Nasopharyngeal and Oropharyngeal Suctioning: Special Considerations (Nursing)

00:00 Now sometimes when we're suctioning a patient in this fashion, you can imagine there are potential complications that can arise. Now anytime you suction a patient, you can imagine this definitely can make it hard for the patient to breathe, so make sure you note this. Also, anytime that we insert a tube for example inside a patient, we can cause trauma, we can cause bleeding so make sure you're careful with this. And lastly, the patient definitely can aspirate. Now think about we're withdrawing that suction catheter, if we're not careful the patient can also aspirate on any of the secretions from that catheter. Now let's take a couple of minutes to talk about some things really to help you out and to be successful.

00:47 Now, take your time here, make sure your area is fully prepared. Remember, this is a sterile procedure so you need to be conscientious of this. Now again, if the patient's conscious, have them help you. Sometimes tilting their head back to expose their nostril will definitely help. Also, remember guys you are suctioning a patient's respiratory airway. This really needs to have breaks the patient themselves, they definitely are going to need some breaks between each pass if you have to suction multiple times. Now lastly, anything we're suckin' out, we definitely need to say "Hey, let's document how thick it is, what does it look like, what's the consistency, and we need to document the characteristics in our electronic health record.