My Patient Who Has Staphylococcus Infection

My patient yesterday was very poorly and she was isolated in the side room as she contacted *Staphylococcus infection which I heard is widespread in the region right now. She is young, on her 40's but she is a smoker which doesn't really help when you get chest infection. Poor lady. After we removed her *endotracheal tube because her blood result from *ABG's was all in normal range she did not managed. She was very distressed and was about to arrest so ICU consultant decided to put one back again. Normally the minimum of registered nurses that will help during *intubation process is about 3 in case something bad will happen but because I was in the side room and other nurses are busy of what they are doing of I'm not sure what! We intubated the lady and I was the only staff nurse who is present, with a consultant and a 2nd year nursing student. Thankfully we managed well and nothing wrong happened.

*Staphylococcus is group of bacteria, familiarly known as Staph (pronounced "staff"), that can cause a multitude of diseases as a result of infection of various tissues of the body. Staph bacteria can cause illness not only directly by infection (such as in the skin), but also indirectly by producing toxins responsible for food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. Staph-related illness can range from mild and requiring no treatment to severe and potentially fatal.

*ABG or arterial blood gas test measures the acidity pH and the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood from an artery. This test is used to check how well your lungs are able to move oxygen into the blood and remove carbon dioxide from the blood.

*ABG or arterial blood gas test measures the acidity pH and the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood from an artery. This test is used to check how well your lungs are able to move oxygen into the blood and remove carbon dioxide from the blood.

*Intubation is a procedure by which a tube is inserted through the mouth down into the trachea (the large airway from the mouth to the lungs).

picture from Google image

Why Not Ask?

This is a continuation about my post yesterday.

I don't have anything against new and deaf doctors. All I want is they can ask nurses because we are the one who knows our patient best. Practicing here in UK in Intensive care Unit, we only look after one level 3 patient (patient who is on breathing machine and patient who's got more than one organ failure) or we look after 2 patients who's level 2 and level 1. We are with our patient all shift (mostly all of us do 12.5 hours shift) that even consultants ask us regarding our patient. So to new doctors, why not ask us? There is no harm in asking instead we can learn by it.

Doctor Needs To Be Good

Working in ICU environment, nurses learn a lot. That sometimes even new doctors will look stupid because they can't decide and need to ask from the nurse. Our House Officer/Junior Doctor right now don't ask from us, maybe she is pretending that she is good and we know she's not. So what does she do? If we need something she will disappear and sometimes she will answer us on loud voice (trying to scare us :) But maybe that's only her defence mechanism because she doesn't know a lot. Thankfully she is only with us for only 6 months and she is leaving next month. Anyway, this young doctor is deaf and wears hearing aid which is a bit odd when she uses stethoscope to assess patient :)
Note: I'm not that good but I'm not a doctor, I'm only a nurse.