Wednesday, May 6, 2009

To all the nurses out there ...

Nurses ... please pay attention.  If you have a patient in ICU who is aged and has recently undergone surgery, especially C-Spine Surgery, and they are about to be transferred by ambulance to a rehab center ... PLEASE GIVE THEM THEIR PAIN MEDS BEFORE WE GET THERE.  

Seriously, if you give them their pain meds on the way out the door, even ON OUR COT ALREADY, the pain meds will kick in about the time the patient gets to the rehab center, but they will endure us lifting and moving them onto the cot, lifting them into the ambulance, DRIVING them around town on streets that are under construction, unloading them from the ambulance, and lifting them onto the bed at the rehab center.  All of these are very uncomfortable activities for a patient who is in a great amount of pain.

Laying on the bed on the other end of the trip isn't so bad, so don't be so worried that she will be uncomfortable when she gets there, but rather please consider the trip and give them those pain meds a half hour before we arrive.

Your patients will thank you, and the EMT who has to sit in the back of the ambulance and listen to the patient moan in pain that YOU could have prevented will thank you.

... WSS

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