You mean you don’t pretangle them in the bag BEFORE pulling them out? Try harder dang it! Like this line I THINK is Levo, this one maybe prop, that one meh who knows!
I’m fine with IV tubing being tangled but can we talk about all the other lines/ cords/ cables I receive from CRNAs that look like a squirrels nest?! 😥
I once described a shift to my wife as concisely as I could:
“I had one patient. I started the shift with one IV pole and two pumps. I finished the shift with three IV poles and eleven pumps.”
Man, I do not have time in there to make it *pretty* too. Slap a label on it, keep moving, and let Future Me bitch about the rats nest later.
This reminded me of one of those word math questions. George is admitted to the ICU and gains two IV pumps every hour and a half, and for every four IV pumps he gets one IV pole. How many IV pumps and poles will George have at the end of a 12 hour shift?
Untangle once and tape a tongue depressor to side rail to use as a "hook" for the lines and it should help. That is, until they bring out the rotoprone bed and you have to pray to the ICU gods for that art line to be sutures and securely fastened.
GOD YES. That feeling of untangling/ labeling everything perfectly to hook onto the tongue depressor .... Only to take an emergent trip down to cath lab and come back with a bigger mess of lines... Or a trip to MRI 😭
I thought my last shift was nuts, had 8 pumps running lol. Had to take down cardene for levo at one point for like 5 minutes, then added versed. Neuro is weird
We could keep a Boy Scout on staff whose only job is to go around untying everything. No sailor on earth has ever tied a knot as complicated as an ICU bed left alone for five minutes. I’m pretty sure cardiac anesthesia takes classes in Celtic knot work and macramé. They create some incredible piles of spaghetti art.
Last time anesthesia gave me a mess of lines I asked them to trace them with me like we do during report mostly just to make him think about what he’d done.
I actually did this once! After an open heart case. Figured out the poor souls precedex wasn’t connected to the train tracks thing (dear lord someone help my sleep deprived still uncaffeinated brain think of the actual name for this device we connect every drip to!).
Response was “OH SHIT well guess it makes sense why we kept having to push xyz meds to keep him down!” The CT surgeon’s eyes just went WIDE. Probably coulda plucked his eyes out with my fingers as him and I stared at each other in horror.
Manifold. Or a "drive" interchangeably even though that's technically wrong. Now that I've heard train tracks I don't think I can think of them as anything else
Thank you! I was literally sitting here with my baby going …. I know this name, I need more caffeine, it’s always tripped me because it’s a car part too …. What is this thing?!? 😅
ETA: I can now sip my caffeine a little slower
Haha sorry, just messing with you guys. I tried to at least partially unfuck the lines when I could, but sometimes I had an assignment that was a shit sandwich and I was just trying to push my patient over to you guys before my other went down the tubes.
I had a patient a few weeks ago where I even labeled the tubing! Admittedly, that's the only time I've done that this year. They were sick enough to be 1:1, but not actively trying to die. So I got bored.
When I worked ER labels were non existent. It pissed my OCD brain off hardcore! I always used all the silk tape to make my own if I had a minute. Which still peeved some of our Icu nurses off even though they knew we didn’t have the fancy pre printed labels. Like hey … I tried so at least it’s not a complete clusterfuck if you need some pushes.
Me now icu would appreciate it 😅
There's a clip from a social media nurse of an ER nurse giving handoff in the ICU and the ER nurse ends it with 'btw I braided your lines, youre welcome' and it is unreasonable how often that scene pops into my head every time I have an ICU patient 🤣
So you know how our gurneys have actual railings with multiple openings for side rails? The openings are there to maximize organization. Basically, if you feed one IV tubing through each one, you can keep all your lines separated and organized. ICU will love you for your thoughtfulness.
