Two Questions:

Better for an EMT to ask too many questions than not enough, eh?
 
Let me tell you a story to confuse you more:

During my medic hospital time in the ED, a patient comes in having a psychotic break, completely out of control, ends up getting restrained and sedated. I go in to check on the patient a little while later, notice pt is not hooked up to any monitoring (?!?!?!) and is snoring. I figure I'll put pt on the pulse oximetry at least. I have some trouble getting a good reading from it - pt has red nail polish, maybe bad circulation, I just can't get a number that's over 80... But hmmm, the pleth is good.... I went to find a nurse and said something like, "could you check on room x? I'm sure it's nothing, but I can't get a good reading from the pulse ox".

Of course, as I should have known already, if you're getting a good pleth, the pulse ox is probably not lying to you, and the patient really did have an O2 sat in the 70's - maybe OD'd a little with sedatives and not protecting her airway or something.

In this situation I should have corrected the (in hindsight) extremely obvious problem, and THEN gone to talk to a nurse about it. It would have taken no time at all to manually readjust patient, open the airway, and put a NRB on. I was in "don't do anything unless you're told to" mode, which isn't a bad thing I guess when you're in the hospital, but in this situation I should have acted first and asked questions later.

Just some food for thought.
 
It is something to consider. I emailes my instructor to get her opinon too. She would know the local protocol is. But I think I would feel bad not giving her o2 as long as her SpO2 was under 99% (it was 95) since 93% is mich closer to 94%
 
*much *emailed, and my fingers arent functioning properly apparently from copious amounts of note taking.
 
Let me ask this then: (keep in mind I'm a student) If you go to a pt. who has symptoms of an MI, would you give them nitro to be safe? Like elevated BP because of an anxiety attack and chest pain, etc etc etc
 
*if he already has nitro prescribed to him and standing orders of course.
 
Amelia said:
It is something to consider. I emailes my instructor to get her opinon too. She would know the local protocol is. But I think I would feel bad not giving her o2 as long as her SpO2 was under 99% (it was 95) since 93% is mich closer to 94%
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here. But regardless, it doesn't really matter how you feel about the whole thing. Take yourself out of the equation, we provide treatments based on evidence and not feelings.

Amelia said:
Let me ask this then: (keep in mind I'm a student) If you go to a pt. who has symptoms of an MI, would you give them nitro to be safe? Like elevated BP because of an anxiety attack and chest pain, etc etc etc
Click to expand...

What are the indications for the nitroglycerin? What do you mean "to be safe?"
 
I overthink things. You're right. I need to "Let it Go" (queue music)
 
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