No blankets for febrile patients.....?

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TheSingularity

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How did this "teaching" infiltrate nursing practice?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

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I told a nurse to put a blanket on a febrile kid in residency when the kid asked for one

The nurse wrote me up and I had to submit a written explanation why I did it

My explanation was, "the kid asked for one"

Never heard anything

Quality nursing
 
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I told a nurse to put a blanket on a febrile kid in residency when the kid asked for one

The nurse wrote me up and I had to submit a written explanation why I did it

My explanation was, "the kid asked for one"

Never heard anything

Quality nursing

The nurse wrote you up? WTF? Is this a common thing in EM? How much ****ing power do they actually have
 
I've never heard this.
I used to think that I worked with some of the dumbest RNs in existence.
Apparently not.
Not giving blankets to febrile pts, putting pts in trendelenberg because they are hypotensive, I once walked into a room to find a nurse dunking a child in a sink full of ice water because his temp was 104 (this was in the middle of winter), nurses that have refused to start antibiotics on a patient because they are afraid the pt will go hypotensive. There is a lot of really dumb nurse dogma out there.
 
Well I thought I was going to win the nurse vs fever competition

gladly hand it over to you
 
Don't question old wives tales unless you want to dodge wive's knives.
 
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I vaguely remember some random article years ago looking at babies and rectal temperature differences in a baby swaddled in a bunch of hats and blankets vs not.... and there was no discernable difference. So my practice is to reference this vague study authoritatively and announce that my febrile patients can always have blankets because SCIENCE.

I probably should look that one up one of these days, but since there's absolutely nothing behind this random nursing dictate, I just announce more authoritatively that MY patients can ALWAYS have blankets.
I figure it's a humanitarian thing. Besides, I'd want the biggest comforter I owned if I was febrile.
 
Okay, so I've heard them saying this and just shrugged it off because I've never heard of it before and to me it doesn't really matter. But then the other day I overheard my favorite attending say to a patient, "Sure, I can get you a warm blanket if your fever has come down!" I was like...WTF...
 
The pants on head stupid aspect of this is that, assuming the fever isn't outrageously high AND it's not a neuro patient, the fever is protective. I mean, sure, not as effective as Zosyn, but still.
 
By the same logic, if they have a fever shouldn't the nurse not just be not giving them a blanket, but and also even taking their clothes off?

(The patient's clothes I mean.)
 
When I have a fever, I feel cold and the last thing I want is to be laying on crinkly exam table-paper half naked in a diaper. Just sayin'.
Is this a regular enough thing that you know what that feels like?
 
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