Nursing

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    PixelRN

  • The Skeptic Gets Her H1N1 Shot

    22 Oct 2009 | 8:50 am
    I will admit I was reluctant to get it. A couple years ago I was the flu shot nurse at a local hospital. It seemed like health care workers came from out of the woodwork to tell me their vaccination horror stories. Then, I blogged about it and heard even more horror stories in the comments. I typically am one to go by statistical evidence rather than anecdotal evidence, but I have to admit, the stories spooked me. So much so that I haven't gotten a flu shot since then. And I didn't get vaccinated because I'm a nurse. I haven't actually worked since July and don't intend to go back to work any…

  • Save the planet. Eat a dog.

    22 Oct 2009 | 7:34 am
    The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found. Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living. The couple have assessed the carbon emissions created by popular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them. "If you have a German…

  • Any Nurses out there on Google Wave?

    15 Oct 2009 | 4:39 am
    I noticed via twitter a few of you getting your cherished google wave invites so I figured I'd set up an outpost for nurses to connect. There are a few ways to get to my little outpost: First, Try this link. (It will only work if you are signed in to wave.) If that doesn't work, open up a search query while you are in google wave using this format: with:public title:nurses Still getting your feet wet, or just getting started? Try some of these helpful links: Mashable's Google Wave Guide Lifehackers's Google Wave 101 Google Wave Extensions (Robots and Gadgets) And definitely read Phil…

  • Why I'm glad I switched to posterous (it's not what you think!)

    6 Oct 2009 | 12:47 pm
    So I wrote this whole post which was basically a side by side technical comparison of posterous to wordpress and yadda, yadda, yadda. It really just comes down to two things so I'll spare you the post: Posterous is easier to use. Wordpress gives you more control. Surprisingly, the most important thing I think I've learned from switching blog platforms has nothing to do with the technical side of it. The real problem was that I wasn't that thrilled anymore with being a nurse blogger. Consequently, I let PixelRN suffer from serious neglect and it got hacked. What I really wanted to do was to…

  • Time Piece

    4 Oct 2009 | 5:26 am
    via vids.myspace.com via @DougCoupland Permalink | Leave a comment  »
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    Correctional Nurse . Net

  • Women’s Health in Prison

    Lorry Schoenly
    28 Oct 2009 | 1:44 pm
    Girl in Prison By Alice Cope The number of women in prison is much less than men, however, the rate of growth of female prisoners is nearly double that of males in the US. From 1995 to 2002 the female inmate population grew by 42% and is the fastest growing prison population. Currently 7% of the US prison population and 12% of the jail population is female. Gender issues must be considered in correctional healthcare. Women inmates have increase need for healthcare. Trauma Informed Care As many as 57% of women inmates have been physically or sexually abused at some point in their lives.

  • Bridging Meds

    Lorry Schoenly
    12 Oct 2009 | 5:05 pm
    September2008© by HiLaRioN_ Bridging meds is a process in correctional healthcare of covering the medication gap between what the inmate was taking in the community and what is provided behind bars. Recent reports of inmate death or violence related to not providing prescribed medications in a timely fashion can easily lead to the question – “How hard can it be to get them the right medications?” Indeed, it can be more challenging than it first appears. The guiding principle is for the facility medical unit to validate any prescribed medications and provide to the inmate necessary…

  • Ethical Dilemmas in Correctional Nursing

    Lorry Schoenly
    1 Oct 2009 | 6:47 am
    I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed for the KindEthics Radio Program. We had an interesting discussion about ethical dilemmas unique to nurses (and doctors) working in corrections. Basis of Ethical Care Two basic principles of ethical care are beneficence (acting only for the benefit of the patient) and nonmalfeasance (do no harm to the patient). In the course of working in a security environment, an ethical dilemma can arise when the  goals of custody administration seem to conflict with these principles. A code of ethics specific to correctional healthcare was created by…

  • Save Healthcare $$$ – Deliver Care Behind the Walls

    Lorry Schoenly
    17 Sep 2009 | 4:42 pm
    Prison Tower, Joliet, IL A West Virginia jail is discovering what many county and state governments have confirmed – inmate healthcare is less expensive when delivered onsite rather than in the community. Why is that? Lets discuss the factors that make onsite healthcare efficient and effective for the corrections community. Officer Manpower The greatest savings, by far, in delivering care, treatment and diagnostics behind the security wall of the prison or jail is sheer manhours. Every time an inmate must leave the facility, officers need to attend them, often putting the facility into…

