Critical Care Reflection

Reflection regarding individualised nursing interventions in a critical situation.

Working in resuscitation on an A&E department. A gentleman was brought to the area with chest pain, the patient was suffering with lung cancer and the chemotherapy drugs he had been taking had weakened the left ventricle of his heart. My mentor was at the head of the patients bed, taking his vital observations, I began a primary assessment on the patient, initially the patient answered the questions about his health well and was eager to engage in conversation with me about this. However half way through my questioning I noticed that the patients eyes began to roll into his head and his upper body almost instantaneously began subtly jerking. As the emergency alarm was at the head of the patients bed, I shouted to my mentor to pull it which he did immediately. My mentor then administered a pre-cordial thump to no avail. At this point the room was filled with other members of staff and the consultant covering resuscitation administered adrenaline and   defibrilisation, this was effective, the patient came to and appeared startled, he began hitting out trying to get the medical staff away from him. The consultant calmed him down and explained what had just happened. He was immediately referred to C.C.U via blue light. I attended with the patient and on arrival handed him over to the Heartlands C.C.U Consultant which was overseen by my mentor. During this time I also explained in layman’s terms the changes in the patients condition to his wife and young son. The son was inconsolable so I requested a play specialist to support the child and help him to understand the situation regarding his Father.

Initially my primary concern was to prevent this patient from dying, I felt very calm during the situation as it all happened very quickly and I was very well supported by the staff in resuscitation. I was immediately aware that something was very wrong with the patient and that he was...