By Dr Sue Catling
All over Phebe hospital there are cupboards and offices full of the stuff they get sent by Charities – most of it technical and complex state of the art kit. Trouble is, they don’t use it. Partly this is down to unfamiliarity and lack of training- unsurprisingly!
Take for example the defibrillator ....
There it was, state of the art modern defib, sitting in a dark alcove and obviously never had its cable unwound from the original packaging. Complete with three pin plug.
As we say - as much use as a chocolate teapot.
So using our head torches to illuminate the aforementioned dark alcove we cobbled it up to one of our electric adaptors we had brought and it sprang into life much to the delight of the students, who had never seen one in action.
Dave volunteered to have the paddles put on his chest to demonstrate it in “monitor” mode .........now that’s what I call dedication to teaching, not to mention trusting your colleagues!I’m not quite sure who was more nervous – Dave with the live defib across his chest, or me methodically going through the sequence but stopping short of the 'charge and deliver shock'!!The students thought it was great!
Good news is: I managed not to kill him.