07 November 2010

Gut Feelings

We nurses use a lot of our gut feelings -
it's not scientific, but if the Spidey sense tingles, we tend to be more vigilant.
I don't know if I lost that sense the other night.
Called in to consult on a patient that another nurse was taking care of.
She said she doesn't look right and that we should call a Rapid Response or RRT.
I said not yet. I guess I needed to wait and see some thing before we activate the RRT.
More from the other nurse's insistence than my own gut feeling that we activated it anyway. (She had probably more nursing experience than I did).
Everyone else seemed to see something and I did not.
I didn't have that gut feeling this time,
but all around me, the other responders said the patient's vital signs were normal, but there's something quite not right.
Did I second guess myself?
Am I not in tune with my gut feelings anymore?
I felt like Chip in "Beauty and the Beast" when all around him sang, "There's something there that wasn't there before."

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