There is a news story circulating in my local community about our regional hospital and a situation they had involving a wrongful hold (I’m in Florida so it’s the Baker Act). It was in the ED and the care team realized that the patient wasn’t actually experiencing psychiatric decompensation because her lab results came back and it turned out she had Serotonin Syndrome (which my team calls a unicorn condition because of its rarity 🦄) but the care team had already given the patient 5mg IV droperidol so they decided to continue the hold. The only decent thing the attending did was email the head of psychiatry to tell him that the patient didn’t require the hold and that it needed to be removed when the other physician conducted the second MSE on the patient.

This story is so sad and heartbreaking. The clinical team in the ED didn’t want to face the legal backlash they thought would be directed at them if they lifted the Baker Act 2 hrs after giving droperidol. It’s all so wrong and everyone in my community is buzzing about this right now. It’s definitely the daily tea here ☕️ 🫖

But I really want to know how a situation like this should be ethically handled. I’m certain it’s a very uncomfortable situation to navigate because of the guilt and confusion and other emotions that arise, but ethics should be respected above trying to avoid legal backlash. Has anyone ever realized that a patient is under a wrongful involuntary hold after the hold has been enacted? Or even realizing that the hold was wrong after the patient is discharged? How do you handle a situation like this? Do you apologize to the patient?

Also, isn’t droperidol contraindicated (or at least warned about) for Serotonin Syndrome because it prevents sweating and exacerbates extrapyramidal effects? Idk, it’s been a minute since I’ve studied this topic…

Hi everyone! Looking for advice here, I've been a psych nurse for almost three years, I started out in ER psych and worked there for a year and a half & after that went to inpatient psych. I've always loved my time in the Psych ER & always liked the ER in nursing school.

Lately I've been considering switching to the ER to:

1.) Get some medical experience

2.) Stregenthen my skills

3.) Try something different bc why not lol

Im really excited at the prospect and basically have a position with my old ER but im nervous at the same due to having to almost learn my skills all over again & nervous people will think im dumb since I dont have much medical experience 😅. Any psych nurses on here that have gone from Psych to the ER??? Any good resources to brush up on certain skills on?? Any advice would be appreciated!

I am a psych tech a short term urgent care for crisis stabilization. On our floor we have up to 50 clients with 2 techs on the floor. There are 4 nurses adjacent, and usually a few techs doing admissions. Is this okay?