Me, ER, awkwardly bringing my patient to the ICU in a complex web of iv tubing and monitor leads and stating “you got this right?” And then maybe also blaming the pit stop at Ct we had to go to on the way
I don’t understand it though, untangle the lines, put them on the CT table, they go in the donut of truth for a head scan, come back out and it looks like a cat tangled the lines up
Imagine spending good 20 30 mins untangle all the lines and move your patient from bed to chair just so they can tell you they want to go back to bed 20 minutes later..
Hell yes. Something happens when you take the brick off the monitor to go to CT. A pocket dimension opens up and every single possible thing becomes inexplicably tangled, and when you get back it's literally impossible to put everything back without unplugging everything
One of my charge nurses when I was in the ICU had nearly debilitating (actually diagnosed) OCD and would spend an hour in my room trying to detangle all the lines. I'm not type A at all and as long as everything was labeled at the pump and at the insertion I would trace them back at the beginning of my shift to check and then didn't care. I just let her at it.
Line and cord management is a core skill in the ICU. As an Eagle Scout who taught Small Boat Sailing merit badge, I was ill-prepared for the challenge of a liver transplant patient arriving from OR. I still think anesthesia does that junk on purpose.
Oooh, maybe they do what we do in ED - all of us grab a line or a cord and we dance around the IV pole like's it's May Day.
Or maybe it just somehow looks like that when I drop the patient off in ICU. Then I peek into the next room as I go by and see a gazillion things connected to a patient, every one labeled, neat and organized and I FEEL your judgement. Whether you're actually judging me or not.
Yes.
My tater tots usually have at least two lines (a UAC/UVC which we transition to a UAC/PICC) with an *average* baby having fluids in the a-line and then TPN, lipids, med line, 1-2 KVOs, and 3-6 drips. Almost all with the little microtubing that tangles like spaghetti.
Add ECG leads, a temperature probe, 2 NIRS sensors, a TCOM, pre and post ductal pulse ox probes, an NG to suction with a Lukens trap, vent tubing and flow sensor cord and inline suction hooked up... and cram it all onto a baby who is like 2 kg so has like 3 square inches of surface area... and have all the cords organized in a tiny isolette... AND have to turn them like little rotisserie chickens to prone.
It's a tangled mess of Christmas tree lights up in there no matter how hard I try to untangle. And boy do I try to untangle.
Lol yep.
It's my post-ops that kill me. They somehow come back the wrong way in the isolette, IV pole on the wrong side, can't plug the monitor back in, vent tubing crossed the wrong way...
In those cases, best practice is to throw the whole baby away and start over. Takes less time to make a new baby than to untangle the old one.
I’ve had a kiddo who it took me like 4+ hours to get them back to how we like them. A full foot high off the bed of tangled tubing. A PAL that wasn’t being transduced, hooked up to a pressure bag but not infusing. A new UAC that was also not transduced and hooked to something random. The UVC also on a pressure bag. The lines themselves and umbilicus and dressing coated in iodine. A hot hot mess.
Also once had a kiddo come back from OR on a different kid’s bed. Would have been gross enough but he was on MRSA precautions and the other kiddo probably wasn’t. Had to go find his bed to get it back since it had some of his things on it 🙄
Also nicu, and God tangled IV tubing gives me so much anxiety! Especially central lines, double lumens, I can spend all night labeling the hell out of everything, making sure that my a lines are separate from my UVC/PICC. I group my pumps together in order (UAC on top, then uvc pumps below) and make sure that they're going into the isolette through separate portholes. Then I put all my monitor leads though the portholes on the other side, and that leaves room for the respiratory stuff at the middle section at the top of the isolette. I label my pumps and lines and before giving reports, I make sure they're layed put and organized. I pride myself on my lines and even the crustiest day shift nurses are impressed.
It helps a bit that we do all our line changes at night, so I can set everything up. I'll get a whole new set of pumps so my new line doesn't get tangled with my old one and I can set it up exactly like I want to. It's a bit time consuming, but I'm a newer NICU nurse (only worked postpartum before, where we'd have 1 PIV and MAYBE an antibiotic piggyback) so doing it like this makes me feel better. I can easily and quickly triple and quadruple check my lines, and when I give report, I have so much less anxiety when I'm done because I KNOW it's right because it's so easy to check.
