Tip for Student Nurses: Don’t be afraid of dead bodies
19 Aug 2011 2 Comments
in Being a student nurse, Experiences, Nurse knowledge, Placements Tags: advice, cardiac arrest, dead body, dead patient, death, death of a patient, dignity, dying, hospital, hospital ward, last offices, nurse, nurses, nursing, nursing student, patient, patient death, patient has died, student nurse
I’m going to be very blunt and just say it: you will come across the body of a dead patient at some point during your training. I have noticed that people find my blog everyday by searching for information on the death of a patient, and what to do as a student nurse.
It can happen in all sorts of ways – you can start your shift and just hear that a patient has died, you can be there while they die over a time period, they can die all of a sudden from a cardiac arrest, you can discover a dead patient in their home or you can discover that they are dead when you approach them on the ward.
More than likely you will be asked to take part in a procedure called last offices. This mainly involves stripping the body of all tubes and lines, jewellery, plasters etc, washing the body and wrapping them up ready for the morgue. It can be a rewarding experience and a very nice thing to do if you wish to gently pay your last respects to a patient, whether you cared for them or not.
My tip here is to try to get involved as early as possible. Experience is the only way you will get accustomed to dealing with dead bodies however frightened you may be. There are students who are at the same stage as me (about to begin 3rd year) who have not yet had a patient die during duty or have been too afraid to perform last offices. There is nothing wrong with being afraid - a fear of the unknown is understandable. The best way to deal with this is by throwing yourself into it and just saying ‘yes’ when you are asked to do this. However you should also make sure that you work with someone you know and trust, who will respect the body of the patient, and who will accept that you may not feel like you can continue with last offices. A good nurse/HCA who asks you to help them perform last offices will explain the procedure to you and let you know that you can stop if you need to.
If you have any questions about this please don’t hesitate to ask me! For now, good luck with your first experience 
My First Cardiac Arrest Experience
24 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Placements Tags: cardiac arrest, COPD, CPR, crash team, death, emergency, oxygen, student nurse
This isn’t a very pleasant post, but a lot of student nurses talk about how a cardiac arrest experience is something they don’t look forward to (although some do want to witness one as they want to take part in the whole excitement of CPR).
My Intensive Care Unit post got quite a few views so I’m hoping this one is as interesting.
I’m over halfway through my nurse training now, and am currently training on an emergency surgery ward. On my first day on a Monday, my mentor asked me “Have you seen a cardiac arrest yet Sarah?”
I told her I hadn’t. She replied “Really? Well I’m warning you; I always seem to get them with my patients – you’re very likely to see one working with me”.
Four days later on the Friday it happened.
A had been caring for a very ill lady on the Thursday night – she had COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and needed to wear a nasal cannula to deliver her oxygen. Unfortunately due to illness, she was very confused and agitated and was refusing to wear her oxygen. Her saturation levels had dropped to around 70%.
She was in severe pain and felt very unwell but refused all offers of treatment. With her daughter, I spent much time trying to persuade her to accept oxygen therapy and pain relief.
She eventually got very annoyed with me and my voice (which I’m not surprised about to be honest – it can’t be nice having some 23yr old kid staring at you and repeating things you don’t understand) and told me to shut up. With this, and the risk of causing her more agitation, I left her with her daughter and the night nurse and finished my shift at 8.30pm.
I was back on shift the next day (Friday) for 7.30am. My mentor and I decided that we would care for the same patients again – including the ill lady from the night before, for the sake of continuity. The night nurse gave us our handover and told us that the ill patient had been very difficult to look after – kicking, biting, yelling and continuing to refuse all care and treatment. Me and my mentor didn’t like the sound of it, but planned to do our best with her.
We left handover at 8am – a different patient was screaming in pain and needed a certain drug, so I decided to go to the ward opposite and ask if they had this drug in stock. I returned to my ward to see the crash team and my mentor gathered around the ill patient, about to start CPR on her. Someone had gone in to the bed area to wake the patient up for breakfast and realised that she was unresponsive.
This is an excellent and dramatic video demonstrating successful CPR – definitely worth watching:
It was quite chaotic. The curtains couldn’t be fully drawn because the crash trolley was in the way, so the patient opposite could see some of what was going on. There wasn’t enough room for everyone and a lot of patients were in earshot of what we were saying and doing. I was the only person available to run in and out of the clinical room to get syringes and flushes and any other pieces of equipment needed. The crash team kept going with the CPR for what felt like almost 10mins, whilst checking her blood sugars and giving her adrenaline. I couldn’t really take in everything that was going on, but sensed that this was not going to save her.
CPR looks a little brutal – her ribs were being forced down so deep it made me hold my breath, and the mayhem was quite overwhelming.
The crash team eventually stopped and declared the patient dead.
Before really having any time to think, her husband and daughter were on their way after a couple of phone calls. I helped the healthcare assistant with stripping the patients body of any cannula’s and plasters, wiping away any blood and tidying the bed area. I felt quite numb to what had just happened and was more concerned about how her husband and daughter were going to react. Later that day I joined my mentor in carrying out last offices for the patient.
Unfortunately, with this being my first experience of a cardiac arrest, I don’t feel like I learned as much as I would have liked to. Perhaps giving myself the opportunity to take part in CPR would have made this a more valuable learning experience, but at the time, taking part felt like something I didn’t have the knowledge, skills or even initiative to do. It was a very sad experience, but I suppose now I can understand how very quickly a person can deteriorate, how people deal with the news of a death, and why the debate of patient restraint comes about so often.
