I guess what is irritating me like a prick (no not "I'm a prick type of person or just a prick") from a prickly weed plant when you try to pull it or brush against it and the itch and irritation stays with you for a couple of days. Yeah, like that. I was asked by a coworker yesterday to change a dressing on a guy, who was actually going in for a stent placement. This guy happened to be a cardiac stent candidate, had a Heparin drip going, so that his blood (putting it in Layman's terms) wouldn't clot. Anyhow, he had a groin dressing, had to have pressure held with removal of prior groin line, and was a bleeding risk. Sooooo, I told her I would change the dressing down to the clotted dressing site, redress on top and reinforce. I did. Then I find out my Charge Nurse goes in to do the same thing, but takes the dressing all the way down per this nurse's re-request. To me this is an unnecessary risk for bleeding and risk to said patient.. Call me a conservative, I know shock-shock, with patients on anticoagulant drips. The reasoning behind all of this brouhaha over a dressing change, is so that the site would look nice and pretty when they took it down again. Like really? Is "pretty" a necessity when someone might start bleeding again? Ya know, pretty and having a patient fluffed and puffed (which only means you as a nurse are good at making your patient nice looking, sheets, etc.) and looking awesome at the end of shift or when you send them somewhere is all nice, but it certainly isn't necessary and IMO is a big risk at times. I've seen primping and turning patients when they can't handle any of this and they can go bad really fast. Bottom line, is did you do the major nursing care to make a difference other than aesthetics or did you just make said patient "pretty" to cover the crap you didn't do?
Tho, that's just this anal ICU RN's perspective and all.
Then again....really? What do I know?
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