Hello Class

The Ventilated Patient

Hello class,
Today I will discuss some important factors to consider when caring for a patient on a ventilator. Nurses are responsible for assessing, planning, and delivering care to the patient and must be able to provide basic nursing care as well as manage life-saving equipment.
I put together a powerpoint presentation to guide this lesson. Hope it helps and let me know if you have any questions. We will go into more detail in future lessons.

References
Nursing care of the ventilated patient. (2003). Western Sydney Health. Retrieved from http://intensivecare.hsnet.nsw.gov.au/five/doc/nurse_care_V_swahs.pdf

M510 the ventilated patient

View more PowerPoint from fprrn123

The first thing they see in ICU

The first thing I wanted to talk about pertaining to the critical patient, is their arrival in the ICU. It is bad enough that the patient has to be in ICU, but it is even worse when they are treated like an object. There are many ways that we as staff members do this, such as:
1. We start hooking them up to the monitors and IVs and pull them onto the ICU bed, without any warning.
2. We don't call them by their name, because we probably haven't checked it yet or we are just helping the nurse who will care for the patient.
3. We talk above them and about them, but never to them.
This is very unfair to the patient, who is now going to be poked and prodded and told what to do and when to do it. But we can change our attitudes and think of our patient as an actual person, with feelings and worries.
We can easily call them by their rightful name, tell them what we are doing before we do it, ask them if we can uncover their naked body before we do it, and provide them with the privacy they deserve, as we would like for ourselves.
I just wanted to start with this because as simple as it sounds, it is often forgotten because the ICU is a very crazy place at times and we have to do what is best for the patient.

Thank you for reading my opening lesson.
Frances

Becoming a critical care nurse.

Becoming a critical care nurse is not something to take lightly. Critical care nurses work hard and although they might only have 1-3 patients, they have a lot of responsibilities. One patient can have the nurse running all day or night, without even a minute to use the bathroom. But critical care nurses love what they do and they do it with pride and never expect anything back. Once in a while they get rewarded with a sign of respect from one of the doctors or maybe a thank you note from the patient or family member. That is more than enough sometimes to make it all worth the hard work.
On this blog, we will begin to have learning opportunities for those nurses that want to become critical care nurses or are new critical care nurses.
Hope everything enjoys and participates.
ccrn nurse