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Journal 2
Journal 2
Reflective Journaling #2
Name: Vanessa Rushing Date: 02/28/18
Noticing
Subjective and objective data:
o The patient presented to the hospital with altered mental status, lethargy, and confusion after
the patient’s spouse found him at home becoming more and more confused. The patient had a
history of dementia, hypertension, Alzheimer’s, and both prostate and bladder cancer. Once
at the hospital the patient was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection which could have been
one of the causes of the increased confusion that was witnessed by the spouse due to the
patients older age. The patient was then admitted to our unit to treat his UTI with antibiotics
and assess his mental status further. Although the patient was slightly confused at times he
was very pleasant and cooperative but would just need reassurance every so often as to where
he was and what was happening. During his stay, his wife became his healthcare proxy and
decided that it was time to sign Do Not Resuscitate papers because the patients mental and
physical status had been declining for months. Discharge orders were put in to let the patient
go to a skilled nursing facility and as I walked into the room to remove the patients IV the
wife stated that she could not wake him up. After multiple attempts to awake the patient and
doing a sternal rub the patient still would not awaken and he began to tremble. The critical
care team was called and the patient was able to be stabilized without further or more
intensive care.
How did you know there was a problem? Abnormal patient presentation or your “gut feeling”?
o In this situation, I knew there was a problem by both the abnormal patient presentation and
my own “gut feeling”. This patient was never difficult to arose and never slept during the day
so when I entered the room at first I thought it was odd that he was asleep. It wasn’t until the
wife stated that he wouldn’t wake up and was asking if we had given him something to make
him sleepy that it clicked in my head that something wasn’t right. I didn’t panic and
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attempted to arouse the patient calmly and do a sternal rub and when these measures didn’t
work I calmly called my preceptor into the room to help manage the situation.
Interpreting
What other information do I need to make a decision? Is there anyone else I need to involve or
notify? What could be happening and how critical is this situation?
o In this situation, I had the information at hand to make an immediate decision to call for help
because I knew that this was something serious and out of my reach as a student nurse. Once
I called for help a set of vital signs was taken and so was a blood glucose. It was found that
the patient’s oxygen saturation was 87% and dropping, quickly. I involved my preceptor and
also our charge nurse and notified them of the patients declining status and a PCA to help
assist. We didn’t know what was causing the patient to become so unstable and the situation
was critical.
Responding
Should I do something now or wait and watch? How will I know if I am making the best
decision? What interventions can I delegate to other members of the healthcare team?
o Waiting and watching was definitely not an option for our healthcare team and this patient in
this scenario because the patient was becoming more and more unstable. We applied a non
rebreather mask to the patient and applied 3 liters of oxygen to try and stabilize the patients
oxygen saturation. We also obtained an EKG, which was delegated to the PCA, which
showed that the patient was actively in AFIB. The patient was beginning to tremble and
shake, but not as if he was actively seizing. We called a CCAT, or in other terms the critical
care team to assist and help stabilize. Together we were able to get the patient’s oxygen
saturation back up to the 90’s and get him a stat CT scan to see if the patient was having a
stroke or see if we could figure out the cause of the patient’s sudden cardiac arrhythmia.
According to a study done by the Journal of Hospital Medicine “implementation of an
[critical care team] is associated with a reduction in both hospital mortality and nonICU
cardiopulmonary arrests” (2016).
o
Reflecting
Did I make the right decision? Did I achieve the desired outcome? What did I do really well?
What could I have done better?
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o I believe that in this situation I did make the right decision by calling for help from my
preceptor and the other registered nurses on the floor and going with my gut instinct that
something was wrong with this patient. By calling CCAT we reduced the patient’s risk of
going into a more dangerous cardiac arrhythmia and we were able to easily stabilize him
for transfer to scans to catch what was causing his decline in status. Yes, I did achieve the
desired outcome of having the patient be safe and stable without having to do invasive
interventions. I believe that I communicated very well to my preceptor and the other
healthcare team members and was helpful during a very stressful situation. I was also
very calm during the situation which I believe helped.
Resources:
Barclay, D., Corwin, G., Dannenberg, M., Solomon, R., Quddusi, S. (2016). Effectiveness of rapid
.... response teams on rates of inhospital cardiopulmonary arrest and mortality: A systematic review and
.... metaanalysis. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 11(6). doi: 10.1002/jhm.2554
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