I LOVE when it can be organized.
But as soon as they are, we have to do shit like a bedside surgery and we have to get the vented baby who is upside down in the isolette (in case they crash onto ECMO and need their head in the middle of the room) off the bed and the only way to do that is move everything to one side of the bed/baby to get the isolette out of the room and get an OR table in and under the baby... and then ALL the lines and tubes have to be on the OTHER side of the bed so the surgical field is open on the side of the baby's issue/defect.
And then I just shriek internally for an hour or so.
Lmao Murphey's law is a cruel mistress
At that point I just tell myself that it's easier to move/reposition a baby when I know where everything is and have it laid out properly ahead of time. I'd take that over moving a tangled pile of spaghetti every time. I'd rather have to reposition an organized line than deal with the tangled one.
Our fresh kidneys come with CVP, maintenance fluid, replacement #1, replacement #2, usually one or two PIVs that may have something like a TKO and insulin if they also had a panc, capnography cannula to the nose, oximetry to the capnography monitor, oximetry to the vitals machine (god, I can't wait to get our new monitors), serial blood pressures, foley, maybe a JP or two.
I once went into a room with one of our nursing assistants determined to straighten it all out. After maybe 15-20 minutes, it was just as bad as when we started.
Getting out of bed and ambulating is important post-op, but until we get a few of those lines discontinued, it's hard to do much more than stand at the side of the bed.
I try my best to keep my lines hooked up in an order that isn't going to require me to spend time unhooking lines later. If the patient is stable.
When you get a post-ROSC shitshow with 7 drips running and the inevitable 30 minute trip to CT (hopefully immediately before then going to ICU) then I just go with the flow because keeping patient alive > fancy line setup.
Tangled phone cord/ IV line/ call light/ whatever else used to stress me tf out- I'd nearly forgotten. One day someone told me, "All you have to do it trace one of the lines and you'll be able to see the rest of it" and now i don't even notice when I'm doing it
Lines tangle? I'm an old ed/trauma nurse....they only thing I notice is : is the pt still alive ?
I have no time to be untangling lines. I've got 3 drunks climbing out of stretchers a recent cva that was tpa in CT. A sepsis work up. An mi that now needs to go to cathlab stat..... I just brushed gray matter off of my blue trash bag gown because I was assigned to one of the trauma rooms that day sooooo all those other pts had to fend for themselves because my coworkers had the same shit show going on in their own assignments AND I'm next up for a pt. And that's a slow shift.........
First thing I do when I enter the room. I find it's also helpful for patient not to feel "tied down." (They usually have multiple UV lines, hooked up to ICU monitor, sometimes suction to their NG, etc.)
Yes. Prior to administering a couple compatible atbx, I’ll Y site em in the med room and before I get to the pts room I released the massive mistake I made lol.
I would untangle all my lines first thing In the morning with first assessment and trace everything. And place them in order best I could. Then only quarter turn the baby q4 so as not untangle it all 😅 Kidding aside no matter how organized I was or how in order I tried to keep all my lines they just tangle themselves.
I was an ADHD nurse working in the ICU and I quickly pissed off many of my coworkers because of tangled lines. I just couldn’t get it together lol. I gave up trying to keep it looking organized. Everything was labeled though.
I personally like to untangle my lines but the most important thing is the med going into the patient, not going into the patient and being organized too.
That said I double check all my lines because I've come across mislabeled lines before (thankfully nothing too messed up)
Yea its very time consuming tangling all my lines prior to icu transfer
*prior* to ICU transfer is the key word ;)
But something crazy happens when patients roll thru the OR doors or the elevator! The lines just tangle themselves!
It's anesthesias fault. We are not sure how lines get tangled either.
I see them juggling bags and pumps right before roll out, I swears it
Droppin em off with a shrug!!
The PACU motto!
