The Myocardial Infarction Scenario

Journey North is an educational application that provides medical students with a virtual experience working in First Nation Canadian communities. Bloodvein is located in Manitoba, and its population is near two thousand inhabitants (Southeast Child & Family Services, 2021). The remote environment creates many difficulties for proper client management and disease treatment, and Journey North showed how community nurses work in these conditions. This paper aims to discuss the myocardial infarction (MI) scenario for the First Nation patient in the Bloodvein nursing station circumstances and reflect on that experience.

The selected Bloodvein First Nation’s nursing scenario is about a 40-year-old male with a chief complaint of chest pain. The client also had nausea, vomiting, sweating, shortness of breath, and aching radiated to the jaw. The nurse applied EKG as the primary examination tool, and the monitor strip revealed infracting and the risk of a heart attack. In the scenario, the nurse used a 12 lead EKG during the examination, checked Q waves, elevated ST-segment, and inversion of T waves, and discovered MI symptoms (Fraser & Ball, 2014). Then, the oxygen at 6 liters per minute was used with O2 saturation at 97-98%. The patient required bed rest and support to reduce anxiety appeared due to the stressful experience.

There is no physician at the station, thus the nurse sent an EKG report to them and drew the patient’s blood for cardiac enzymes to forward the result later. Contacting a doctor is also necessary to discuss the client’s complaints, current health conditions, risks, and medical evacuation necessity. Patient education and medication prescription was the next crucial step for the nurse in the MI scenario. They are allowed to provide the drugs, therefore, the client received sublingual nitroglycerin in 0.4 mg form and uncoated acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) in 250 mg (Fraser & Ball, 2014). While the patient stayed at the nursing station, their heart and lungs continued to be monitored to detect heart failure.

Virtual experience in the Bloodvein nursing station showed the vital tools, facilities, skills, and medication required for caring for a small population of the area. The facility included emergency and exam rooms, x-ray, community health places, dentist offices, and residences. Bonneau et al. (2018) state that “considering the array of health care barriers Indigenous Canadians face, asymptomatic and underdiagnosed, and requiring long-term management and surveillance, diseases are a particularly difficult challenge” (p. 308). It is complicated for nurses in the remote environment to consult patients with severe conditions like MI because heart attack might unexceptionally occur, and the emergency help might not be on time.

Indeed, nursing professionals in areas like Bloodvein contact keep in contact with medical evacuation services and provide them with information about the patient in a risk group. Moreover, client education is a tool applied in the remote environment. Nurses build strategies for preventing emergencies, improving patients’ conditions in their homes, and providing the latter with information about the disease, conditions, and pain management. Overall population’s awareness of proper lifestyle, abnormalities detection, and first-aid approaches would improve the health situation in a remote regions.

Journey North’s virtual experience in Bloodvein First Nation’s area educated students about nursing in remote conditions and showed the challenges in the working process. Probable demand in medical evacuation, no immediately reachable physician, and only the essential equipment did not prevent a nurse from providing suitable treatment for a client in the scenario. Many Indigenous Canadians are unable to receive proper and timely health assistance, however, well-educated and experienced nursing personnel can help maintain a population’s health rates at a relatively high level.

References

Bonneau, C., Caron, N. R., Hussain, M. A., Kayssi, A., Verma, S., & Al-Omran, M. (2018). Peripheral artery disease among Indigenous Canadians: What do we know?. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 61(5), 305-310. Web.

Fraser, K., & Ball, N. (2014). Journey North: A virtual learning experience. Red River College. Web.

Southeast Child & Family Services. (2021). Bloodvein Unit. Web.