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Sometimes you can give a patient too good of nursing care.
One nurse and I were assigned together to take care of a gun shot wound patient because his care required a lot of attention. He was closing his service station one night and he was alone. Some men came into the garage of the station where he was putting away his tools. They held him at gun point while they robbed him to that day's intake of money. Before they left they shot him in the throat. Somehow the owner managed to get to a phone and call the police.
When we got him in ICU, his throat was heavily bandaged and a long tube sticking out of his throat and he was attached to a respirator to assist with his breathing. His neck was so swollen that you did not know where the swelling began or where the bandage ended.
We worked with him together for 8 hours a day. We bathed and fed him and gave him the best care we could. Soon he was weaned off the respirator and breathing on his own. Now the time had come to help him take care of his trachestomy on his own and to teach his wife how to care for him. He learned fast and so did she. The day came when we could move him to the surgery floor. He was reluctant to leave the unit. We reassured him that he was doing well and would be home in about a week.
Then after he was on the surgery floor for about 4 hours we got a call that he was the two nurses who took care of him in icu. We went to the floor and the charge nurse said that he refused to have anyone care for him and wanted only us.
We again reassured him that he would be getting good care on the floor. We even brought his floor nurse in and explained each procedure as we did them so he could see that she knew how to care for him.
The next day, we heard that he was sent to the psych floor with a breakdown. He was so dependent on us that he could or would not trust anyone else to do his care.
As time passed, he became less dependent and soon went home with the care of home health.
That taught us that we may have given him too much "good care". He lived for several years and always came by the unit to see the two of us when he came in for reconstructive surgery. He still said that we gave him the best of care and he loved us the most.

Perhaps too much of a good thing is not always the best thing.
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Duty Log 3



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