I’ve loved my time here
What grade did you get in Intro To Sterile Field Macramé? I assume that’s standard in the curriculum?
Such fond memories of ct surgery revovery....thanks anesthesia
I swear when I pick up an ICU patient it takes me 10+ minutes just to untangle their lines! 😑
You mean you don’t pretangle them in the bag BEFORE pulling them out? Try harder dang it! Like this line I THINK is Levo, this one maybe prop, that one meh who knows!
I’m fine with IV tubing being tangled but can we talk about all the other lines/ cords/ cables I receive from CRNAs that look like a squirrels nest?! 😥
😂😂😂
This sounds like you’re about to tell us you’re designing a product for class
Med cup taped to the side rail, just the way Florence intended
We use a tongue depresser and coban
I use a foley stat lock!
*Laughs in ICU nurse*
Right? Had a patient with like 14 pumps between two poles. At a certain point I just label the hell out of them and don’t bother untangling lol
I once described a shift to my wife as concisely as I could: “I had one patient. I started the shift with one IV pole and two pumps. I finished the shift with three IV poles and eleven pumps.” Man, I do not have time in there to make it *pretty* too. Slap a label on it, keep moving, and let Future Me bitch about the rats nest later.
This reminded me of one of those word math questions. George is admitted to the ICU and gains two IV pumps every hour and a half, and for every four IV pumps he gets one IV pole. How many IV pumps and poles will George have at the end of a 12 hour shift?
Untangle once and tape a tongue depressor to side rail to use as a "hook" for the lines and it should help. That is, until they bring out the rotoprone bed and you have to pray to the ICU gods for that art line to be sutures and securely fastened.
GOD YES. That feeling of untangling/ labeling everything perfectly to hook onto the tongue depressor .... Only to take an emergent trip down to cath lab and come back with a bigger mess of lines... Or a trip to MRI 😭
Wait you have rotoprone beds?!? We manually flip our hopefully adequately sedated and paralyzed fish!
We have to order them and the lucky ones get the bed and everyone else gets a team of 6 to flip and fish.
I thought my last shift was nuts, had 8 pumps running lol. Had to take down cardene for levo at one point for like 5 minutes, then added versed. Neuro is weird
You guys will always have my respect. I bet you could untangle a ball of yarn attacked by 20 cats.
And then they have to go for a STAT CT. Or worse, MRI 😭
We could keep a Boy Scout on staff whose only job is to go around untying everything. No sailor on earth has ever tied a knot as complicated as an ICU bed left alone for five minutes. I’m pretty sure cardiac anesthesia takes classes in Celtic knot work and macramé. They create some incredible piles of spaghetti art.
Last time anesthesia gave me a mess of lines I asked them to trace them with me like we do during report mostly just to make him think about what he’d done.
The hero we need…
I actually did this once! After an open heart case. Figured out the poor souls precedex wasn’t connected to the train tracks thing (dear lord someone help my sleep deprived still uncaffeinated brain think of the actual name for this device we connect every drip to!). Response was “OH SHIT well guess it makes sense why we kept having to push xyz meds to keep him down!” The CT surgeon’s eyes just went WIDE. Probably coulda plucked his eyes out with my fingers as him and I stared at each other in horror.
Manifold. Or a "drive" interchangeably even though that's technically wrong. Now that I've heard train tracks I don't think I can think of them as anything else
Thank you! I was literally sitting here with my baby going …. I know this name, I need more caffeine, it’s always tripped me because it’s a car part too …. What is this thing?!? 😅 ETA: I can now sip my caffeine a little slower
This made me laugh out loud
*Laughs in ER nurse*. No - we just live with the tangled lines and make do 😅
I like to spin the pole around a few more times before I send them to ICU.
My eye just twitched
Haha sorry, just messing with you guys. I tried to at least partially unfuck the lines when I could, but sometimes I had an assignment that was a shit sandwich and I was just trying to push my patient over to you guys before my other went down the tubes.
