Codes

The hospital I work in uses the unit I'm in and one other (as back up to us) for the "code blue" team. I tend to be an adrenaline junkie, so it suits me well now and then to go. There is one rule that I wish I could get established into protocol. When you pull the code button you reach over and drop the temperature of the room. Face it, little old ladies / men that code aren't going to mind if we cool down the room. Assuming we are able to be successful in reviving them, they will be transferred anyway. It's tough doing CPR at 100 compressions a minute when sweat is pouring off of you.

Codes on the floor are nothing like things you see on TV, in fact, they are nothing alike. Things are never where you need them, so many people in the room, you never know which people will show up, you never know what is going to happen. It's like an adventure everytime. Now in saying this, it's not to say things are bad, it's just not controlled the way that they show it on TV. A code in the ER or in the unit is much more controlled, we have everything set up, we are generally more prepared for "the worse case" than the floor is. The nature of the beast and all.

The last code I went to, one of the RN's was telling me I needed to give "high dose epi". I couldn't remember that being part of the ACLS but I looked anyway. I'm a bit insecure at times, I've only been out of school 5 years, these guys have more experience, so I attempted to do what he said. Later of course, I looked and we don't do that anymore. Another code, the RN kept giving me the wrong pads for the defibulator we had on the cart. She then went and got the right defibulator (instead of giving me the pads for the one on the cart) and still couldn't get it to work. Fortunately we were just "preparing" to shock and nowhere close to needing to use the stuff. My hospital only uses two types of equipment, I'm glad. Overall though, we do good work. I've never walked away from one of our codes saying that "if only......" Our mistakes tend to be in getting ahead of ourselves and not in what we are doing.

One day I would like to work for a short time somewhere else just to see how others do it. I mean totally away from this part of the country. I've pretty much always lived here, the southern mentality is probably affecting the way things are done and how people react. I've always wondered how end of life stuff is handled at other places.