Question

Your patient is a 56-year-old man who had an extensive open abdominal surgery yesterday. He has thick secretions and developed a mucus plug. He has just returned from a bronchoscopy.

1. What are your priorities (2) for post procedure care? Provide a rationale for your choices.

2. The patient is also receiving frequent opioids for pain control after his recent surgery. What, if any, concerns do you have about this therapy?

3. Would you consider using capnography to monitor this patient? Why or why not?

Answer 1

1. * Monitor patient's blood oxygen saturation level after bronchoscopy because due to increased cardiovascular stress and workload patient may experience hypoxemia.

* Watch for excessive bleeding and abdominal pain after procedure as bronchoscopy could cause gastric perforation.

2. Excessive usage of opiods  may cause psychological depression, can make the patient immunocompromised and also result in organ damage. Therefore, I recommend a comprehensive pain management strategy to replace the opiods to treat postoperative issues.

3. Yes, capnography can be used to monitor the patient. Since the patient has been receiving opioids, capnography will help to monitor respiratory depression and airway disorders. It provides more safety in monitoring patients during sedation.