Decoding Urgency

A new mom rushes in carrying a blue baby, or any other trauma patient arrives without warning—no radio, no heads-up. How do you stay one step ahead when chaos comes with zero notice? In this episode, Nyssa, Lisa, and their guest Lisa Wolf from HOW TO NOT KILL YOUR PATIENT dive into managing the "Zero Warning Crisis Patient." From optimizing your triage setup to having a bulletproof emergency plan, they discuss how to prepare for the unpredictable. Plus, hear insights on nurse-led ACLS and how to balance task-focused care with critical thinking to keep your cool in high-pressure situations.

Nyssa and Lisa talk to Up My Nursing Game's host Annie Fulton as part of a special National Nurse's Week Podcrawl - a veritable cornucopia of all things shock related, shared across seven top medical podcasts!  Learn about hypovolemic shock, how your Kool-Aid recipe applies to understanding the qualities of the fluid in your patient's vasculature, what to look out for as warning signs of a dangerous loss of volume, and how to adjust your practice to keep your patients alive.

In this episode, we reveal the three (plus bonus) critical phrases that can make all the difference in patient care.  Lisa and Nyssa break down the significance of these ominous declarations, and discuss the swift decisive actions that ER nurses must take when confronted with these signals.

Sometimes, the most complicated problems can be solved with the simplest solutions.  Nyssa and Lisa discuss "the checklist" - an elegant tool which revolutionized safety protocols in the field of aviation, and how they can - and should - be used in emergency medicine to increase favorable outcomes in patient care.

Coin-shaped button batteries are used in many common household items; they are often and easily picked up by toddlers and plopped directly into their mouths., where their alkaline properties can lead to fatal consequences.  Nyssa and Lisa talk to pediatric flight nurse LaKeisha Neely about how to recognize the symptoms of button battery ingestion, and how to treat those patients before damage is done to their bodies.

RSI is a common high stakes procedure done in emergent airways in the ER, but imagine how your patients must feel if they regain awareness during paralysis. One patient said "it was the worst pain he'd ever had and it was unbearable." How can your ER team avoid unwittingly contributing to this pain? Nyssa and Lisa examine a study that reveals the prevalence of awareness with paralysis in the ER and discuss how to keep it from happening to your patient.

Superstitious behavior is one thing, but Nyssa and Lisa have found proof that saying the dreaded Q word in the ER may indeed have a quantifiable impact on whether or not you have an out-of-control shift.  Dive deep into the cause and effect relationship between luck and chaos, and learn all about the pandemonium an errant utterance can have on your practice.

Dumb people doing dumb things is nothing new, but Lisa and Nyssa - with special guest Dr. Cory Nonnemacher  - examine how the viral challenge trend has led to a whole new generation of dangerous stunts being performed for likes and lolz by today's social-media hungry kids.  Learn what challenges like the "Skullbreaker", "Milk Crate" and "Scalp Pop" look like when they present in your ERs, and what downstream health implications these internet exploits might mean to your patients.

In the second half of this special two-part episode, Lisa and Nyssa continue their discussion of human trafficking, this time investigating how and why an ER visit offers a potential escape route to victims of this global criminal enterprise.  Learn how to recognize it, how to stop it, and how to protect yourself and your patient when you encounter it.  

Whether you know it or not, as a healthcare professional, you have probably encountered a victim of human trafficking at least once in your practice.  People of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and origins are trafficked every day, in every town in America.  In this first half of a special two-part episode, Lisa and Nyssa discuss the particulars and statistics of this widespread and rapidly growing crime epidemic.