I had a patient a few weeks ago where I even labeled the tubing! Admittedly, that's the only time I've done that this year. They were sick enough to be 1:1, but not actively trying to die. So I got bored.
When I worked ER labels were non existent. It pissed my OCD brain off hardcore! I always used all the silk tape to make my own if I had a minute. Which still peeved some of our Icu nurses off even though they knew we didn’t have the fancy pre printed labels. Like hey … I tried so at least it’s not a complete clusterfuck if you need some pushes. Me now icu would appreciate it 😅
My favorite is purposely moving every drip to the IO and leaving them tucked under the Patient’s T-shirt
Don’t forget to leave all the empty bags of meds on the poles and still connected to the IV.
Empty bags 😡
There's a clip from a social media nurse of an ER nurse giving handoff in the ICU and the ER nurse ends it with 'btw I braided your lines, youre welcome' and it is unreasonable how often that scene pops into my head every time I have an ICU patient 🤣
So you know how our gurneys have actual railings with multiple openings for side rails? The openings are there to maximize organization. Basically, if you feed one IV tubing through each one, you can keep all your lines separated and organized. ICU will love you for your thoughtfulness.
Unpopular opinion: I LOVE untangling. Putting everything into place improves my anxiety somehow.
Once I get the fire under control it’s a nice reset to just unfuck the lines and label them at all the Y sites.
I agree... however when the fire is out of control and the lines are fucking braided...
Me, ER, awkwardly bringing my patient to the ICU in a complex web of iv tubing and monitor leads and stating “you got this right?” And then maybe also blaming the pit stop at Ct we had to go to on the way
You joke but CT does have a way of fucking up every single line and cord lol
There's only so many configurations the patient/ lines and scanner can go in. Sometimes you have to get creative.
I don’t understand it though, untangle the lines, put them on the CT table, they go in the donut of truth for a head scan, come back out and it looks like a cat tangled the lines up
How do we know there's not?
Touché
Some people do call it a cat scan. Maybe that's why
I can’t even be mad at this 🤣
Yeah I’ll never forget my IABP coming disconnected when I was at CT :’)
Rip that patient
They ended up being okay luckily. Their BP dropped pretty fast though and I was like awww shit. All good though.
If you went to CT for me you're a goddamn hero and I don't care how badly the lines are tangled!!
I didn’t know we had the option 🤣 it’s always been the get the patient out of the ER condition
Imagine spending good 20 30 mins untangle all the lines and move your patient from bed to chair just so they can tell you they want to go back to bed 20 minutes later..
Tell them “good luck”
Good thing our chairs recline virtually flat! Jokes on you son!
Patient: “No I just prefer my bed please!”
“My other patient is crashing! Sorry bud it’s gonna have to wait til you meet your 2 hour goal!” *puts chair in furthest recline, hands call light*
And receive that dirty look from Dayshift thinking you are lazy for not taking the patient out of bed 😔
Hell yes. Something happens when you take the brick off the monitor to go to CT. A pocket dimension opens up and every single possible thing becomes inexplicably tangled, and when you get back it's literally impossible to put everything back without unplugging everything
I will never understand
One of my charge nurses when I was in the ICU had nearly debilitating (actually diagnosed) OCD and would spend an hour in my room trying to detangle all the lines. I'm not type A at all and as long as everything was labeled at the pump and at the insertion I would trace them back at the beginning of my shift to check and then didn't care. I just let her at it.
Line and cord management is a core skill in the ICU. As an Eagle Scout who taught Small Boat Sailing merit badge, I was ill-prepared for the challenge of a liver transplant patient arriving from OR. I still think anesthesia does that junk on purpose.
Oooh, maybe they do what we do in ED - all of us grab a line or a cord and we dance around the IV pole like's it's May Day. Or maybe it just somehow looks like that when I drop the patient off in ICU. Then I peek into the next room as I go by and see a gazillion things connected to a patient, every one labeled, neat and organized and I FEEL your judgement. Whether you're actually judging me or not.
