A feeling of helplessness
This week was a mixed bag in my cardio placement. The gen-med ward I am on ATM is pretty quiet for cardio-resp patients, and the one that I do have has really responded to ACBT with vibes and huff. I am still not used to seeing cups full of various shades of green sputum, however.
Anyway, one patient that I have been seeing with my supervisor on the ward had a (L) TACS stroke, so we have been sitting him up and leaning him to his unaffected side, and then hoisting him out of bed. I didn’t have the opportunity to see him this week. He developed severe pain in his right knee, which lead to him screaming in pain on the slightest movement. My supervisor had therefore been unable to move the patient, and as a result he developed a chest infection.
On Friday we were going to attempt to see him, and possibly perform some chest physio and suction the patient. The doctors were concerned about his condition, and had ordered a CXR for him. His bed was visible from the nurses station, and some of the nurses were concerned about his condition. This grabbed my attention, and when I had a look at him, it was pretty confronting.
He was in acute respiratory failure, and was on a rebreather mask on 10 l/min, and was literally gasping for air. They placed him on portable oxygen and began wheeling his bed down to radiology. However, within 20 mins he was back in his room, with his family present. He unfortunately didn’t make it down to radiology.
Seeing a patient suffering like that was extremely confronting, and is something I had only seen as a teenager the evening before my grandfather passed away. It was distressing, knowing that the patient was struggling and not being able to do anything about it. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about it with anyone, and I thought you might benefit from my experience.
We lost 2 patients on that ward on Friday afternoon. It was interesting to observe what is usually an upbeat group of people drop very quickly into a sombre and restrained mood. However, as the saying goes, life must go on and there were other sick people to take care of.
Dale
posted by dedwick @ 8:36 PM
2 Comments:
hey Dale,
I've had patients pass away during my placements as well. Although I didn't see it head on as you did but I know what you mean about feeling helpless. It is a sad situation when you loss a patient and you can't help but think if there was something more that you could have done. But then you need to take a step back and realise that there is usually a bigger underlying problem and that by providing physio treatment you did give them the best care possible. but unfortunalety this is part of the daily routine in a hospital setting and as you said, you just need to move on and focus your attention on providing treatment for the other patients
Hi Dale, guess it isn't easy when patients don't make it. Remembered that when one of the patients I cared for passed away(first time at that time for me), I didn't talk much for 3 days and couldn't get much sleep. Maybe because after seeing her for a week, I got to know her better and her death seemed kind of hard on me. Thank goodness I had a good friend during that placement and she gave me good advice and support. In short, we got to be objective, to stay positive and always ever ready to look forward. Cos death is a part and parcel of life and even more common in the place where you work currently. Take it as building up emotional strength.
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