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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

She said it a little too loud

Inside the room, the patient says to me as I'm drawing her ABG because her spo2 is only 78% on a 100% non-rebreather, "I'm really stressed right now."

As I'm walking out of the room to tell the RN the patient might benefit from a Xanax, I hear the RN saying into the phone receiver loud enough for the patient to hear, "Your patient in ICU room D appears to be taking a dump on me."

I look back at the patient and wondered if her heart just flipped as she heard that, and hoped she didn't hear it.

Regardless, we are all guilty of talking too loud at times. And while this RN is perhaps one of the best I've ever worked with, this is proof that even she is human after all.

RT Cave Rule #38: When we are relaying private information about the patient, we must remember to keep our voices down.

3 comments:

Steve said...

EXCELLENT post Topic Rick!

As and RT and frequent inpatient, you wouldn't believe the things Ive heard from staff, including from RTs and physicians.

I even heard an RT tell the ICU nurse, to ignore my requests for neb treatments because I was a psych patient? (I had just been extubated and this jerk didnt want to be bothered giving me Q2 txs) I confronted them both. You should have seen the look on the RTs face.

Turns out he was a traveler. I dont think they renewed his contract.

Noise is another big problem in hospitals. Staff should refrain from having parties in the hallways outside of patients room. You can hear everything!

Anonymous said...

Please excuse my ignorance, but what does "taking a dump on me" mean?

Rick Frea said...

That's a great question. I'll have to add this word to my RT Lexicon.

Taking a dump is hospital slang to describe a patient who appears to be taking a turn for the worse; not looking very well and perhaps going to crash; getting worse; tanking.

It basically means that a call to the physician is necessary to prevent the patient from getting worse.

Anyone want to add to this?