Procedures and skills

A small device that sends electrical pulses to the heart to keep it beating at a set rate; also the heart's own natural rhythm center.

A blood product made of red blood cells with most of the plasma removed, given by transfusion.

Gauze or other soft material placed in a cavity or open wound to help stop bleeding, press on tissue, support the wound or fill dead space.

A nurse's organized gathering of information about a client's pain: where it is, how bad it is, what it feels like and what changes it.

A pain scale for people with advanced dementia that scores five behaviors from 0 to 2 each, for a total of 0 to 10.

Surgical repair of the palate, most often to close a cleft palate.

Examining the body by touching and pressing with the hands and fingers.

Surgery to remove one or more overactive parathyroid glands, most often a single benign adenoma.

Given by a route other than the digestive tract, usually by injection or into a vein.

Nutrition given as a liquid straight into a vein instead of through the digestive tract.

A formula for the IV fluid a burned adult needs in the first 24 hours: 4 mL × weight in kg × percent of body surface burned.

Surgical removal of part or all of the parotid gland, the salivary gland in front of the ear.

Closing an opening in a blood vessel by sewing an oval patch into its wall, so the vessel stays wide instead of being narrowed by a straight suture line.

Surgical removal of all or part of the patella (kneecap).

The state of being open and unblocked, as of an airway, tube, catheter or vessel.

A way of giving pain medicine in which the client presses a button to give themselves a set dose from a programmed pump.

An abbreviation that can mean a feeding tube placed through the belly into the stomach, or the laxative polyethylene glycol.

A soft, flat, thin-walled tube that lets fluid drain from a wound into the dressing by gravity, with no reservoir.

Tapping on the body to make sounds that tell what lies underneath, or clapping the chest to loosen mucus.

Through the skin: done by a needle puncture rather than an open incision.

Surgery that removes a thickened, scarred pericardium that is squeezing the heart.

A short, thin tube placed in a vein of the arm or hand (or another vein away from the chest) to give fluids and drugs.

Around a stoma, the surgical opening of the bowel or urinary tract on the abdomen.

A kind of dialysis that uses the lining of the abdomen as a filter, with fluid run in and out through a catheter.

Pupils equal, round, reactive to light and accommodation: charting shorthand for a normal pupil exam.

Cataract surgery that breaks up the cloudy lens with ultrasonic vibration and suctions it out through a small incision.

A test in which the client holds the backs of both hands pressed together, wrists fully bent, for about 60 seconds to see whether tingling develops.

Inflammation of a vein.

Using laser or intense light to burn tissue on purpose, to seal leaking vessels or tears in the retina.

Treatment with light, most often special blue light on a newborn's skin to lower the bilirubin level.

A head-to-toe or focused check of the body using looking, feeling, tapping and listening.

Peripherally inserted central catheter: a long, thin IV tube put into an arm vein with its tip in a large vein near the heart.

An IV fluid with large molecules that stay in the blood vessels and draw fluid into them, raising the blood volume when blood is not at hand.

An inflatable cuff on an arm or leg, filled with air by a control unit, that stops blood flow to the limb so surgery has a bloodless field.

Surgery that removes a whole lung.

Gas in the peritoneal cavity, either put there on purpose for laparoscopy or leaking in from a perforated organ.

The first step of reprocessing, done in the OR during and right after the case, to keep soil from drying on instruments.

Placing a client's body in a certain position for comfort, safety, treatment or a procedure.

The care given to a person's body after death, preparing it with respect for the family and for transport.

The position in which a person holds the body when standing, sitting or lying.

A chest piece taped over the heart and connected by long tubing to the anesthesia provider's earpiece, for listening to the heart and lungs throughout a case.

A syringe that comes already filled with a set dose of a drug or solution, ready to use.

Giving a client high-concentration oxygen for a short time before a procedure that will interrupt their breathing.

Skin prep solution that runs off and collects under or around the patient, where it can burn the skin or catch fire.

A dressing built with extra padding or a tighter outer layer so it presses on the wound, to limit bleeding and swelling.

Damage to the skin and the tissue beneath it from pressure, or pressure with shear, usually over a bony area or under a device.

Looking inside the rectum and anus through a short, rigid scope called a proctoscope.

A drop in the fetal heart rate of at least 15 beats per minute below baseline that lasts 2 minutes or more but less than 10.

Lying flat on the stomach, face down.

Surgery to remove all or part of the prostate gland.