Wednesday, December 14, 2005
~ A Lesson to Learn... The hard way... ~
8:52:00 pm
Sometimes, in life, people will only remember things when they learn it the hard way... For me, this is one lesson that I will never forget... Not till the day I stop working as a nurse... And this is my lesson...
I had a patient who was on chest tube... After the patient was sent down to the procedure room to have his ultrasound guided chest tube insertion, me and my fellow colleague went to check out his chest tube... As I was doing a favour to my next shift colleague, I was the one who first started the chest tube chart... It is our protocol that we have to check the chest tube from the site of insertion and all the way to the chest tube bottle, just to ensure that everything is alright...
But dumbly, I was sabotaging my own self by putting an 'X' sign on the fluctuation of the water level on the chest tube chart... And the worse part, I didn't even question myself on why the water level was not fluctuating for it is supposed to whenever a chest tube is unclamped... And now, out of our blindness or something, neither me nor my colleague knew about the existance of the three-way tap which acts as the clamp... For we believed that a chest tube can ONLY be clamped using the forceps...
The clamping of the chest tube was only being found out 2 days later after the chest tube was inserted... This matter did not became an issue... Not until the day the patient passed away... Well, I guess almost everyone in my level would know about this incident... It became quite a big issue and even our main discipline consultant gave his own opinion, which wasn't good of course...
It totally reflects on the way we nurse our patients... Are we really doing the right thing sometimes? Why are we so task-orientated that we only see on one thing and not widen our prospective? If we had done so, would patient still be alive to this very day? Are we not doing justice to this patient?
I could have just packed my bag and leave nursing but it's just so unprofessional... Why give up just like that and waste whatever I've studied for the past 3 years? Honestly, there are times when you just feel like giving up... But there are people around you who would give you the moral support that you need... And I'm really thankful to these very people who understood what I was going through and stood by me... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Actually, I didn't want to confirm you... I feel that your safety awareness is not there... But because you had the backing of Sister Nor and the rest of the staff, we're going to confirm you..."Yeah, I got the confirmation but trust me, with these kind of words, I rather not get confirmed... It's just so demoralising... *Sigh*...
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Anyway, thanks to all those birthday wishes... It really made my day... Although towards the end, it just affected my mood... It's been really a bad week for me...
written, NaDiaH eRNiYaNTi
