Nurse Eric Blog

True story:  My patient was a young family man who was very afraid about what had happened to him.  We went down for a scan and he was terrified.  Visibly emotional, he asked if anyone was a Christian who could pray for him out loud.  One person said they were and said they were praying for him silently.  He kept asking for someone to put hands on him and pray out loud.  This seemed to make everyone in the room initially uncomfortable.  I'm pretty sure I was the only ex Evangelical Christian turned Humanist Atheists in the room.   That being said, I saw my role as nurse to care for my patient.  I put my hand over his heart and said, "Dear heavenly father, (patient name can't be disclosed per HIPAA) is very anxious about this scan. Please help him overcome his anxiety, give him peace and help him to be brave right now. Give him a positive outcome to the scan so that he will be able to return to his wife and children who love him and miss him dearly. In your name

Plenty of Science to Support Masks to Slow the Spread of COVID 19 The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the science behind the wisdom of the recommendation to wear cloth face coverings or other appropriate masks when social distancing is not possible during a pandemic like COVID 19 where the disease is spread through respiratory droplets. The wisdom is derived from two main concepts; 1. Asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread are significant sources of spread of COVID 19 and; 2. Cloth face masks safely provide a significant level of protection from respiratory droplets thereby reducing the spread.  Asymptomatic Spread; Viral Load; Contact Tracing Rothe C, Schunk M, Sothmann P, et al. Transmission of 2019-nCoV Infection from an Asymptomatic Contact in Germany. The New England journal of medicine. 2020;382(10):970-971.  PMID: 32003551 external icon https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32003551/ Asymptomatic Viral Load Zou L, Ruan F, Huang M, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in

The truth is sometimes uncomfortable.  So be it. I've adapted a message created by a fellow nurse that had to be taken down because they were receiving threats.  It needs to be shared especially now since our numbers are spiking in Arizona. I've pixelated the photo because a group of people has turned their anger on those of us who tell our truth about what we see on the front lines. To all of you who are supporting us by following the CDC and WHO guidelines, Thank You! Love Health and Solidarity ♥️😷✊🏻 Nurse Eric Here it goes... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello!  Welcome to our ICU.  Now that Arizona has royally failed in efforts for a safe reopening and you all are out exercising your constitutional rights to spread COVID I just wanted to introduce you to the welcoming crew.  (Not pictured are our amazing RT and lines team) We have your badass intensivist that will elegantly put a central line in your jugular vein

Together We Rise! 🇺🇲 America doesn't give up on a fight! We don't give up fighting for your loved ones. Your loved ones are our loved ones. Your love is in our hearts as we fight because together we rise. We don't give up fighting for our own healthcare workers who are dying. We feel hopeless, afraid and filled with a sadness we've never felt before but we continue to fight so together we can rise. We don't give up fighting for the anti-vaxers, the anti-maskers and the COVID-19 deniers. You are the traitors in this fight. As you spit in our faces we save you because we are better than you. You can keep trying to divide us but we are smarter than you and will never stop working together because together we rise. We don't give up fighting for the homeless, nameless and alone. We search for your family and friends. You may not have had anybody before but now you have us and together we rise. We don't give up fighting because of the color of your s

Four Big Problems with the Stanford Antibody Study Re:  COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California Eric Sartori RN Here's a link to the study if you want to follow along.  https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf Check out these sexy headlines "Way more people may have gotten coronavirus than we thought, small antibody study suggests."  - LiveScience.com  "Antibody tests suggest that coronavirus infections vastly exceed official counts"  - Nature.com "Far more people may have been infected by coronavirus in one California county, study estimates"  - CNN.com Are you curious about these headlines like me? If you are reading this you may be wondering about the Stanford Antibody Study. Maybe like me you think something seems a bit off. I work in a COVID unit so I'm constantly watching the numbers. I'm not a research expert but as a nurse I've received a bit of educa

The Story of Our Arcadia Chickens 3/30/2020 - We've recently adopted two baby chicks who have a very interesting story. They are from the famous Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona. To start their story I'll share what is copied, word for word, from the text messages I received from the chick rescuers in the story: "I'm so sorry!! I love these so much!! Thank you!!!  So here's the stories to the best I can!  DISCLOSURE: all chickens in this story are Arcadia chickens who are in the neighborhood of 36th st & Flower. These are wild chickens who live in the trees and bushes of the neighborhood.  Tilly: Tilly's mom was Penguin who showed up one morning in the yard with 10 adorable chicklets. We fed them pecans, apples, and other vegetables for the first two days.  On day 3, we counted the chicklets to make sure all 10 were accounted for and on March 22 realized that there were now

Nurse Eric - Bedside Skills Implementing A Fluid Restriction  Introduction "How can you allow me to become dehydrated like this? I feel like you are trying to kill me. I need water." Have you ever been a patient and felt like this? Have you ever had a patient who's said something like this? Has a family member ever accused you of being a criminal for withholding water from their loved one? Do your patients often complain when they've run out of PO fluids by 1600? Are you looking for a better way to manage a fluid restriction? Let's do this! Often Nurses have a patient with a fluid restriction (FR). With the fast pace of nursing care, and hearing out many unhappy, thirsty patients, I've noticed an opportunity for improvement. Let's get into it. SBAR Summary Situation - Patients often feel frustrated when a doctor orders a fluid restriction, especially later in the day when they have already consumed all or most of their daily lim