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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Mask new indication for bronchodilator

Perhaps you guys are tired of me complaining about useless breathing treatments in the hospital, but it's a fact that must be dealt with. Like tonight I was called to give a breathing treatment on an elderly lady who was in no respiratory distress.

However, I noted that she was wearing a mask which she required to maintain her sats, and the doctor decided that since she was wearing a mask, SOMETHING MUST BE WRONG WITH HER LUNGS, MEANING A BRONCHODILATOR IS INDICATED.

So, with all due respect, I added this to my list of indications for bronchodilators, and you can link to it here, or non-indications for bronchodilator here.

2 comments:

Administrator said...

I had a pulmonologist tell me he ordered breathing treatments because he was consulted. He told me the primary doc expected him to do something, so he ordered ventolin. I guess the silver lining here is we were able to dc the treatment per our mandatory hospital wide protocol - so the patient never did receive a treatment. But you can add this to your list:) - pulmonary consult

shaft48 said...

Grrrr. I hate all of the unnecessary therapy we do. RNs are very guilty of ordering useless nebulizers for desats and they claim always that the patient is wheezing or sounds junky, what in the hell does that mean? We are abused. Nursing hates respiratory, but I would like to see them do what we do and what they do at the same time. It's a no win situation, they want us there but don't want us there.