I get so frustrated sometimes at work. I work cardiac telemetry, and we have a lot of high acuity patients and frequent codes sometimes. I consider myself good under pressure, and I like the feeling of using my brain and skills to the max during a code. I get so mad when some nurse freezes up and leaves the room or someone else has to go code their patient. Not just new nurses, either. One nurse has been there for 30+ years and still I have yet to see her slap that code button on one of her patients. She hovers and flits around until someone runs in there and starts compressions and yells for help. To me, this is just simple incompetency.
I precept and mentor a lot of new nurses - how can I teach this? It seems an elusive quality. I try to look at it like this - the patient would be dead if they were at home, so basically everything you do at that point is helping. There will be one of two outcomes - and it seems to be about 50-50, although we have been lucky this month and I think every one of our codes has lived and done well afterward.
I hate to say that I "like" a code - but I do like the adrenaline rush and the feeling of accomplishment when someone survives. We get a lot of sudden VT and VF - it's just the nature of our floor and the types of patients we care for. We are all required to certify in ACLS protocol every year - so why the lame nurses that run from it?
The way I look at it, if a nurse is going to be that indecisive and harmful to the patient, then get the heck out of cardiac nursing!
Sorry for the rant, just had a bad couple of weeks - tired of working with people who won't get up and haul a$$ and do their best when needed.
Some people are born with it, I swear. Before I became a nurse I worked in the foodservice industries (mostly as a bartender) and I always felt I worked best under "barely controlled chaos" situations. The adrenaline keeps you on your toes and able to prioritize quickly. However, dinner and a cocktail is not a code. I believe the gravity of the situation (this pt. will live or die depending on what I do next) freaks them out. I think the "freezers" ought to learn to drill themselves regularly with BLS and ACLS manuals until they know it cold. The most important thing a doc told me at a code when I was a student was "take your own pulse first"; meaning take a deep breath, push the panic down and make your rational mind take over. I still say it to my self to this day and it puts me in "code mode" immediately.
Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.
Well...I forgot my favoriate phrase that helps me in code situations! And it has helped me and others whom I have taught CPR and codes to!
"When a person is not breathing, has no heartbeat, they are dead! Period, end of statement...so don't stress, anything you can do to bring them back is a bonus!"
I like that, kinda takes some of the stress off...and points things back in your direction in a positive way knowing full well it may not be sucessful...but if it is...WOW pat on the back time! I like pats on the back, so I go for it without fear! :)
Yeah sure, I may screw up a bit...forget what compression count I am on and stuff, or shake a bit putting in an IV...but at least I am really trying as hard as I can :)...and that is pretty good considering I am trying to revive the dead!
I am an LPN student and will be graduating in July. I have about eight years of nursing experience with head trauma/spinal cord injuries and so forth and have yet to be "Part Of" a code. It scares me to death-not the code its self, I like that adrenaline too, but bc I have never been part of one I am afraid to make a mistake or not do something right. I have watched codes. I wanted to see it for myself and this was about a year or so ago and it was very surreal. But it didn't leave me feeling the way I thought I would feel after, even when during chest compressions the blackish fluid came pouring out of her mouth and nose, I simply pointed it out to the RT who wasn't looking at her face but her chest. Anyway, I hope someday to be calm and collected during a code. Any emergency for that matter. I like reading here bc I will know that there are other nurses out there who have a lot of experience and feel similar, but that there are also ones out there like many of you who we can go to for guidance.
I don't know what "it" is, but I'm slowly getting it. I've been on an advanced care floor for almost a year and we get a good number of codes. I've been in the room for nearly every one, I go running for the staff assist and codes unless I'm completely tied up with a problem with one of my own patients. I figure, the more I see, the more comfortable I'll be with the process in general. Apparently my theory works, 2 weeks ago one was called I grabbed the crash cart and took off running towards the room. When it was over, (the closest thing I can think of was like snapping out of a daydream) I thought about it and realized I had grabbed the ambu bag on my way in with the cart and pushed the meds. I'm just thinking "Where the heck did that come from?!?!?!?!?!" The button went off and it was almost instinctual this time. Not, "I hope someone grabs the cart" or "I hope the nurse has all the help they need" more like "Get outta my way, I've got the code cart"
I don't know about the experienced nurses who still freeze, but I'm guessing the newer ones are just waiting for the moment that it 'clicks' like it did for me and they realize that they can do it
melpn
78 Posts
Some people are born with it, I swear. Before I became a nurse I worked in the foodservice industries (mostly as a bartender) and I always felt I worked best under "barely controlled chaos" situations. The adrenaline keeps you on your toes and able to prioritize quickly. However, dinner and a cocktail is not a code. I believe the gravity of the situation (this pt. will live or die depending on what I do next) freaks them out. I think the "freezers" ought to learn to drill themselves regularly with BLS and ACLS manuals until they know it cold. The most important thing a doc told me at a code when I was a student was "take your own pulse first"; meaning take a deep breath, push the panic down and make your rational mind take over. I still say it to my self to this day and it puts me in "code mode" immediately.