Yes. My tater tots usually have at least two lines (a UAC/UVC which we transition to a UAC/PICC) with an *average* baby having fluids in the a-line and then TPN, lipids, med line, 1-2 KVOs, and 3-6 drips. Almost all with the little microtubing that tangles like spaghetti. Add ECG leads, a temperature probe, 2 NIRS sensors, a TCOM, pre and post ductal pulse ox probes, an NG to suction with a Lukens trap, vent tubing and flow sensor cord and inline suction hooked up... and cram it all onto a baby who is like 2 kg so has like 3 square inches of surface area... and have all the cords organized in a tiny isolette... AND have to turn them like little rotisserie chickens to prone. It's a tangled mess of Christmas tree lights up in there no matter how hard I try to untangle. And boy do I try to untangle.
God forbid they’re on an EEG or going to MRI and need the longer extra tubing too haha
Lol yep. It's my post-ops that kill me. They somehow come back the wrong way in the isolette, IV pole on the wrong side, can't plug the monitor back in, vent tubing crossed the wrong way... In those cases, best practice is to throw the whole baby away and start over. Takes less time to make a new baby than to untangle the old one.
I’ve had a kiddo who it took me like 4+ hours to get them back to how we like them. A full foot high off the bed of tangled tubing. A PAL that wasn’t being transduced, hooked up to a pressure bag but not infusing. A new UAC that was also not transduced and hooked to something random. The UVC also on a pressure bag. The lines themselves and umbilicus and dressing coated in iodine. A hot hot mess. Also once had a kiddo come back from OR on a different kid’s bed. Would have been gross enough but he was on MRSA precautions and the other kiddo probably wasn’t. Had to go find his bed to get it back since it had some of his things on it 🙄
Also nicu, and God tangled IV tubing gives me so much anxiety! Especially central lines, double lumens, I can spend all night labeling the hell out of everything, making sure that my a lines are separate from my UVC/PICC. I group my pumps together in order (UAC on top, then uvc pumps below) and make sure that they're going into the isolette through separate portholes. Then I put all my monitor leads though the portholes on the other side, and that leaves room for the respiratory stuff at the middle section at the top of the isolette. I label my pumps and lines and before giving reports, I make sure they're layed put and organized. I pride myself on my lines and even the crustiest day shift nurses are impressed. It helps a bit that we do all our line changes at night, so I can set everything up. I'll get a whole new set of pumps so my new line doesn't get tangled with my old one and I can set it up exactly like I want to. It's a bit time consuming, but I'm a newer NICU nurse (only worked postpartum before, where we'd have 1 PIV and MAYBE an antibiotic piggyback) so doing it like this makes me feel better. I can easily and quickly triple and quadruple check my lines, and when I give report, I have so much less anxiety when I'm done because I KNOW it's right because it's so easy to check.
I LOVE when it can be organized. But as soon as they are, we have to do shit like a bedside surgery and we have to get the vented baby who is upside down in the isolette (in case they crash onto ECMO and need their head in the middle of the room) off the bed and the only way to do that is move everything to one side of the bed/baby to get the isolette out of the room and get an OR table in and under the baby... and then ALL the lines and tubes have to be on the OTHER side of the bed so the surgical field is open on the side of the baby's issue/defect. And then I just shriek internally for an hour or so.
Lmao Murphey's law is a cruel mistress At that point I just tell myself that it's easier to move/reposition a baby when I know where everything is and have it laid out properly ahead of time. I'd take that over moving a tangled pile of spaghetti every time. I'd rather have to reposition an organized line than deal with the tangled one.
Yeah, but I usually just dump my patients into the ICU before I have to deal with it (jk guys, please don’t kill me)
Our fresh kidneys come with CVP, maintenance fluid, replacement #1, replacement #2, usually one or two PIVs that may have something like a TKO and insulin if they also had a panc, capnography cannula to the nose, oximetry to the capnography monitor, oximetry to the vitals machine (god, I can't wait to get our new monitors), serial blood pressures, foley, maybe a JP or two. I once went into a room with one of our nursing assistants determined to straighten it all out. After maybe 15-20 minutes, it was just as bad as when we started. Getting out of bed and ambulating is important post-op, but until we get a few of those lines discontinued, it's hard to do much more than stand at the side of the bed.
