A patient involved in a house fire is brought by ambulance to your emergency department. He is breathing spontaneously but appears agitated. He does not respond appropriately to questions
You assume he has inhaled carbon monoxide and has carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Your first action is to a. ask the physician to order a STAT chest radiograph to rule out a pneumothorax.
b. apply a pulse oximeter to one of his unburned fingers.
c. call the local hyperbaric chamber to check on its availability.
d. administer 100% high-flow oxygen via a nonrebreathing mask.
D
The treatment of choice for CO poisoning is high-flow oxygen administered at 100% through a tight-fitting nonrebreathing mask or endotracheal intubation. The half-life of CO in the body is 4 hours at room air (21% oxygen), 2 hours at 40% oxygen, and 40 to 60 minutes at 100% oxygen. The half-life of CO is 30 minutes in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at three times the atmospheric pressure. Currently, the use of hyperbaric oxygen is of controversial benefit in care of burn patients.
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The nurse has an order to perform occult blood testing on a patient's emesis. What color will the sample turn to indicate that the test is positive for occult blood?
a. Red b. Blue c. Green d. Yellow
A researcher is studying the likely occurrence rate of secondary cancers after a new schedule of chemotherapy for childhood leukemia, using a biochemical marker obtained by blood draw six months after the initiation of chemotherapy
What is the rationale for using this marker as a proximate outcome, rather than counting the actual rate of secondary cancers? a. Research on recurrent cancers in children labels them as vulnerable, causing psychological harm. b. The final endpoint is not obtainable over a reasonable span of time, since secondary cancers can occur at any age. c. Most proximate endpoints are unreliable variables and should not be used unless there are no final endpoints. d. The researcher is not interested in whether children suffer a secondary malignancy; the researcher is merely interested in the marker value.
In caring for a baby with non–life-sustaining defects, the nurse will most likely make decisions based on:
a. Personal ethical beliefs and values. b. Treating all patients equally. c. Treating all patients with respect and courtesy. d. The futility of life issue.