Running head: CLINICAL EXEMPLAR 1

Clinical Exemplar
Ardy Emile
University of South Florida
CLINICAL EXEMPLAR 2

Clinical Exemplar
As my journey as a nursing student comes to an end, numerous clinical experiences have
helped me learn and grow. A clinical exemplar is a real-life scenario that showcases a nurses
experience and clinical practice (Black, 1997). I can think of many clinical exemplars that have
helped me really tie together the concepts that Ive learned in class and in textbooks. Seeing
these concepts in the clinical setting really help enhance understanding. These clinical exemplars
will shape me as a graduate nurse.
This exemplar concerns a code situation that I was fortunate to participate in. This patient
was not my patient, but a patient from a different unit. Not all the details of his health history and
his reason to be admitted into the hospital are known, but I ended up being a part of his code
blue. This patient was a man who appeared to be in his 40s 50s. From what I heard, he
recently had a surgery operation around his neck, probably some kind of spinal surgery. It was
said that a nurse technician (NT) was doing hourly rounding and went to check on the patient.
The NT, noticing that the patient was not responsive to any stimuli, called a code blue, and
started compressions.
The NT tried to rise the patient by using different forms of stimuli to no avail; his only
decision at this point was to call a code blue and start compressions. This signal will notify team
leaders, charge nurses, rapid response, other nurses, respiratory, etc. to come and assist. It is a
group effort to revive this patient. The patient had a lot of inflammation around his trachea due to
his recent surgery so his airway was obstructed. This is a very critical situation and a classic
airway, breathing, circulation scenario.
The NT made the right decision in taking action right when he noticed something was
wrong! In this situation, there is no time to waste. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation and a quality
team that is properly trained is essential for survival in this situation (Sprehe, March, Wilson, &
Park, 2016). Basic life support skills have the greatest impact on the patients survival so the NT,
in fact, has a very crucial role as being the first responder. In a code situation, response time,
preparedness, and quality of training becomes very important for the patients survival as well
(Sprehe, March, Wilson, & Park, 2016). In this situation, there is no question that the NT made
the right decision. In a code blue, there is a team approach. There are various amounts of people
in the room performing numerous tasks simultaneously. For instance, me, the NT and other
personnel were switching off to perform compressions, someone was finding an IV access with
the interosseous machine, someone was giving medications, someone was monitoring the time
and vitals, a couple people were performing an intubation, etc.
The right decision was made by the NT. I made a favorable decision to come help with
compressions because performing compressions for so long is very tiring/draining and its good
to relieve my colleagues. If they go for too long, the compressions wont be as effective and
thats detrimental to the patient. I feel as though this code process lasted around 30-40 minutes.
This patient was hard to intubate because he was so inflamed. They had to make an incision
around the neck to aid the process of intubation. With my role in this situation, I felt like my
CLINICAL EXEMPLAR 3

compressions were done well by compressing at an adequate depth, compressing at an adequate

pace, and allowing for great chest recoil. The goal was met because the patient was finally
intubated and a pulse was finally achieved. The patient was then transferred to the ICU. This
healthcare team worked very well together to help this patient and on account of the patients
roommate, the response time was impeccable.
CLINICAL EXEMPLAR 4

References
Black, P. J. (1997). Use of the clinical exemplar in performance appraisals. Retrieved April 24,
2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9325873
Sprehe, J., March, A. L., Wilson, C. B., & Park, H. S. (2016). The effect of videoconferencing on
code blue simulation training. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 12(7), 260-267.