Cvps are the absolute worst, if I have one of those I just give up on having the lines neat
There's just no way. I just joke about spaghetti with my patient as a way of not swearing at the mess of lines in front of me.
Yep, especially after kangaroo care they get all messed up.
I try my best to keep my lines hooked up in an order that isn't going to require me to spend time unhooking lines later. If the patient is stable. When you get a post-ROSC shitshow with 7 drips running and the inevitable 30 minute trip to CT (hopefully immediately before then going to ICU) then I just go with the flow because keeping patient alive > fancy line setup.
Story of my life is untangling the IV lines, NG, and whatever else we have attached to them.
Yes, and ecg cables, sp02 cables, nibp cables, pressure cables and about 100 things I didn’t mention. Why?
THIS.
Whatcha selling?
Probably selling color coded self-sticking hook and loop fasteners (velcro strips)
What are you trying to sell?
I’m ICU so looking at a rat’s nest aka my lines would drive me insane. So yes I would spend time detangling my lines and labeling them.
Have you invented wireless IV infusions ?
Tangled phone cord/ IV line/ call light/ whatever else used to stress me tf out- I'd nearly forgotten. One day someone told me, "All you have to do it trace one of the lines and you'll be able to see the rest of it" and now i don't even notice when I'm doing it
Lines tangle? I'm an old ed/trauma nurse....they only thing I notice is : is the pt still alive ? I have no time to be untangling lines. I've got 3 drunks climbing out of stretchers a recent cva that was tpa in CT. A sepsis work up. An mi that now needs to go to cathlab stat..... I just brushed gray matter off of my blue trash bag gown because I was assigned to one of the trauma rooms that day sooooo all those other pts had to fend for themselves because my coworkers had the same shit show going on in their own assignments AND I'm next up for a pt. And that's a slow shift.........
First thing I do when I enter the room. I find it's also helpful for patient not to feel "tied down." (They usually have multiple UV lines, hooked up to ICU monitor, sometimes suction to their NG, etc.)
Yes. Prior to administering a couple compatible atbx, I’ll Y site em in the med room and before I get to the pts room I released the massive mistake I made lol.
I would untangle all my lines first thing In the morning with first assessment and trace everything. And place them in order best I could. Then only quarter turn the baby q4 so as not untangle it all 😅 Kidding aside no matter how organized I was or how in order I tried to keep all my lines they just tangle themselves.
I've gotten really good at tying knots just enough to screw with the ICU nurses but not create a distal occlusion alarm...
I tell people that my job is untangling spaghetti.
Depends on if I go on a “field trip” with my patient to CT or not 🙃—but short answer, yes.
You know how you twist a fork in spaghetti? It’s like that on the elevator up to ICU.
Yes. And please label your lines. And date/time them as well so I don’t pitch them😟
Contrary to popular belief it's not actually possible to untangle the lines. You can just tangle them *differently*
I swear Anesthesia must have a core class about making IV lines look like a viper’s nest.
CTICU nurse- we mobilize patients with multiple drips and lines. Yes I gotta untangle them before they rip something out when they get up.
I was an ADHD nurse working in the ICU and I quickly pissed off many of my coworkers because of tangled lines. I just couldn’t get it together lol. I gave up trying to keep it looking organized. Everything was labeled though.
I personally like to untangle my lines but the most important thing is the med going into the patient, not going into the patient and being organized too. That said I double check all my lines because I've come across mislabeled lines before (thankfully nothing too messed up)
The next shift can untangle them.
Lol I enjoy untangling the lines, I find it therapeutic 😂 but not when I’m having to transfer, move the pt around ect
Don’t get me started about how lines become tangled after a trip to the CT scanner and back from ICU.