An emergency room in full code can be a terrifying scene full of blood, barked commands, curses, and seeming chaos. Yet, a handful of hospitals throughout the country now allow families into the emergency room during invasive procedures and resuscitations. Nursing advocates argue that this is a natural extension of a hospital s expanding role. And though it makes greater demands on the staff, the feedback from family members has persuaded some hospitals to take this approach. In most cases, you try to distance yourself when you re working on patients and it s much harder to do that when the family is crying beside you.
Most national studies show nurses to be more receptive than physicians to the change.
The trauma surgeons, especially, are opposed. And to be real honest, a lot of the nurses have felt the same way. But they re probably easier to convince than some of the doctors. Opposition usually centers on concerns that a distraught family member might disrupt the lifesaving effort, become hysterical, or misconstrue what is said or done during an emergency. And liability issues never lurk far from the surface.