This is exciting as this is the true experience of and Emergency (ER) Nurse. It was a busy Saturday night as a stat trauma activation was called from the hospital main lobby arrives. “I need a gurney stat! I have a GSW in the hospital main lobby!” A gurney was wheeled and PCAs placed the patient on the gurney and performed CPR. During this time the trauma team was activated, nurses prepared machinery, phlebotomist and technicians stood by waiting for the arrival of the patient. As staff gained more information on the situation, the patient given the name John Doe, was involved in a home invasion and was shot by the homeowner by defense. Doctors swarm the patient yelling out orders and dictating assessments, nurses come to help start IV’s and start blood transfusion, FPD on scene. The trauma nurse assigned to the patient is calm assertive and was able to do everything asked, a doctor suddenly takes a blade to open the chest wall and begins manual cardiac massage. As a person observing this organized chaos, all I remember was the annunciation of time of death of the patient. After the chaos as subsided all I remember was blood everywhere and the nurse asking if I was …show more content…
The trauma nurse exemplified professionalism as she was yelled at by the trauma doctors. Despite what this patient had done and what my ethical beliefs were against his action, the nurse still has a responsibility to care for and fulfill. The nurse was able to separate feelings from her own moral opinions. Uhrenfeldt, Hall (2007) reports that nursing clinical wisdom is based on three principles of “to think, to act, and to be responsible”. The trauma nurse and team had to ensure everything was done to save the patient despite the fact that the patient had the intention of hurting others. I benefited in this situation, because it made me put my feelings aside and focused on resuscitating the patient, unfortunately the patient did not make it, but this was my first encounter with an ethical dilemma. My preceptor told me something within the lines of there will always be bad people, but we are their nurse and it is our obligation to do everything for our patients. I also remember asking my precept how she was able to maintain composure as the situation she was in was high stress and it didn’t help that the doctors were yelling out at her. She said that with the years of experience you tend to see the same things over and over again and that she was able to somewhat anticipate what the doctor would yell out next. Benner, Hooper, & Standdard would agree to this statement as it is listed on the