A Study On Code Blue

What was the most exciting thing that happened on each day of your clinical rotation? (5 pts)

Clinical day started slow, I was a bit anxious about waking my patient up that morning but I knew I had to go in. I woke him slowly and took his vitals and proceeded with my assessment. As I assessed my patient, his wife came in to his room and I introduced myself. During the morning I found out that my patient was being discharged. Before discharge, my patient was going to be fitted for a LifeVest.

We all have one thing in common, every live being on the face of this earth, a heart and more specifically a heartbeat. It is the one thing simple, yet oh so complex that labels us alive or dead.

I read the article “Code Blue”, “Code Black”: What Does ‘Code’ Mean? which was about the different codes in a hospital and what kind of **predicaments** they can cause for the nursing staff. This message was created by Melissa Stöppler and was intended for anyone who finds an interest in understanding the codes of a hospital. Melissa uses an allusion at the beginning of the article by saying, “TV series like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Code Black" seem to have sparked an renewed interest in the topic of "Codes" in medicine.”(What is the "Code"?, Paragraph: 1) This makes people who have seen the shows think about the characters and the lingo of the hospital. The author uses some ethos when she goes on to define what a code red and code blue are. She uses some medical words such as cardiopulmonary arrest. She

Being only a measly volunteer for my high school HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) program, I am not allowed to participate in much, leaving a lot of down time. I hear the sound of rushed feet pacing up and down the light brown, wooden floors, and the white, florescent lights blind any who dare to gaze up. I am only here to observe surgeries and injuries, yet so far I have only managed to observe impatient nurses streamlining up and down pallid hallways. I glance upward to a clock staring at me from right across the room. It glares 8:48. I moan, realizing I have another thirty minutes before I have to head to school. I turn my head when I hear in the distance an unusually loud herd of frantic feet. Moments later the double doors blast open, paramedics, doctors, and nurses all surround one speeding bed. The transition from utter silence to sudden action throws off my relaxed and daydreaming mind, as I see the ominous bed hurdle its way into an open room down the

Monday morning and I oversleep, I have 30 minutes to get dressed and get on the unit, ready to receive report. I fly into the hospital parking lot, run to the Intensive Care Unit with three minutes to spare. I sit down to receive report from Hazel the hospital hag. Hazel looks at me up and down in her usual haughty fashion and said, "You know your uniform is on wrong side out and your shoes don't match." I looked myself over, smiled and said, "I know." She looked at me like I had thrown bed one's dirty brief at her. I was pleased with myself. I made it through report, ran to the locker room, reversed my scrubs and scurried on to bed one. I walk in the room and noticed Hazel the hag left all the intravenous bags dry. I go into the supply room and collect the necessary intravenous bags, while going back to the unit I hear "Code Blue room 352, Code Blue room 352." I am on the code team so I drop everything and rush to room 352 on the opposite side of the hospital, only to find a code blue had been called in error.

It was June 12, 2016, one of the deadliest mass shootings at Orlando, FL. It wasn’t like any other day; after a tragic event I was called into work around 5:30am. I finally reached ORMC amidst of all the chaos, there wasn’t any pleasant welcome, every face mimicked a variety of emotions with some worried and sad, while others confused and suspicious. I was floated to the trauma unit to accommodate victims after surgery. I could sense the sturdy whiff of blood as I walked into the unit which I was not so familiar with. Even though my heart was aching by witnessing the sufferings of those innocent victims, I had a strong impulse to help and give my all. I took my assignment sheet and walked into my patient’s room. As he slowly opened his eyes, the nurse repeated the questions:

My educational fear in the past was during my first week off ICU orientation, I was assigned an admission from the ER of a post cardiac arrest middle aged patient who was placed on a therapeutic hypothermia. I verbalized to the Charge Nurse of being hesitant to accept the admission since I’m fresh off orientation. She told me “this would be a good experience for you”. I want to keep good positive impression to my colleague being a new nurse of my new unit and took on the mission to accept the assignment. After receiving a report, the unconscious patient arrived on our unit on a ventilator with hypothermic jacket and with multiple drips. My heart started to pound and said to myself “what am I getting into, transferring here in ICU is a mistake, and I just want to cry”. While being shaky, I took good long deep breaths. After the patient was situated the on the bed, I carried on the task according to the doctors’ orders and the protocols. I stayed in communication with my charge nurse for assistance, questions and moral support. I succeeded the patient care uneventfully on a 12 gruesome hours by working and collaborating with the charge nurse, the senior RNs as a

I was at Hamad General Hospital shadowing medical professionals of different specialties to get an overall idea of what the medical career was like, I was at ED (Emergency Department) when suddenly and with no previous warning “Cardiac Arrest !,” yelled the nurse, in moments emergency specialists were standing above the 16 year old male patient head sorting out CPR, AED etc..; first shock was delivered, the second and third followed, but the teenager didn’t even blink, he lay lifelessly, few more attempts and the white blanket was pulled over him; I couldn’t believe my eyes, I had witnessed an in-hospital death for the first time; trembling and shaking, I walked out of Bay-1, with a completely new meaning of medicine.

