The other evening it was “relatively slow” (meaning we were only about 5 patients behind) and several of us (RN’s, PA’s, Doc’s. and Techs) were sitting around in the Docs’ charting area making typically inappropriate comments to each other when suddenly, one of the PA’s was like “well, yeah, I agree with that…..wait, WTF, whose patient is that? It looks like room 18 is in V-tach!” We all looked over at the monitor somewhat disinterested and saw that indeed, room 18 was tach-ing away!
We all jumped up and as we left the room, we saw about 5 other RN’s running down the hallway with the crash cart. Luckily for the patient, by the time we got to her room, she was back in sinus rhythm.
Amazing. People are actually paying attention the monitors!
(see this post of White Coat’s blog about a celebrity lawsuit against ER doctors who apparently did not have a patient on a monitor that the plaintiff’s lawyers alleged could have been saved by its use. Personally, I believe that even had we not seen this patient go into Vtach, had it persisted for another 20 seconds, the patient could have become more symptomatic and we would have been notified by the family.)
I don’t have anything relevant to add except for that picture cracks me up every time I see it.
During my OB clinical, all the nurses did was watch the monitor. Well, all they made me do was watch the monitor.
If the patient never becomes symptomatic, does anyone need to do anything other than record a strip of this rhythm, so that cardiology can look for the cause.
We become upset over life threatening rhythms because we are told that they will kill you. Sometimes that is true. Other times, it is not. Assessment and treatment only when necessary is what the patient needs. For all the people who will comment about the necessity of following the ACLS algorithm, AHA also states – Treat the patient, not the monitor.