You Know the patient is going bad when...

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You know the patient is going bad when their PA pressure is higher than their blood pressure (Pt quickly coded and died)

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Specializes in Retired OR nurse/Tissue bank technician.
I detect a certain smell a couple of days before...

As a nursing student on a medicine/palliative care unit, I freaked out my instructor one time. One morning before report, after we had been off the unit for a week (so I didn't know what patients were on the unit), I walked around the unit and was correctly able to identify, by smell alone, which rooms held a palliative care patient. :D

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Specializes in med/surg, hospice, swing bed, ecd, schls.
You know the patient is going bad when their PA pressure is higher than their blood pressure (Pt quickly coded and died)

Feel free to add and keep the list going!

When they say: PLEASE don't let me die! Oh great, like I needed THAT pressure!?!

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Specializes in cardiovascular surgical stepdown.

the pt looks up and to the left

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.
When they say: PLEASE don't let me die! Oh great, like I needed THAT pressure!?!

LOL!

I'd tell that patient, "That's more up to you than it is to me."

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Specializes in Telemetry, Med Surg, Pediatrics, ER.

When the patient tells you "I am crossing Jordan", you can be sure they won't be with you long. That happened when I was a student and I will never forget the patient.

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When you're getting an admit from the ER and the house supervisor calls to let you know that the pt coded in the ER, then the family decided to make him a no code due to his terminal state, so they're sending him to our floor so his death won't be in the ER's death statistics. Myoglobin of 1000 and trop of 0.6, BP in 60's (not to mention his LFT's and renal labs). Thank you, ER. Pt died an hour after the ER rushed him to the floor, and I'd never seen them rush a pt to the floor so fast before. Hadn't even finished to admission paperwork before we had to begin the expiration paperwork.

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Specializes in ICU.

Whenever my patients suddenly get concerned about my religion, I get worried. I had one lady lecture me for about 45 minutes about the importance of knowing God, no matter what you believed. She died that night. Two times, I have had patients who were sweet as can be suddenly go bonkers, telling me I needed to find Jesus because I was going to burn in hell for treating them the way I was. Both of them were intubated very soon after.

I have also found that if I am up to my elbows in a major code brown in one room and suddenly have a strong feeling to check on my other patient, I'd better get my tail over there. I love nurse's intuition. I ignored that feeling once and within 5 minutes there were alarms going off and people rushing by. . .

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.
they're sending him to our floor so his death won't be in the ER's death statistics.

Yeah, no one dies in the ED, the OR, or the cath lab. It looks bad.

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Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
yeah, no one dies in the ed, the or, or the cath lab. it looks bad.

occasionally the patient dies en route to the floor...happened to one of my favorite coworkers, she was transporting the patient to the floor from the ed and the woman passed. another time the patient died in the elevator, but the escort personnel did not realize.

jess

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Specializes in Emergency/Trauma.

When the patient looks at me and says "I'm not sick enough to be here, my family (neighbor, etc), dragged me in, let me go home and I'll be fine". Had this happen to me several times in the last few months. All of these patients were dead/coded/in the ICU in a few minutes after saying these words. This included the guy with the pulsating knife sticking out of his chest (gotta love the ER!)

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Specializes in everything.

liked the article aeuoooo....smile, what a sweet cat.

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In NICU, baby is crying all through report and nothing comforts him and the nurse says "Really he's been good all day. A little angle" Long night to follow.

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