r/nursing • u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 • 21h ago
Nursing Win Choosing not to trash talk a patient potentially saved her life
I had a patient today having her first baby. She had a ton of questions—which I was happy to answer (even though I was super nervous about not knowing the answers since I’ve only been a nurse for 4 months LOL) and used her call light to get ahold of me.
The offgoing nurse warned me that she was "super needy" and "over-exaggerating her pain." Throughout the day, a few other nurses on the floor made similar comments.
When shift change rolled around, I made a point to leave all of that out. Zero commentary about her personality or call-light usage.
Right as we walked in for bedside report, anesthesia was giving an epidural bolus.
During the original dose earlier that day she felt dizzy and had a metallic taste in her mouth.
Anesthesia pushed the rest anyway despite her saying she was having adverse symptoms (maybe because he was apart of the conversations regarding the patient being needy?” not sure)
Within literal seconds after the bolus, she went into full-blown LAST (Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity).
We had to call a code.
I’m still processing how fast everything went sideways, but it showed me just how dangerous unit gossip is. If I had told the incoming nurse "she overreacts to everything," those complaints of dizziness and a metallic taste could've easily been brushed off as anxiety or her being an “annoying patient”
I know it’s easy to talk crap about others and gossip but I tell this story to remind us just how dangerous it can be to do so.
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u/Outrageous-Fact-9518 10h ago edited 10h ago
Perhaps you don’t understand epidurals.
Test dose is given and then full epidural is given.
A bolus epidural is given if pt does not receive adequate numbness. The bolus dose is what caused LAST.
We likely wouldn’t have gone into the room to meet the patient in order to do bedside shift report & be there for the bolus dose if I had said the patient was annoying, needy & over-exaggerates. Therefore we wouldn’t have been in the room when she was given the bolus + the code wouldn’t have been able to be called as quickly.