On prac, i was faced with a young man hwo had suffered a pneuomothorax following a stabbing injury. He sufferes from Bipolar disease andis a known drug addict. Earlier in the shift, it was reported that he was verbally abusive to nursing staff. He had also been for a smoke earlier with an ICC in place!!!
On approaching this patient, I was already cautious. He was sitting in bed, alert and very talkative. He continued to tell me how the pain medications he was being given were insufficient as he was an addict and needed somehting stronger. I tried to explain why he had the drain in place adn taht smoking whilst having an ICC was not appropriate. We offered nicotene patches but he was convinced he needed 2 patches as he was an addict. He continued to tell me about his habits of inserting needles into his arms and how only certain veins work.
When his family arrived, he was bragging about how 15 people had to hold him down to insert the ICC in the first place. He was easily distracted, he wouldnt listen to me and I felt very uncomfortable around him.
I chose to seek advice from my supervisor and he agreed to see this patient. I chose that I was unhappy treating this patient as I was not comfortable to get close to him. Upon reflecting, I realised that next year I would most likely have to treat this patient. Where can we draw the line? In this situation, there was someone else to treat the patient, but this might now always be the case.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I believe we have the right to caution when treating any patient, and if you weren’t comfortable and someone else was around to treat him, then that was a good outcome. Next year if you are required to treat someone you are uncomfortable with, there should always be another person around, such as a nurse, nursing assistant, PCA… someone who will be able to sit in on the treatment with you, and ‘help’ you. As for the ‘needing something stronger’ I guess that’s really not our role anyway, we’re not really qualified for the pharmaceutical side of things, and its quite ok to say so!
Post a Comment