Case-Study Scenario
You are a surgical nurse working on a major trauma case that has come into the ER. The patient has lost a significant amount of blood due to their injuries which is estimated to be 25% of their total blood volume. Initial vital signs are taken, and the patient has an extremely weak pulse and very low blood pressure. The patient is losing consciousness, and the medical team worries that there is not enough blood volume to adequately perfuse the patient's vital organs. The surgery is successful, and the bleeding is stopped.
In order to bring blood volume and perfusion pressure back to a safe level, the surgical team inserts an intravenous drip of isotonic saline, and increases the flow-rate until blood pressure has normalized.
Q1. Based on your assessment of the patient and their condition, please fill in the blanks
Your patient bled excessively as a result of their injuries. When someone loses a large amount of blood (red blood cells/hemoglobin), a condition known as __________________ is likely to develop and therefore needs to be treated. When a patient develops this condition, a ________________ transfusion is often required to restore hemoglobin and red blood cell levels back to their ideal state.
Q2. To fend off any infection, you are asked to give the patient, via their IV, 75 mL of solution that contains 150 milligrams of penicillin. For reference, the attending physician asks you how many grams of the penicillin will be in 325 mL of the solution? (Please show your work below for full marks)
Q3. The patient is complaining that they are in pain, so you give them Tylenol, which contains 500 mg of acetaminophen? If the max number of pills they can take in a day is 8, how much acetaminophen are they getting per day?
Q4. If you take too much Tylenol, what organ or organs in our body is at the greatest risk for damage and why?