You mean code team? Every regular RPh at my hospital responds to codes...by "regular" i mean normal clinical/staff pharmacist working on the floors or in order entry, as opposed to say, the IV room pharmacists or admin and whatnot. We don't really have teams per se...its more like if there's a code on a neuro floor, the pharmacists that cover that floor will go. It starts becoming a free-for-all when codes are called in weird areas, like rads, public areas, etc.
Hell, even I've been to codes. Not that I do anything productive or remotely life-saving (yet)...its pretty analogous to an MS3 tagging along with an attending. Maybe they'll let me make a neo or levo gtt one of these days.
I was going to say all hospitals do this, but coincidentally, while I was at a pseudo-code, I was talking to an RN on call. She thought I was a dashing young resident until I told her I was pharmacy...anyways, she was complaining about how the small community hospital she works at has "good for nothing pharmacists" who don't respond to codes. So I guess it depends on how big the hospital is and how well it's staffed, cuz i'm pretty sure that hospital has limited pharmacy services.
As far as what you would do, my impression is:
-"run" the code cart...but some RNs are really really possessive of it. We have everything drug related (epi, atropine, amiodarone, d50, bicarb, lido and so on...) as well as a buttload of respiratory stuff (laryngoscope, ET tubes, ambu bags), IV drips, flushes, gloves, central line kits, chest tubes, angiocaths...and the kitchen sink.
-draw up/make any meds needed. Mostly, this involves assembling the epi/atropine abbojects. Occasionally they'll make stuff...the ones I see the most are usually IV metoprolol syringes and phenylephrine drips...followed by the high K thing (i think CaCl2/bicarb/D50/IV insulin), and thrombolytics like tPa.
-Now that I think about it, getting weird meds too...say dreamy anesthesia resident runs out of propofol and it's not an ICU. Guess who's running to the nearest ICU for some milky white anesthetic emulsion? Definitely not the ACLS expert who happens to be an MD...
-filling out paperwork, although RNs do it too...like what/when/how much drugs were administered, making sure they aren't maxed out on atropine...etc.
Other than that, the anesthesia service and whatever residents and nurses who are around will be doing most of the work. ACLS is pretty standardized in that you follow the algorithm and rarely deviate from the pathways, meaning that the residents will tell you what they want and you give it to them as fast as possible. Sure, nursing could draw the meds too, but my head starts hurting when they start trying to jam blunt cannulas into vials...but that's another thread altogether.
