The Mission
The goal of Navigating with Nurse Derrick is to prepare you for the common pitfalls of healthcare, helping you to be more proactive in your care. I’ve seen miscommunications from medical staff, assumptions from families and patients, and hospital protocols that remove anything personal from the experience of being there. I hope this blog becomes a place where you can learn what to expect in the hospital as well as how to manage and prevent miscommunications, unrealistic expectations, and impersonal care. The healthcare industry is an industry of well intentioned practitioners caring for an increasing population of people facing their own mortality.
I think it’s important to value the humanity of this field. We sometimes forget that these human practitioners experience fatigue, make mistakes, and create protocols that streamline some things but can also leave gaps in care. By sharing these stories and tips, I want to help you minimize those gaps, and stay ahead of those understandably human mistakes. I want to help you navigate your best possible healthcare experience.
Aunt Steph: Why I started this blog
Aunt Steph had a tooth extracted and was being prepped for the tooth replacement. However, before the replacement could be done, the site became infected and began causing her a great deal of pain. The dental surgeon gave her antibiotics and some opioid pain meds. Steph didn’t want the opioids so the dentist told her to take ibuprofen. A few weeks later we dropped in to find Steph in terrible shape. I did a quick assessment and we decided it was time for the Emergency Department. She was hospitalized for the next 17 days with Sepsis (the tooth infection got into her bloodstream) and kidney failure (the ibuprofen was destroying her kidneys).
While hospitalized, her medical team included nephrology, oral surgery, infectious disease, cardiology (they found arterial clotting in her lower leg – clotting can be a complication of sepsis), endocrine, and an attending physician. (There was also nutrition, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and case management.) When she was discharged, her instructions included making appointments with each of those specialty doctor’s offices within the next two weeks. You may not be surprised to know that she couldn’t get an appointment that quickly with any of them and before the two weeks were up she was back in the hospital. Her symptoms were once again got out of control.
This cycle repeated itself 6 more times over 7 months before Aunt Steph died in outpatient rehab following her last admission for complications of the same issues.
…It is all very complicated. The failures were multifaceted and a result of a system with a lot of pitfalls. It’s a systemic issue and it’s the reason I wanted to create this blog.
The goal of this blog is to help you navigate the holes in the healthcare system so that you and your loved ones have the best chance at a smooth and positive healthcare experience.
About me
I’ve been an RN in the ICU and ER. I’ve been in step down vascular, surgical, urology, and trauma units. l’ve been a float pool RN where I’ve seen little bits from all of the units in the hospital. I’ve received nominations for daisy awards, and was nominated by my colleagues for an award in nursing leadership. l’ve been a charge nurse and participated in hospital wide meetings. I’ve watched a lot of patients pushed through the cycle of our system’s imperfections because of a myriad of pressures. I’ve seen patients coming back for the same problems (problems they expected us to fix) over and over again. I’ve seen the imperfections of this system many of us trust blindly. I’ve now had a loved one failed through the system. I created this blog because I wished something like it had existed for Aunt Steph. I created this blog out of the possibility that it might help keep you or your loved one from the same fate.
