Nurses can do that only because the anesthesia attendings don't speak up, because "it's not their battle". They should not tolerate their residents being treated with even one iota less respect than what they would demand for themselves.Along those lines, lazy nurses/techs in academic hospitals who dump their work on residents.
I don't understand how a case that sounds so ominous, turns around so easily because Plasmalyte was hung.Dear gods. You got me started about an ICU case where I wouldn't trust the ICU as far as I could throw Mount Everest. Run by a bunch of ICU people who either really need to be put out to pasture permanently or shot.
Guy comes in for bowel resection for complete obstruction with active carcinoid. Too unstable to finish and closed night before, attending on that case ran through several sticks of vasopressin. Sent to ICU overnight. Comes down to me next day with no less than THREE liter bags of normal saline. Heard he got FIVE liters of the stuff overnight. NO BICARB correction bag.
Saline bags were on pumps, piggyback on piggyback to the Cordis the attending anesthesiologist put in the night before. Hypotensive/unstable. Where does the ICU put the pressors that weren't hitting him hard, and the octreotide?
In the bloody 18g PERIPHERAL IV >.<
Chloride was 117, BTW, as well as a pH lower than what I would like as a human. No wonder the pressors were doing squat.
Attending let me run the show. Stayed to sign him back into ICU because 1) we were short staffed for room help that day, and 2) I wanted to get this poor man optimized as I could. Reward: going home just after lunch the next day.
I switch all but one bag out for PlasmaLyte, hoping the acetate would buy me a stronger buffer system, switch lines to appropriately put the central line stuff central. Had to push bicarb to try to get the pressors to work. By the end and on arrival to the ICU, he was off pressors (used only a 2 units of vasopressin push throughout the case,) and was stable under GA, and a somewhat normalized physiology.
Attending, Attending surgeon, the senior surgical resident, and I all went to the ICU. All of us said to keep him on PlasmaLyte or LR if not available. No normal saline. Documented in post-op check notes by all of us.
Come in the next day? HALF NORMAL saline. By the closed (minded) ICU attendings orders. Surgical resident and I were infuriated. Documented our previous recommendations in notes.
I have never wanted to channel Alec Balwin from Malice while I was working in the hospital until that moment. I would love to have had immunity from punishment just to go off on those ancient SOBs and read 5 Big Blues worth of the Riot Act.
Because correcting the iatrogenic acidosis was key in getting his heart contractility and response to beta-adrenergic agents better. Still pushed some bicarb to get it to happen, but I wasn't going to add to his problems by keeping him on poison, as someone said earlier.I don't understand how a case that sounds so ominous, turns around so easily because Plasmalyte was hung.
Trust me, as someone who has actually taken Latin as a language, it is a bit maddening.Has anyone brought this up?
Two nostrils = "nares" (NER-eez)
I am pretty certain though that when referring to one nostril, it's...
"naris"
Not "nare" (NAIR)
Pretty sure that's right.
Not a pet peeve. Just something I have noticed.
CYA. Never more important than with emergent surgeries, where things can go bad by default.
- So doctor, why didn't you get coagulation studies before the surgery?
- The patient said he'd never had a coagulation problem and was not taking blood thinners. It was not indicated.
- What is warfarin, doctor?
- The blood thinner the patient was taking and forgot to tell me about.
- Was he in pain at the time of your interview?
- Yes.
- Do you think he was stressed by the idea of having emergent surgery?
- Probably.
- Then why do you expect him to not make mistakes? Isn't it reasonable to double check, given the risks of error? Isn't it the standard of care to trust what the patient says, but also verify?
- Err...
The hospital will not reward you for foregoing unnecessary testing, but the malpractice lawyers and juries will make you pay. It's not worth using common sense and skipping tests; you might find you have the one patient in 10,000 who is the exception from common sense and logic. A society which tolerates this malpractice system deserves the high healthcare costs that come with the defensive medicine of testing 9,999 unnecessarily.
This thread is very interesting as an outsider (emergency medicine). One thing I saw earlier in the thread was getting routine cbc, bmp, coags before routine surgery.
I know that coags don't help me a lick when I have an appy or acute chole come in, but I feel like I can't get a surgical patient admitted without coags. Same goes for cbc....no matter what I tell the surgeon on a consult I hear "what's the white count?" Obviously I'm admitting to the surgeons, not the anesthesiologist, but still.
If the PTT is prolonged and the cause is not anticoagulant therapy or heparin contamination, then a second PTT test is performed by mixing the patient's plasma with pooled normal plasma (a collection of plasma from a number of normal donors). If the PTT time returns to normal ("corrects"), it suggests a deficiency of one or more of the coagulation factors in the patient's plasma. If the time remains prolonged, then the problem may be due to the presence of an abnormal factor inhibitor (autoantibody). Further studies can then be performed to identify what factors may be deficient or determine if an inhibitor is present in the blood. Nonspecific inhibitors, such as lupus anticoagulant and anticardiolipin antibodies
The PTT may be prolonged in von Willebrand disease, the most common, inherited bleeding disorder, which affects platelet function due to decreased von Willebrand factor. Hemophilia A and Hemophilia B (Christmas disease) are two other inherited bleeding disorders resulting from a decrease in factors VIII and IX, respectively. Deficiencies of other coagulation factors are rare but may also adversely impact PTT results.
