When taking a pulse

That's why you still manually palpate it and see if it matches the monitor.

The pulse ox gives you an actual pulse rate too, btw.
 
BlakeFabian said:
I'll trust my monitor before I trust my SA02 monitor, anyday.
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I agree. But technically all the monitor measures is electrical activity, not mechanical. If compared and the mechanical matches the monitor I'll stick with the monitor until something gives me a reason not to.
 
Level 6 clinical correlation is seeing if the pleth matches the electrical activity matches the mechanical pulse (be it by art line or palpated):D:D:D.
 
BlakeFabian said:
I'll trust my monitor before I trust my SA02 monitor, anyday.
Click to expand...

Minor quibble, unless you've got a prehospital blood gas analyzer, your not measuring SaO2. Your measuring SpO2. SpO2 is a calculation based on light wavelengths. SaO2 is a direct measurement of saturated hemoglobin based on blood analysis. Minor thing, but it keeps you from stupid in front people who know the difference.
 
usalsfyre said:
Minor quibble, unless you've got a prehospital blood gas analyzer, your not measuring SaO2. Your measuring SpO2. SpO2 is a calculation based on light wavelengths. SaO2 is a direct measurement of saturated hemoglobin based on blood analysis. Minor thing, but it keeps you from stupid in front people who know the difference.
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Oh hell, I keep forgetting about that. Haha, you're right. That's what was used all throughout my B & I classes so it got ingrained in my head. :P

BTW, you forgot to say 'appearing'
 
BlakeFabian said:
Oh hell, I keep forgetting about that. Haha, you're right. That's what was used all throughout my B & I classes so it got ingrained in my head. :P

BTW, you forgot to say 'appearing'
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So you've got a quibble too :D.
 
Good points all. Correlation is a great practice to follow as it can identify perfused versus non-perfused beats. I'll never forget the code I was at where the doc was insisting on defibrillation based on the monitor and we had a strong pleth...so they shocked her just because...
 
Anyone still take apical pulses?

Taught us to take it apically while palpating radially or elsewhere for best quality.
Plus, do you only/always palpate the radial pulse?
 
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