I've noticed for a while that there's a common phrase of "saving people's lives"......
In the ICUs (various sorts) and EDs - Yeah, they do save lives. IN surgery, yep- I'd agree with that.
On a med-surg floor, you help patients progress and stay stable. It's not a constant "hero festival" :)
To read a bunch of threads/posts, it sounds like every nurse is out there saving the world (did someone forget to tell the UN?).
Nurses (aside from ED, and the units where critical patients are being cared for) work on rehab the minute the patient lands on the bed. You do deal with unexpected emergencies that are life threatening- but it's not a constant run from room to room assessing for the need for the ERT.
It's busy, sometimes overwhelming, hard work...but most of the time, you maintain the status quo, and hope for some improvement that helps get them out the door (and not feet first).
Is EVERY floor a hospice floor? Nobody comes to the hospital to get well anymore? Someone's life has to be in jeopardy before you can save it :)
Saving lives, saving lives, saving lives...... just sounds like it cheapens those floors that REALLY are faced with life and death decisions every single day. JMO. :)
Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
I assume this is simply because everyone wants to feel validated for what they do by and for others and "saving lives" has that impact pretty instantaneously.
We are all in the process of dying. Taken literally, nobody saves a life, but rather delays death. That is something every nurse plays a part in, acutely, subacutely and preventively.
I'm not sure I get the original point but I'll respond to what I think it is...in 25 years of direct care, I've had exactly one patient die in my arms. The rest of the time (99.99%) ? People not dying.
Search down deep in your heart, and you'll know that we neither give nor take life,no matter our area of practice. There are patients who I was sure would not make it to the end of my shift, yet I came in the next morning to see them sitting up eating breakfast. Then there are the patients for whom the most mundane admission marks the end of his/her life. Why does a healthy young child die suddenly from a viral infection, yet the 80 year-old alcoholic smoker lives on? You can hook up all the drips you want, invoke every procedure imaginable, but in the end, we don't control the outcome. Do not be deceived, we can care for life, but it is not ours to give or to take.
I think I get the general gist of the OP that unless most of us literally are not saving lives all the time. (again..generalizing)
I think I've saved a lot of butts in my day :)
I only have two situations where I did "save" a life. One was by simply assessing someone, finding a lot of mistakes and doing my job...a plugged trach, resp distress. And starting cpr on a young pt in LTC. In both of these sitiuations I was the only nurse around with two CNAs in my building..started care and waited forever for EMS to help. Is this what the OP was getting at?
The people who have died in my arms are sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, cousins.........
These are people who's life has come to an end, and I want it to be the most comforting experience I can make if for them. For them and their loved ones.
Sometimes you can find clear reasoning through these sorts of questions by simply asking another.
Ask yourself, what would happen to med-surg patients if nurses were not there? I really doubt that hospital mortality rates would stay the same if you eliminated qualified RN's from working on those floors.
I'm actually kind of offended by this post to say the least. and I really don't see the point in posting it. It's probably the most pointless thread on here.
I work on a med/surg floor, and i can tell you this....i have "saved" many lives. I caught a patient going into flash pulmonary edema before it got extremely critical. I had Oxygen, respiratory therapy and EKG there all at the same time WHILE on the phone with the physician. i had a patient who i noticed was acting hypoglycemic. Patients blood sugar was 26. I acted in time before patient went unresponsive.
I had a patient who went into anaphylaxis from a new medication that was ordered. it was an unknown allergy. I have many more i could tell you about.
So just because my patients are "stable" doesn't mean i don't save lives. Because these patients are in the hospital for a reason. They are not in the hospital so someone can wipe their a$$.
I don't know, maybe im overreacting with this but i do find this very offensive.
Is the OP intending to incite? Because that is how it looks to me. Do we need another Icu vs med surg thread?
No, I think the thread was spawned by a particularly syrupy paragraph about nurses that is making its way around Facebook. It was quoted in another thread.
Speaking of heroes and rescue, I'm reading a slow but fascinating book called "No Place for Dying: Hospitals and the Idealogy of Rescue." Anthropology degreed woman turned stockbroker turned nurse.
I am preparing for ACLS, and here is an interesting quote from the handbook:
Cardiac arrest teams are unlikely to prevent arrests because their focus has traditionally been to respond only after the arrest has occurred. Unfortunately, the mortality rate is about 80% once the arrest occurs.
...
The majority of cardiorespiratory arrests in the hospital should be classified as a "failure to resuce" rather than as an isolated, unexpected, random occurrence. Doing so requires a significant cultural shift within institutions. Actions and interventions need to be proactive with the goal of improving rates of morbidity and mortality rather than reacting to a catastrophic event.
Rapid assessment and interventions for many abnormal physiologic variables can decrease the number of arrests occuring in the hospital.
From this, I would say that saving lives can be a very quiet affair that is done in the normal course of floor nursing, without breaking open the code cart and an overhead page. The flurry of activity surrounding codes may not be saving lives as much as it is prolonging the 80% chance of death.
Do not be deceived, we can care for life, but it is not ours to give or to take.
This was very nicely said.
My first code happened when I was a nursing student in my first rotation. I just happened to be doing my vital signs and the patient crashed. The response team took over and they did save the patient. But the patient died a few weeks later anyway, he was just very sick.
I do think that nurses can have a huge role in life saving by being on top of things and catching life threatening issues before they end a life or cause terrible harm to the patient. And along the way we may save a life or two. But I guess I'm a little fatalistic, and I think that what is meant to be is meant to be, whether it is life or death.
In the end it boils down to making sure that whatever life trajectory the patient is on, that we are there to make it matter and to make it the best that it can be.
Problem is, none of us has a crystal ball (well, if you do, let me in on it). How are we to know which of our interventions, if we had not implemented them, might have led to untimely death? I think most nurses have stories of their "good catches", and I do not think it is too much of a stretch to say that by being the first line to note a change in status and call the doc for orders, we are indeed saving lives.
Nurse SMS, MSN, RN
6,843 Posts
I assume this is simply because everyone wants to feel validated for what they do by and for others and "saving lives" has that impact pretty instantaneously.
We are all in the process of dying. Taken literally, nobody saves a life, but rather delays death. That is something every nurse plays a part in, acutely, subacutely and preventively.