Prolonged PTT levels may also be seen with leukemia, excessive bleeding in pregnant women prior to or after giving birth, or recurrent miscarriages.
http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/aptt/tab/test/
I'm not saying it's valuable as a routine screening test in the general population, just other reasons why it's ordered - yes, in a somewhat 'knee-jerk' manner.
It's almost as if there is no way to order the tests separately unless it's a patient on Coumadin in which case they are only getting the PT for that specific reason.
We'll talk after your first malpractice suit (hopefully never).
Do a Google search using keywords "litigation" and "anesthesiology". Most anesthesiologists go their whole careers without being significantly affected by a suit; a convincing majority of suits are unsuccessful.
On the other hand, creating a strong paper trail showing that you did "everything" for the patient and not getting sued (because the malpractice lawyer thinks your fault would be tough/costly to prove): pretty related.
Lab Tech: "Hi. Is this Dr. Sevo"
Sevo: "Yes. How can I help you?"
Lab Tech: "I have a critical value I need to verbally communicate to you"
Sevo: "Great. Wacha got"
Lab Tech: "We have a PAO2 of 265mmhg"
Just tell them you have a cousin who runs a funeral home and you can hook up their estate with a good deal. Then say pleasant dreams and push the propofol.This just happened to me...again. Biggest pet peeve.
As I roll patient to OR from holding, patient says that they have a brother/cousin/friend who is an attorney. What do they honestly think saying this will accomplish? Same goes for entitled VIPs that flaunt their VIPness at me. Puts me in a bad mood for the case.
Just tell them you have a cousin who runs a funeral home and you can hook up their estate with a good deal. Then say pleasant dreams and push the propofol.
Scop not versed. Lol.Nice. Before or after 6 of versed?
Oh hell yes. This. If anyone says this to me, I fire back with "Today I got a cheeseburger for 99 sonts. And shoot, I got bit by a sontipede the other day."
Isn't heroin (diamorphine) available for clinical use some places in Europe? I'm sort of curious who uses it and for what.
You roll into the ICU with a post-op patient, a couple lines are tangled
Nurses: "OMG look at all the spaghetti"
...
You go to pick up an ICU patient for a case, and LITERALLY THIRTY LINES are tangled
Nurses: "I'm catching up on my charting"
Had a heart as resident. Drop pt off with perfect organization of lines. She was putting out more than you would like in chest tube. Go back to grab her for OR 2 hours later lines are tangled everywhere. I expressed my frustration and just received rolling eyes.
Why do you need an OG tube for a heart?

You should write your equivalent of an event report for that kind of behavior. It will get you fired, and deservedly so. She can work at a 7-4 surgery center, though I suspect she will have the same problems there. "disability" is the answer...I'm very much over watching nurses in the OR in between cases throwing hissy fits for (fill in the blank) reason. Today I witnessed a full-on swear fest with throwing of equipment across the room. Apparently her hip hurt and she didn't like that she had to stay past 5. Usually it's passive aggressive bs from nurses, today it was flat out aggressive aggressive. Not impressed.
This just happened to me...again. Biggest pet peeve.
As I roll patient to OR from holding, patient says that they have a brother/cousin/friend who is an attorney. What do they honestly think saying this will accomplish? Same goes for entitled VIPs that flaunt their VIPness at me. Puts me in a bad mood for the case.
You should write your equivalent of an event report for that kind of behavior. It will get you fired, and deservedly so. She can work at a 7-4 surgery center, though I suspect she will have the same problems there. "disability" is the answer...
This just happened to me...again. Biggest pet peeve.
As I roll patient to OR from holding, patient says that they have a brother/cousin/friend who is an attorney. What do they honestly think saying this will accomplish? Same goes for entitled VIPs that flaunt their VIPness at me. Puts me in a bad mood for the case.
Narcissists often conceal a desire for help with veiled (or direct) threats. It's their lovely way of saying "don't abandon me". A wiser way to handle these wonderful people is to appeal to their ego. "You deserve the best care possible, and I won't let you down." Magically disarming.
Along these lines, I hate colleagues (anesthesiologists, surgeons, even nurses) saying along the lines of "Your next patient is a friend of mine. Please treat them right".
Oh really? Because otherwise I wasn't planning on providing the best anesthetic care that I could before you said that.
Along these lines, I hate colleagues (anesthesiologists, surgeons, even nurses) saying along the lines of "Your next patient is a friend of mine. Please treat them right".
Oh really? Because otherwise I wasn't planning on providing the best anesthetic care that I could before you said that.