I saw my first
code the other day. Codes are called over the hospital intercom system so that people from different areas of the hospital can respond, and a nurse on my floor was one of the people who responded that day. As she was running out the door my preceptor yelled for her to take me with her.
When we got to the other unit the patient was on the floor. I couldn't see much because the room filled up with about 40 people in a matter of seconds. During a code there are different "jobs" that people do: there is the person who runs the code (normally a physician or NP, I believe, because they give the orders for administering drugs), a nurse who prepares/administers the drugs from the
crash cart, a recorder who writes down everything that's being done and the effect (if any) the actions have on the patient, people taking turns performing chest compressions and
administering breaths to the patient, and probably a bunch of other people who do other things I'm forgetting about. Oh and there are about 20 other people in the room who just want to see what's going on but who are not actually doing anything at all (and they eventually get yelled at to leave the room).
The code went on for 15 minutes -which seemed like an eternity to me- and I mostly hid outside the room trying to stay out of the way. The patient was in
PEA and nothing they did was having any effect. Towards the end, the nurse who brought me with her motioned for me to come into the room. She had been working as the "recorder". Shortly after I went in, the attending physician entered the room and gave a signal for everyone to stop. The time of death was announced and the nurse from my floor put a check in the box next to the word "expired" in the "outcome of code" section on the sheet used for recording.
