I have been an ICU RN for 2 years, a nursing track I never saw myself going into. The first day that I has an ER clinical I knew I would never do anything else. Oh how time changes us all!

In my first year of ICU nursing I had a patient that went into respiratory failure, was intubated, and developed ARDS. Our attempts to recover this patient were proving to be futile, to include paralyzing her to TRY and overcome ARDS. Knowing that we were nearing the end of our clinical intervention course the patient’s family decided to make the patient comfort care the next morning at 10am. The night they made that decision I was in the room and I told them, ‘I’ll take care of our girl.” Around 2am I wanted to clean up the patient. I wanted her bed to face the window so she got… Continue reading →

What a jammed packed day of emotion! Honestly without prompts it is hard for me to sit down and just begin to write. Except today I was inspired when I was asked by the sweet film crew to record my response to – “What was your Ah Ha moment,”

Through every story I read and watched there is so much emotion; fear, anger, grief. I’ve been in that position as an RN watching something happen KNOWING that I was dealing with the the results of a major medical error.

4 months ago I was called at home by my charge nurse who told me, “Leighann, we need you to come in. We have a rapid response and we need to intubate.” I arrived 20 minutes later, the patient was being settled into her room and I had three doctors at her bedside; hospitalist, pulmonologist and neurosurgeon. The patient was an… Continue reading →