/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15305666
Which claim? The claim that...

In hospitals... if patient condition presents in a way that we suspect infection by a pathogenic organism... we collect samples of infected areas/body fluids, send them to the lab, see if there are pathogenic bacteria in there - if yes, we grow a bunch of said bacteria that we harvested, then test different antibiotics on this sample to see which antibiotics kill it the best, then give that antibiotic to the patient...

Then, after treatment, we re-collect a sample from the same source we collected the previous bacteria-laden sample from:

A. If patient not responding to treatment - need to see if that bacteria is still present. If all/some symptoms persist AND that bacteria was killed then there is either a different causative organism/or other non-infectious cause to the remaining symptoms; OR if that original bacteria is still present - we need to pick a different antibiotic

vs

B.The patient is better/clearly responding to treatment and we attempt to grow pathogenic bacteria from the new sample - and then we are *never* surprised when we find out that the patient who got better after the antibiotics we picked... no longer has those pathogenic bacteria present in re-collected sample?

Is that what you want supported? That that happens in real life and that is how that works?

>>15227238
Yeah, it is tricky - a lot of nursing, hell, a lot of healthcare, is shit that you can't learn from reading a book. Eventually, with enough experience in the field and becoming familiar enough with your co-workers, your specific facility/unit, and the physicians you work with, you will get a lot better & a lot more comfortable with making decisions.

Especially at first, it is really difficult because making a certain judgement call might be the right answer/be expected of you when working on a certain unit/when the patient has a certain MD - but the exact same situation with a different MD or on a different unit could get you chewed out. You will learn preferences/expectations of each doc & setting as you work more. It gets easier.

I assume what I'm gonna say about ICU/CCU applies in most countries outside the US - if you want to work where your independence is valued/expected & where you are trusted to/need to work to the full extent of your scope of practice - consider working ICU/CCU. We had lots of protocols and guidelines for extra things but we had a lot of independence within them.

An RN I worked with used a baking analogy to compare some things we did on ICU vs how things go on other floors.
'On medsurg, you almost always have the MDs give you step by step, specific instructions - like reading the instructions on the box to bake a cake. Often on ICU, like if we are doing something like say, titrating vasopressors - think of it as 'MD gives us the option of 3-4 ingredients to work with and says 'just make sure you end up with a cake at the end' - we figure out/dial-in/adjust all the specifics using our experience & protocols/guidelines, and continually adjust things to maintain our target BP/MAP/pulse/etc goals (the cake) that we were ordered to aim for.

ICU was a lot of fun. You learn a lot of stuff, get many great experiences, & build confidence/leadership skills fast. Consider looking into it if it sounds up your alley.