Question

Disclaimer: I am not a nurse - still working on it

Can a nurse intubate a patient? I am just curious. I was watching "Trauma: Life in the ER" last night and if a patient was flown in, most times they would arrive already intubated. So I was just wondering who did that... the nurse or the paramedic on the helicopter.
at the hospitals in my area the flight nurses have to be paramedics as well as rn. paramedics do the intubating. usually though it's the resp therapist in the hospital/anesthesia/intensivist

Quote from KareBear0609Disclaimer: I am not a nurse - still working on it Can a nurse intubate a patient? I am just curious. I was watching "Trauma: Life in the ER" last night and if a patient was flown in, most times they would arrive already intubated. So I was just wondering who did that... the nurse or the paramedic on the helicopter.

Nurses could intubate in my area "once upon a time." Now my hospital has made it policy that nurses cannot intubate. I don't know why. Some of us older nurses had to intubate for our ACLS, but now that they have taken away so much of the respiratory stuff in ACLS, maybe that is the reason we can no longer intubate. (?) Only the doctors can intubate now in my hospital.

Our ACLS still includes intubation, however during a code generally it is done by the RT.

In the field, either of them.. In my hospital RN's can't intubate. Resp can't intubate either, they just manage the vent.. MD's intubate here..

In the hospital, it would depend on the policy of that facility.