All my hard work is paying off - in someone else's life that is! Part of my job is to research patients that have pacemakers and make sure that I have recent checks on them that way we know it is functioning properly. Well I had a patient that I was having a dickens of a time finding any info on, and as a last ditch effort I called a cardiologist's office to see if they had ANY clue of the manufacturer or when the last check was. They pulled her chart and saw that the last time they checked her was April 2007 and they didn't know who was following her now. Thankfully I was able to find out which representative to call and called her in a panic with my dilemma. She started to look into it some more and this patient has not had a check since 2007 and her pacemaker is almost dead!!!!! If she would have came in for surgery and we didn't catch it then and cancel, she could have not recovered from being put under. The patient is going to have an official check tomorrow and most likely end up with a battery replacement instead of the procedure she thinks she is getting.
This makes what I do worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment