Clinical experiences

Liike I've said before, once my semester finished I would let you know about what I experienced - cuz it was AWESOME!!!

The first that really comes to mind is a guy who was on his FIRST date with a girl and wanted to impress her and they were on a swing set and tried to do a a back flip off it. Ya, bad choice! Obviously he didn't make it and put his arms back instead of falling on his butt. Again, bad choice!

When he walked into the ER all calm and stoic, just holding his arm (actually he looks like he had his arms crossed across his chest and so didn't think much of it) - we had no idea what brought him in.

Once we heard his story it was hard not to laugh at his antics. Of course not to his face! Nah, we went to the nurses station first. Ha!

We figured that we would be doing something requiring massive amounts of pain relief, I put in his IV and drew labs off it (we figured that the Dr would probably want to check his alcohol level!). So once that was in we got the order for pain meds - gave that to him thru the IV I put in and off he went to x-ray. Sure enough - dislocation - kinda nasty actually.

Doc told us that we would be doing a conscious sedation on the guy - boy did THAT make me excited!!!! My first time and I anticipated actually being able to participate in this. So I helped my preceptor get everything ready. Ensured that our guy was hooked up to telemetry and hooked up his IV to fluids.

Then we went to town and gave this guy a great show of support - the manager of the nursing department/ER picked up this shift because another nurse was sick (I'll tell you that story another time - it's interesting to say the least!) and so she volunteered to help the Doc pull the arm back into alignment. I was responsible for ensuring his airway and monitoring his sats & heart rhythm. My preceptor was the one who instilled the meds. It took about a min for the meds to kick in - but holy moly did he fight the meds!!!

It didn't take long or much pulling - but I ended up having to help hold the patient because the manager was having trouble keeping the reverse pull on the arm/shoulder. In the end it worked out. He barely even moaned - all he kept saying was "nooooo, nooo, no - don't do that" - and then when the meds started to wear off, he started to get all flirty with different staff members - heck when the x-ray tech came to do the x-ray after setting the elbow, he was REALLY flirting with her. It was actually quite hilarious and no one was able to keep the giggles in.

The great thing was that when he fully came through the haze, he asked "when are we going to do it" - I told him "dude, it's already done" - he didn't believe it, had a hard time accepting that but was completely ok with what we told him. He was so relaxed and cool. It was easy treating him.

Another day I'll let you know what else I was privy to. Completely blew my mind!