about. What can you do? Educate them in the surgeon's office (a take-
home brochure helps!), remind them during the anesthesia screening
that a block is scheduled (or may be a possibility) and educate them on
the day of surgery. A video patients can watch or listen to on the day of
surgery is a great idea — it frees nurses to multitask and is a good dis-
traction to the IV placement and organized chaos going on around
patients the morning of surgery.
5. At least we don't have to worry about a medical emer-
gency.
Although extremely rare, local anesthetic systemic toxicity is
a medical emergency. The time from which you notice the early signs
of complication till when you can administer the intralipid is crucial.
Make sure each day the lipids are accessible — either on the block
nurse's ultrasound machine or on top of the block cart. The quicker
you're able to intervene, the better the patient outcome.
6. Nobody wants to be a block nurse. Just the opposite is true:
Your nurses will have increased job satisfaction with a regional anes-
thesia program. Nurses, who historically report feeling overworked
and underpaid, have increased job satisfaction when working as a
part of a regional anesthesia team. They feel like they're actually mak-
ing a difference in the surgical outcomes of their patients. Anesthesia
teams are thankful for organization and support and the surgeons are
happy to have a point person for their patients' pain management.
7. Which block is best: supraclavicular, infraclavicular or
axillary?
It's a common misconception that you must choose one or
the other block based on the location of the patient's injury. Studies
that measured pain scores, opioid usage and anesthesia time show
that you can use these 3 blocks interchangeably for pain control for
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