hypocaffeinemia

First, a disclaimer: I’m not territorial to the point where every little thing turns into a bitter rivalry between various hospital departments. I understand and appreciate the need for those who go into areas like med/surg or LTC while simultaneously acknowledging there’s no way in hell you’d ever get me to work there.

Now that I said that, I feel I need to talk about *some* of the med/surg nurses I’ve had to communicate with as a monitor tech.

I’m almost done with nursing school, so I have it on some authority that while pitiful, we actually are taught basic EKG interpretation and what it means to the patient. From work experience, you could have fooled me. Here’s a small sampling of various conversations I’ve had:

Me: “Patient Z is sustaining SVT with a rate of 180-190.”

Nurse: “Oh, it’s okay, he’s in the bathroom.”

My thought: Sustaining a rate of 185 is not ever “okay” unless your patient is jogging a six minute mile.

*

Me: ” Patient K has some new ST elevation in their inferior leads.”

Nurse: “So what do you want me to do about it?”

My thought: “Umm…maybe get a 12 lead? Call the doc for enzymes and nitro? Assess your patient, even?”

*

Me: “Patient W has a lot of electrical artifact- the monitor is ringing v-tach, but he probably has a laptop or cellphone on his lap or something.”

Nurse: She hangs up. 15 seconds later, the Code Blue button is pushed in this poor guy’s room. He’s fine, by the way. Like, A&Ox3 fine.

*

Me: “Patient R’s rate is bradying down to the mid thirties, and he’s got a sloped ST. I think you might need a dig level.”

Nurse: “Dig level?”

Me: “Yeah, it looks like he might be dig toxic.”

Nurse: <blank>

Me: “Hello?”

Nurse: “What’s wrong again?”

Me: *sigh*

So there you go. The more I know about nursing and medicine the more frightening ignorance becomes.