Thanks for sharing that story. I always wondered how you managed not to scare someone to death with synchronized cardioversion.
Beautiful. Well done, team.
One of my favorite procedures but there was one time....I had an orientee and I was excited because we do them so seldom and it would be great experience for the orientee to be able to do it under controlled conditions.
I explained to my orientee that the shock briefly stopped the heart and allowed the hearts own pacemaker to take over. We had sedated the patient and deliver the shock and his rhythm flat-lined. We were all looking at the monitor waiting for the first complex...and looking, and looking and opening the crash cart and oops,there goes a beat....uh oh only one and it stopped again, opening the drug tray and getting out epi and "oh, there it goes, whew." And he was back in a lovely sinus rhythm, good pulse and blood pressure.
When we looked at the strips he had 11 seconds of asystole, one beat and another 4 seconds of asystole before his heart took off in a normal rhythm.
The patient was fine and had no recollection of the procedure but I'm sure he wondered why the doctor and nurses were all pale and sweaty!
I know it was a long time before I could do a synchronised cardioversion without having an anxiety attack
Geez---Sounds like something out of Star Trek.....All you folks in that specialty have my unbridled admiration.
And yes, it is soooo good to work with a "dream team" and have a great outcome.
I want to come to your ER if I get sick. On second thought, do you make house calls to the East Coast?
MJ
Well, MJ, they say that my neck of the woods is the best place in the country to have a heart attack. We train like crazy on the heart attack, stroke and pulmonary emboli pathways. We drum ACLS into the brains of our new hires. It's our bread and butter.
Excellent post. You know, I've never seen this done!
You know what I think is pretty cool? I am an East-coast Liberal from Massachusetts who is probably your worst political nightmare, but I love your blog. I absolutely love your posts on Nursing, and I appreciate them very much.
Thanks.
Kate, welcome! Thanks for your kind words.
I want you to know that whether you agree with my personal views or not, you will always be welcome here. You have my word that your views will be respected here. There are other regulars here who don't always agree with me nor I with them, but we agree on one thing: people are inherently priceless, and thus worthy of being treated with dignity and respect.
I hope that you will visit again soon. I look forward to reading your views on the issues we discuss here.
I love that "did you do it already?" effect that etomidate has. Well, we use propofol but same effect.
Ah, Propofol... "Milk of Amnesia."
Problems that we can solve... Definitely gratifying!
You're an excellent writer. If you should ever get tired of nursing you have a great back-up.
High! Interesting blog you have here. I like it!
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