What would you do (PACU)?

Never leave! Use your chain of command. Start with co-workers and go up. If you have to call your unit coordinator/manager, do it. That client is your first responsibility. You might try calling pharmacy. Hope things ended well and your client recovered without any further complications. I strongly encourage you to follow up with the issue of not having the supplies you need to do your job. Hang in there and may God bless your hands at work.

I would not leave the fresh c/s patient in pacu to get the med. You need to insist that your charge nurse or another nurse either come watch the patient while you get the med, or she gets the med herself for you.

How did you get up getting the insulin for the pt?

I had to wait until the hour was up (it was like 35 minutes until I could get it). My charge nurse was unreachable, and I called the front desk and asked the sec if she saw any nurse to please have them call me (we have those portable phones). It was so frustrating! I will have a chat w/ our manager tomorrow when I get to work. This was a Sunday, so she wasn't there then. I just kept thinking, if this patient was crashing, how would I, as a brand new nurse to this unit, handle it? I could not get ANYONE to help. The one nurse I did see during that time said she had a pt getting a repair and didn't have time to find the insulin.

I just think that both med rooms should have all the same meds stocked. It makes no sense to me that they don't, esp since we only can safely go to the one when we have a pt in PACU!

Where I work we dial 5700 an any phone in the facilty and are able to overhead page in an emergency.... or if we cannot find the person we need in a timely fashion. Maybe your facility could use that simple system. I know on weekends it is effective as I supervise then. It took me twice today to get hold of my DON when I had to isolate my unit because of viral and probable influenze infections. I wasn't the only unit with that problem, and she was able to locate a dacron swab for the possible influenza patient.

I getcha snow. But I don't see a BG at that level to be that much of an emergency to overhead like that. Maybe if the pt was symptomatic, but she wasn't. She WAS a brittle diabetic, but showing no other sx at that point. I just felt like it was a fine line, deciding whether to make a huge fuss about it or not.