Have somehow landed myself four weeks in ITU. Being essentially supernumerary I get to jog around the hospital with the SHOs whenever the cardiac arrest bleeps go off. Often, we arrive on scene and the patient is actually fine, either because the fantastic medical team have got there before us and fixed the patient, or (more often than not) a patient has prostrated themselves in the main entrance and receptionist has interpreted a faint or a reluctance to move as a cardiac arrest.
Had 3 arrest bleeps in the space of about an hour yesterday, one was a post lunch vasovagal episode in an elderly chap (medical registrar's advice was "administer less lunch"), one was a patient with renal colic on the floor in main reception (needed some analgesia and a porter to urology) and the last one was a chap who'd managed to simultaneously choke on lunch, vomit everywhere, aspirate and start fitting. Cue real ITU action involving securing the airway by RSI and intubation, which was made much more difficult by the resurgence of lunch from the lungs. Much suctioning later and he was ready for an arterial line placement and transfer to CT for a brain scan. The chap was ventilated on ITU overnight and extubated this afternoon and not looking too bad. His lunch continues to resurface periodically.
Conclusion - hospital lunches are dangerous.
No comments:
Post a Comment