Unless you want to know a patient’s oxygenation (because your pulse oximeter has failed), stop turning your patient into a pin cushion looking for the radial artery and get a venous blood gas
Metabolic Acidosis
Sodium Bicarbonate Therapy in Patients with Metabolic Acidosis
DID YOU KNOW: “Evidence that significant harmful effects are derived from metabolic acidosis by itself has NOT been provided in human beings”
Sodium Bicarbonate does NOT treat metabolic acidosis (it just gives you numbers that make you happy about yourself while the patient dies) – Death by Sodium Bicarbonate