On September 28, when we went to Tripler Army Medical Center, I was placed in the Cardiac Ward. At that time, I was able to learn so many diagnosis dealing with the patients. The nurse had briefly explained what was going on with each individual patient and the type of treatments they are doing to help. She had also neatly clarified each medication she was giving them and told me exactly what it was used for. I was able to get an experience of hands on by taking a patient’s temperature. I had shadowed as she did so many things to make the patient feel comfortable and did everything to the best of her ability to make them happy. She had taught me how to record every piece of information about the patients on the computer by showing me what

I’m learning from observations and witnessing it first hand that there are many mishaps in life which seem to be unexplainable and unfair, and have devastating consequences. It takes a special person to work in the medical field, especially the Emergency Room. ER’s see the worst of the worst. You have the gentlest touch and most calming words, whether you are giving a diagnosis of something minor, to advising someone they may have cancer, to breaking it to a mother that her baby is not viable. When I get to that point I want to handle situations just like you do.

Hospitals are not the best places; no one wants to stay, but one was my favorite place for six months. People think of hospitals as some place to sit and wait for bad news. Brunswick hospital is the hospital I visited every day. It had plain white walls, red seats to sit in while waiting, and had a great staff. I was in sixth grade living life as any normal eleven year old. Life was a breeze. Then on February twenty-sixth, my whole world changed. My mother found out she had stage three Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “Mom was going to die,” was the only thing running though my little scatter brain. She would not see my graduate or follow my dreams.

The purpose of this journal is to reflect on my experience and skills gained during my clinical placement at Ben Taub Hospital. On my first clinical day, I was excited and nervous at the same time. My first placement was in the PREOP/PACU area. I was assigned to help a patient who had been in the PACU area going on 2 days. Normally, once the patient comes from surgery they are only in the PACU area for a short period of time before they are discharged home or given a bed in another area of the hospital. This particular patient still had not received an assignment for a bed. The physicians would make their rounds to come check on him daily. The patient was a 28-year-old Hispanic male, non-English speaking, he had a hemicolectomy. He had a NG tube, urinary Foley catheter, and a wound vac. My preceptor had just clocked in and she needed to check on the patient’s vitals and notes from the previous nurse. Once she introduced me to the patient and explained while I was there, she then asked me to check his vitals. (Vital signs indicate the body’s ability to regulate body temperature, maintain blood flow, and oxygenate body tissues. Vital signs are important indicators of a client’s overall health status (Hogan, 2014). I froze for a quick second. I have practiced taking vitals numerous of times and I knew I could do it correctly. I started with the temperature first, when I was quickly corrected on a major mistake I had made by my preceptor. I HAD FORGOT TO WASH MY HANDS and PUT

This Friday, September 15th, I had my clinical observation experience in the ED. I was there from 7:00 am till noon, viewing the flow and duties of the nursing staff on the unit, as well as practicing the skills I have thus learned in school. Throughout most of the morning, I followed Jessica, who had been a nurse in the ER for ten years. It was an insightful experience that broadened my previously limited knowledge of the roles and experience of an emergency nurse.

My supervisor, one of the head nurses, hurriedly pulled me to the corner of the bleach white hospital room and directed me to put on gloves, an eye mask, and a face mask. I felt as if I was preparing for war as I put on all of the required gear. The sound of expensive shoes click-clacked down the hallway indicating the arrival of two doctors who rushed into the room and shouted out orders to the staff while pulling the doors to the room shut along with the curtains. Two doctors, eight nurses, an intern, and a dying patient squeezed into the already claustrophobic ten by fifteen-foot room. The machine monitoring the patient’s vital signs continued to beep incessantly as my heart rate accelerated. Throughout my internship, I had never seen a patient in critical condition until that moment. I remembered my teacher’s advice if we were ever in a situation such as this: take a few deep breaths and sit down if you feel like you’re going to pass out. In that