About Me

undergrad RN
I'm a twenty-something Canadian student. After stumbling through a few years of college, I finally managed to get into the nursing school of my dreams, where I hope to graduate in 2012 with a nursing baccalaureate degree. I want to offer an honest look into how a modern nurse is educated, both good and bad. Eventually I hope to compare my education to my day-to-day career and see how it holds up. Whatever happens, it should be somewhat entertaining. Find me on allnurses.com!
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Half a day in the life of an ICU nurse

A great post brought to you by Raspberry Stethoscope! I have been reading her blog for over 2 years now. She has a zillion great resources for nursing students but she is a staff ICU nurse now in Florida!

http://www.raspberrystethoscope.com/2010/06/what-happens-during-half-of-my-day.html


0612 Begin head to toe assessment: listen to lungs, heart, bowels, check pulses—radial and pedal. If pt alert, ask if they have pain, how they slept, follow-up with concerns. If ventilated and sedated, make note of ventilator settings, suction the patient if needed, tidy up the room (!!), check pupils. Zero any alines, cvp’s, ScVO2 monitors, check alarms on monitor, adjust to personal setting. Check room, make sure ambu bag, enough flushes in the drawers/make sure room is stocked for a code! 

0620 if patient or family does not need anything, such as blanket, ice, bed pan, water, etc. then begin   to chart assessment on flow sheet (approx 3 pages). Go through chart and if not already done, update special treatment pages, education, graphics for IV access, treatment/plan of care, remove 234234 extra papers that do not belong in the nurse’s chart, reprint patient id stickers.

0630 Onto patient #2… chart 0600 vital signs, including: blood pressure, HR, Rhythm, sats and O2 %, temperature, RASS scale, dump urine for the hour and note milliliters.

0632 Begin head to toe assessment: listen to lungs, heart, bowels, check pulses—radial and pedal. If pt alert, ask if they have pain, how they slept, follow-up with concerns. If ventilated and sedated, make note of ventilator settings, suction the patient if needed, tidy up the room (!!), check pupils. Zero any alines, cvp’s, ScVO2 monitors, check alarms on monitor, adjust to personal setting. Check room, make sure ambu bag, enough flushes in the drawers/make sure room is stocked for a code!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there! I just came across your blog. I'm a newly graduated nurse and have just created a blog to help my fellow new nurses. I would absolutely love to have advice and feedback from other new nurses, such as yourself! Please take a moment to check it out & subscribe at thenewRN.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Robert said...

Sweet, thanks for the link, I'll check her out!

undergrad RN said...

Thanks for saying hi Aalya, I'll be sure to check out your blog!

Raspberry Stethoscope said...

Hey! thanks for the shout out:)

Raspberry Stethoscope said...

By the way, your blog has really come along as a great resource. it is soo organized! I'm jealous!!

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