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Flex-Position Essay

Decent Essays

I am employed as a flex-position RN at Fayette Medical Center, this position requires that I float, as needed and at any time during a shift, from acute care med-surg to the ICU and our emergency department (ED). However, when I started my nursing career, I was hired, oriented, and trained as a medical surgical nurse. Most often, this entails providing care for a middle age to elderly population and rarely have I ever taken care of adolescents, pediatrics, or infants. Med-surg is where I am most comfortable and what I enjoy. So, as I made the transition to the flex-position, I found myself in a very uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory. Let’s face it, the ED is scary place for a med-surg nurse. Med-surg patients are generally stable for …show more content…

The baby had been taken two weeks earlier into DHR custody and placed with a young couple that knew the mother. My co-worker and I immediately took the baby, put him on the bed, and unwrap him. He was breathing, but was limp, grey, and I noticed bruising around his head and under his eyes. Lifting his eyelids to assess his pupils, we found a large bleed in his right eye. He never flinched or made a sound when his IV was started. After notifying the doctor and calling respiratory, we started asking questions. Are you the parents, how long have you had him, what was happening when he quit breathing? We learn the couple had had him for two weeks, the “spots” on his face and head “just appeared” the day before, and they had not noticed the bleed in his eye. The doctor came in to assess and states “he looks a little dehydrated, how well does he eat?” The other nurse and I was like, what? We followed him out of the room and ask him if did not notice the bruising and color of the baby. He states, “If y'all are that concerned, send him to CT.” The CT results were critical: bilateral subdural hematoma and we immediately flew him out to a higher level of

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