sunshine, butterflies, and rainbows.... really?

So report went something like this: This patient coded on the way in, but we revived them and now they are coming to you, on the vent, here are the settings... here are the labs... here is the monitor pattern... here are the meds they got down here.... here are the ivf's running... hx and allergies, family is with them, will bring them up in a few minutes. General report.. nothing special or out of the ordinary. Lots of sunshine, butterflies, and rainbows.

None of it prepared me for the patient they wheeled around the corner to come into the unit. They forgot to mention... the patient was... not even cyanotic, but more of a raspberry color. They didn't mention that... the patient was... having uncontrollable decerebrate muscle spasms. They forgot to mention that... the patient coded at home, over 40 min. away from the hospital. Oh and they forgot to mention that they actually coded the patient downstairs, called the code, and suddenly they got a rhythm back on the monitor and so they reconnected all life support because the family wanted everything done.

I yelled at my colleague when they wheeled the patient around the corner... "I didn't get report on that!" We laugh about that now, but it certainly was not funny at the time. The attending md was actually on the unit at the time, and this patient was one of his for a very long time, and he knew them very well. I have to say that he was speechless, and this certain md is never speechless. He just stood there and stared while we went to work on this neurologically devasted patient who was only kept alive by the ventilator.

Lesson learned. Beware the sunshine, butterflies, and rainbows... there is usually a storm brewing on the other side.

why?

just curious. why is there always a war between the er nurses and the inpatient nurses. i say inpatient because it really isn't limited to just the med-surg floors, but all the units. and the same goes for docs as well. attending docs always seem to have some sort of irritation related to the er/ed, whether it is with the docs or the nurses down there. i don't get it, personally.

seriously.

has it been that much over a year since i have posted one single thing to this blog? guess i have just been that busy. sigh.