Louise Huynh
September 2021
Louise
Huynh
,
RN, CCRN
Multicampus ICU Float Pool
Swedish Medical Center - First Hill
Seattle
,
WA
United States

 

 

 

Louise kept pushing, calling, and expressing concerns about changes she was seeing until the MDs came up and took the patient to the OR.
I need to give a very much-deserved shout-out to Louise from MCF. I was charge on 7east today and Louise had the heaviest assignment on the floor. Not only was she on top of everything while keeping a great attitude and still helping out her pod mate, but Louise's assessment of a patient caught a bleed that sent the patient back to the OR late this afternoon. Louise had a vascular patient and during her assessment noted that the patient was oozing from the site (this was new) and that the patient was complaining of new flank pain. Louise was concerned for Retroperitoneal Bleed and paged the MDs. Initially, the MDs were not too concerned given that the patient's VS were stable, but Louise kept a close eye on the patient and kept professionally pushing until she got a CT scan order. At first, the read of the CT was that the patient had a hematoma and we were instructed to place a sandbag on the site. Louise did this promptly but communicated to me that she was still concerned. The patient's BP was starting to decline and Louise was concerned that she was going to go into shock. We got repeat H/H and Hct had dropped from AM lab count of 24 to 20. Because Louise kept at it and pushed for the CT, the docs got a call from Imaging, and the patient actually had a small arterial bleed and was taken urgently back to surgery and then placed in the ICU. Way to be there for your patient Louise!!!

Louise is a great nurse and needs some serious recognition for this!! She kept pushing, calling, and expressing concerns about changes she was seeing until the MDs came up and took the patient to the OR. Her assessment skills are on point every single time and she has had many other great catches like this when floated to IMCU, without getting any recognition beyond her team for the day. Louise is very well-loved within IMCU when she floats there. She is always thinking about safety regardless of the patients she is assigned and still has time to be a mentor/teacher to the newer RNs on the unit. Her advocacy inspires me every time I work with her. She does not get nearly the recognition that she deserves for the nursing that brings to the table daily. Nurses in IMCU know that when she is in their pod, all the patients’ needs will get met and everyone will be safe. What an amazing thing to say about a nurse and she is a member of our team!!! Please, please, please, put this out to the team. She needs to be recognized for all that she does, but especially for this. She caught the problem early and kept at it until she got what she needed from everyone to keep that patient safe.