Decision Making, Post-Surgery Pain Management Case
Scenario: A 66-year-old female patient had a right fractured hip and went to surgery for a right hip pinning procedure. The patient has an order for Vicodin tablets, 1 every 4 hours as needed for complaints of pain. It has been 3 1/2 hours since her last pain medication. Physical therapists just finished range-of-motion exercises, and the patient will be getting up in the chair soon. She requested another pain pill now before she gets up in the chair.
Questions:
1, Identify a problem that requires you to make a decision.
2, Identify solutions:
a. Give the pain pill early this time.
i. Pro: Patient will be pain free and more likely to comply with therapy.
ii. Con: Face being chastised for not following orders and risking legal issues.
b. Call the doctor and report the pain.
i. Pro: Be absolutely within legal limits.
ii. Con: Doctor will be interrupted and probably angry.
c. Ask the patient to wait the 30 minutes.
i. Pro: Nurse will not have to decide.
ii. Con: Patient who is already in pain will have a procedure that will increase her pain (violation of patient care partnership)
d. Give pain medications as written and get the patient up in chair without it.
i. Pro: Nurse will not have to decide.
ii. Con: Patient's pain will be increased.
3, Identify the outcome you want to achieve.
Pain Management
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Pain Management
Post-surgery pain management is one of the key areas that nurses have to deal with. This is relative to the fact that surgery tends to be a panful exercise especially where it involves the bones. There are quite a number of nerves involved in most of these procedures and thus the patients tend to be in a lot of pain when they are recovering from the processes (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2017). pain management is thus crucial to make sure that the patient is comfortable as they go through healing. Without the pain medication, the pain would be unbearable for the patient and would interfere with the other post-surgery procedures that nurses have to deal with helping the patient recover (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2017).
In the case of the 66-year-old female patient who is recovering from hip pinning procedure. This is a very painful process and one that will require the nurse in charge to ensure that the patient pain management is on course. according to the instructions the patient is supposed to get their medication for the pain every other four hours. However, it has only been three and a half hours. At this point the patient has already requested that they get their medication for the pain, regardless of the fact that they are half an hour out from their next medication. The problem in this case is that, the patient still has half an hour to their next medication (Abou-Setta et al., 2017). However, not giving them their medication at the request, this could easily complicate their ability to cooperate with the nurse for any other procedures slotted for the day.
Given the pain that the patient is facing, it is important...