt no one was listening, this is what I would do.

Don't let this keep you from nursing, use it to help make you a better nurse.

[JenRN30, BSN]

Was any action taken against these nurses? Especially the first one? This is so bad...scary for the patients on that floor.