August 1, 2011

Telephone Triage

One weekend, the scrub tech answered the phone and got this panicked look on her face. She had wide eyes with a look of panic and said to whoever was on the phone "You need to come in but I'm going to have you talk to a nurse". It was a grandmother to be and she said "My daughter is pregnant, (went through a whole health history), her water broke and the umbilical cord is hanging out. Do we need to come into the hospital?" Now this is not unheard of, it rarely happens, but I can remember someone who had come in because she had something hanging out of her vagina, and it was indeed the cord, and thankfully it hadn't been compressed too much....I think because the baby was transverse or breech, but baby was delivered and fine. But it is a true emergency. After a few quick questions, it was determined that it sounded like a cord, and since you can't assess over the phone what is going on, and because of the potential serious nature of a cord prolapse, she was told "Yes, you need to have her get into a knee-chest position, hang up and call 911". Thankfully, anesthesia was already in house, we had an OB doc there who had just finished a delivery who had overheard the phone call, OR was opened and we were all ready. We figured she'd already have a IV in from the ambulance ride, doc would do a quick sono to make sure we had a reason to deliver urgently and we'd were ready. So a bit later, she rolls in, smiling, sitting up on the cart and we quickly check to see if we in fact have a prolapsed cord. The patient states "Oh, I pulled it out". Everyone is dumbfounded, and she holds up an emesis basin....with her mucus plug in it.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, the tension lifted like a heavy blanket. There was never any doubt that we made the right decision to tell her to come in. We aren't allowed to give out info over the phone, all we can say is call your doc or come in, because you can't assess over the phone. This is a perfect example.

6 comments:

Jessica said...

Oh geez...sounds like one of my days! Haha!

We tell everyone to come in...as annoying as it is, obviously we cannot assess over the phone..

I had a multip who was about 8 cms with BBOW and I felt something floating around in there. I couldn't tell if it was cord or a limb. So the doc came in and like a dumb ass, ruptured her and out came the cord. His hand came out...my hand went in and back we went for a stat c/s with me under the drape with her.

trooppetrie said...

holy craziness, I would never think to pull it out myself

Anonymous said...

Hi there

Just wondering if it would be possible to include a link on your site 10 centimeters and beyond, this is for a client of mine with a site relating to nursing. I was hoping we can come to some arrangement. I am happy to negotiate payment in return for the link placement.

Please kindly get back to me with your thoughts.

Thanks
Ann

Geeky Nurse said...

I agree with trooppetrie, I would never try to pull it out myself... @_@

medical scrubs said...

I enjoyed reading i some interesting stuff about this article. I'm supposed to be somewhere else in a minute but I stuck to reading the
story. I like the quality of your blog.

Nurse and Hospital Stories said...

"The patient states "Oh, I pulled it out".

Wow! Amazing. that takes courage and guts. :)

Cheers,
Peny@littman steth