One of my day shift co-workers did an EKG on an out-patient and it was normal. Then the patient told him that she was fine when she was just sitting there, but got SOB and her heart felt funny every time he walked.
"Well, go run up and down the hall and come back and we'll do another EKG," my co-worker said.
The patient did, and my co-worker did the second EKG, which turned out to be abnormal.
So said co-worker called the patient's doctor and the doctor said, "Excellent job of thinking off the cuff there." The patient is currently admitted in the critical care.
Said co-worker told the head RT boss about this situation, and RT boss said, "WHAT! YOU DID WHAT?"
"I had him run up and down the hall, and then I got this EKG." My co-worker showed the boss the abnormal one. "If I wouldn't have done that, the only EKG I would have got was this one, and it looks normal. Would you feel comfortable sending this patient home with this normal EKG on file, when every time he moves he gets this abnormal EKG?"
"Well, you better chart the hell out of this," the head RT boss said.
Here you go out of your way to save a patient's life, and not even that is good enough to please the RT bosses. This is another example of how they have lost touch with everyday RTing.
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