Sunday, October 02, 2005

Who is Kay Ciel?

I found my first 'funny' in a chart. Transcribed into my patients history was:

Started on 0.5 normal saline with 20meq Kay Ciel.



Riiiiiight...
Posted by HypnoKitten at 6:18 AM
14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:54 AM  

LOL. That's good. I've found it here once as well. Guess those transcriptionists need to fix thier spell check.

Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:00 PM  

Who is this Kay Ciel and why is she stalking our patients? ;)

I tried to get a job as a medical transcriptionist for extra money, and no one would hire me because my 15 years experience of direct patient care does not qualify me to be a transcriptionist. Oh really? Or, I guess I mean, Owe Reilly?

Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:07 PM  

Ah, I have run into Kay before. :-)

Not that this is a play-on-words sort of thing, but I was disturbed by it nonetheless - I was reading an H&P from a doc who kept referring to the pt's cardiac arrest as her "A fib" arrest. At one point, he even SAID "Atrial fibrillation arrest."

4 times, I believe, so it wasn't a typo. Scary.

Blogger Milliner's Dream, a woman of many "hats"..., at 4:11 PM  

hehe...I'm only an SN1 and caught that one. :)

Hh

Blogger HypnoKitten, at 11:10 PM  

I have no idea why they wouldn't let you work as a transcriptionist - what sort of special training would you need that you wouldn't already have?! It might be a good way to make ends meet if there came a point where a nurse couldn't stand up for so long anymore. It doesn't seem like it would take much in the way of critical thinking skills...

and I certainly have no idea what a 'male hispanic c-section' would be doing in the report of a female cardiac patient. I can't think of anything it even sounds like. Maybe a cut-and-paste error?

Blogger The Platypus, at 6:29 AM  

I know Kay Ciel. She hangs with Norm Celine.

Blogger beajerry, at 3:04 PM  

Oh, I gotta use that!

I'm tired of Angie O'Graham

Blogger Satyavati devi dasi, at 6:38 PM  

I do remember seeing once in an H&P a note about a "well nourished well developed bowel movement".. I believe the doctor was in the habit of using the initials WNWDBM.. however, he meant Black Male.
On an only vaguely related note, I think all physicians ought to be required to either type their orders, or (as I believe is happening in places closer to the 21st century than we are) put them in the system themselves. And the unit clerks ought to be required to have a bit of medical terminology knowledge. You have no idea what someone can do with "atelectasis" if they don't know what they're doing.

Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:36 AM  

I have been noticing your comments out the MTs out there. Let me tell you.... based on experience, I know how tough it can be to be an MT. I am an ex-RN. Got burned out and decided to become an MT. After years as an RN, I realized pretty fast there were certain skills I needed to be a good MT. Now of course, as in all professions, there are bad and good, nurses as well as MTs as well as doctors, etc., etc.

A good MT has extensive schooling in medical terminology, physical exam assessments, radiological procedures, pharmacology, body systems, and so on and so on. It took me several years to become a good MT.

I bet if you look hard enough you will find many blunders and bloopers made by nursing staff, but being nurses, we would never focus on them as we would another colleagues work. Let me tell you fellow nurses, we are not great dictators either. I have typed some nurse dictations that would truly amaze you with their errors.

Remember.... it takes all of us to create an accurate patient record, not just the MT.

Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:52 AM  

Actually, Kay Ciel is a brand name for potassium chloride.
http://www.drugs.com/mtm/k/kay_ciel.html

Blogger HypnoKitten, at 6:41 PM  

I'm sorry, I stand corrected.

Being a new nurse, I had not seen Kay Ciel before, and it's not a brand we use at our hospital. I guess in the future it won't seem so strange.

Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:25 AM  

Kay Ciel is a brand and if you look it up you will find it is a powder. I guess it may have been out there as a liquid in the past, but I've never run into it in 10 years in pharmacy.

So today, knowing that I had an order for Kay Ciel 15 cc's and also knowing that it was a powder I called the physician. Boy did I get an earful! Note to self, if MD wants Kayciel give him the KCl 20meq/15 cc.

Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:23 PM  

I used to transcribe for a nurse who ALWAYS said the patient's neck was SUBTLE, even carefully pronouncing the B.

"need to fix thier spell check"

Blogger HypnoKitten, at 4:32 PM  

We've got a NOC nurse who gives report and says the pt "had a lot of semantic complaints" or was "semantically focused".

Evidently my pt also has a problem forming meaningful sentances or maybe she doesn't like our signs.

Is that one of those v-code things?

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