Remind me never to have surgery. There are just too many cases where: Patient A came in for an elective ______________. They went to OR, but then in recovery he/she went into acute renal/respiratory/heart failure (or had a stroke).
It's not like that's the majority, or even a high proportion of surgeries, but working in a Surgical ICU, that's a lot of what we see.
I'm learning to take advice better, too. When patients' family members/my nursing peers try to tell me how to take care of my patients, I need to realize that I have something to learn from everybody, even people who aren't "nurses". I'm working on reading Nightingale's "Notes on Nursing" and I'm realizing that nursing is a skill set, a knowledge base, not just a profession. Just like a layman may be able to teach a mechaninc or a plumber a trick or tip, they may be able to teach us ways to care for our patients that we haven't thought of. (BTW: Of course, it's imperative that we base our practice on research and not just the advice of strangers.) Many mothers have spent years caring for sick family members and may have valuable experience to share with us. Maybe.
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I am very glad I'm not in the professional medical community; I worry that knowing too much about how the system actually works and potential risks would make me afraid if I ever needed major surgery.
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