ACLS renewal time. Time to get the latest guidelines out and remind myself what third-degree heart block looks like.
I am 0 for 4 on my patient surviving megacodes, because I am 4 for 4 on getting the asystole megacode. Something about me must tell the instructor, "give this one the flat liner." Perhaps it's because I'm usually the only psych nurse in the class, probably the only one they see all year.
I am a pro on the asystole megacode. The problem is that most patients are not pros at surviving asystole.
I did get a chance to run a second megacode during one renewal--it was supraventricular tachycardia, and that patient did make it. But as it was after my official (asystole) megacode for the class, and the instructor did it to give other students a chance to perform in different roles, it doesn't really count. Though since it wasn't asystole, I wasn't used to the fact that my patient was actually responding to treatment, and it kind of threw me...so it wasn't my smoothest megacode performance to date.
Anyhow, here's hoping I get a megacode with a shockable heart rhythm this year. Then again, being 5 for 5 on getting asystole megacodes is kind of a bragging right in itself.
