Helpful hint

So you’ve put in an naso/oro- gastric tube. Great! Did you verify placement? If so, how? Did you immediately get gastric contents back when you aspirated? Did you listen and confirm placement in the stomach? Did you use the CO2 detector that some institutions have?

I ask because I ran into a situation in which an OG tube was placed in the ER before my patient was sent to me. Helpful. Thanks. Except it wasn’t helpful at all. My new admission’s abdomen was quite distended despite the OG tube. I connected the tube to wall suction and got nothing out. I changed the canister and tubing just to make sure it wasn’t something wrong on that end. Nothing. I listened and couldn’t quite say with 100% certainty that I heard it in the stomach. Hmm… Not sure I want to use this…

And then he vomited. A lot. And kept vomiting while I held the yankauer in his mouth to keep him from aspirating.

Nope, that OG wasn’t in.

So, I took it out and decided to try my luck at placing an NG instead of an OG. As soon as the tube hit 60 cm in depth contents start pouring out. No need to auscultate that! Hooked it to suction and in about five minutes I got a full liter of contents out of him. Oh look, his abdomen isn’t as distended now…

I say all of that to say this: verify placement! However you choose to do so, make sure you KNOW that the NG or OG is in the stomach and not curled up in the back of the throat. Have someone verify it behind you if you aren’t sure. If all else fails, take it out. I would rather you send me a patient without a tube than send me a patient with a misplaced tube.