the SCRATCH nurse chronicles

The scrub nurse needs to use her heart

Sometimes i do wonder what exactly is our medical practice based on. Do we choose our doctors according to passion, looks or ability to study the best? Do these studious people have a heart for the patients?

My patient vomited in the OT yesterday just before her knee replacement surgery. She vomited even just before she went under anasthesia, which means she would have the ability to give consent tt she is feeling unwell and do not like to proceed with the surgery. Despite so, surgeons and anasthetists looked at her with heads shaking, cleared up her vomitus and proceeded the surgery. This was done even though there is a small risk that the vomitus may have went into her lungs and cause pneumonia.

Okay i am not questioning the professionalism and the assessment of my doctors here. Being best of the best within each cohort, i am pretty sure they have all the knowledge tools to make decisions. What i like to emphasize is the care we have for the patient. Do we care to stop and ask the madam if she like to proceed the surgery? Do we care to call the family members to update them and see if they think likewise? Do we stroke the hands of our patients and let them know it is okay to reject medical interventions if they feel they are not ready to accept?

More than often, i feel that patients are obliged to agree to the medical advice given by doctors. Sometimes, nurses become too task-orientated that she too forget her part what she can do for the patient. Ive been suggested upteen times that i should focus on efficiency and speed when i highlighted something that perhaps out of my control. Simple behaviours like spinal analgesic patients move and groan during surgery, how i felt patient is not concious enough to give independent consent and there is a need to retake it, how i was taught tt if patient didnt suggest then i should not bring up the suggestion if patient like his/her family to accompany him/her into OR and the list goes on…

What i never understood was how my smallest act of kindness can be reprimanded as delaying processes or too troublesome?

So the bottomline goes, what are we in patient care? Is it getting our job done more important or focusing on the feelings of our patient going through their op? Is there a way to balance both? Or is there not?