  • HIV & Inmates

    Lorry Schoenly
    10 Sep 2009 | 6:13 pm
    New York State is considering increased oversight of HIV inmate care. This article had me considering the many issues and barriers to providing care for inmates with HIV. To be sure, healthcare providers have education, drug protocols and clinical practice guidelines specific for the correctional environment. Many of the medication regimens have been standardized and commonly available through prison pharmacy distributors. However, several elements of the operation of correctional facilities and the patients themselves mitigate against consistent care. HIV is Now a Chronic Condition Due…
 
 
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    Nursing News

  • RNs File Department Of Public Health Complaints Against UC Davis Medical Center

    7 Nov 2009 | 4:36 am
    Nurses Charge Public Endangered as Hospital Management Unlawfully Rations Nursing Care to Patients Registered Nurses at multiple units within the University of California Davis Hospital have filed a series of Department of Public Health charges against the facility, alerting the state to what risk of public endangerment.

  • FDA aims to fight avoidable harm from medicines

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:07 am
    U.S. health officials unveiled plans to fight avoidable injuries from medication errors or misuse, a problem that harms hundreds of thousands of people each year and can be deadly.

  • 'No need to rush' for shots, parents told

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:37 pm
    Parents and their children under five years old line up for H1N1 vaccinations at a flu clinic inside Millbourne Mall in Edmonton, AB, on Nov.

  • Doctor fined, suspended for sex misconduct

    6 Nov 2009 | 3:15 pm
    A Spartanburg plastic surgeon has had his license suspended and has been fined $25,000 by the state board of medical examiners for the inappropriate touching of patients and other medical misconduct.

  • NHS: More nurses for newborns

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:45 am
    The NHS will be told today to improve its care of tens of thousands of babies born every year who need specialist medical help amid concern that too many have received substandard treatment.
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    nurses - Google News

  • Nurses again hope bill will set staff-patient ratios - Worcester Telegram

    7 Nov 2009 | 4:19 am
    WKTVNurses again hope bill will set staff-patient ratiosWorcester TelegramBy Aaron Nicodemus TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF For every legislative session in the past 12 years, a bill setting a nurse-to-patient ratio in the state's St. E's nurses approve new contractWKTVNurses group files complaint over UC Davis Medical Center staffingSacramento Beerns File Department Of Public Health Complaints Against UC Davis Medical CenterMedical News Today (press release)all 5 news articles »

  • Nursing home aide charged in sex abuse - Tulsa World

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:32 am
    Nursing home aide charged in sex abuseTulsa WorldFranklin D. Hughes Jr.: He is accused of harming patients at a Bartlesville nursing home where he worked as a certified nurse's assistant. Local man accused of abuse at nursing homeBartlesville Examiner Enterpriseall 5 news articles »

  • People line up to give blood for wounded victims - Austin American-Statesman

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:59 pm
    Telegraph.co.ukPeople line up to give blood for wounded victimsAustin American-StatesmanThe soldiers, nurses and civilians who gave blood at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple on Friday had the same Heroes were at every turn during Fort Hood shootingsDallas Morning NewsWays to get usPittsburgh Tribune-ReviewCombat StressCNSNews.comHouston Chronicle -BBC News -American Thinkerall 15,368 news articles »

  • Nurses slam Labor over policy shift - Sydney Morning Herald

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:40 pm
    Nurses slam Labor over policy shiftSydney Morning HeraldNurses have accused the Rudd government of caving in to doctors' demands over a plan to give nurse practitioners and midwives greater power to prescribe Roxon on new nursing lawsSky News Australiaall 7 news articles »

  • LETTER: Take the time to do health reform right - Journal Gazette and Times-Courier

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:36 pm
    InjuryBoard.com (blog)LETTER: Take the time to do health reform rightJournal Gazette and Times-CourierIt should be many parts of the population who have had experience in health care, doctors, nurses, insurance companies, nursing homes and drug companies. Where the Jobs AreNew York TimesRevenue neutral health care doesn't existChicago TribuneThe Cost Issue in HealthcareCommonwealall 301 news articles »
 
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    NurseZone.com Nursing News

  • Headlines in Health – Just for Nurses

    Having a hard time staying up on the latest nursing news?  Whether it’s the newest H1N1 protocols, Joint Commission sentinel alerts, nursing initiatives or important career information, there is an easy way to get the news and features you need most.

  • The Best Places to Work in Health Care Revealed

    Nov. 6, 2009 - For the second year in a row, Modern Healthcare magazine has announced its rankings of the 100 “Best Places to Work in Healthcare.” The annual awards program, conducted in partnership with the Best Companies Group, recognizes workplaces that enable employees to perform at their optimum level to provide patients and customers with the best possible care and services.

  • Perks or Practice Environment? Shift Seen in What Nurses Value Most

    Nov. 6, 2009 - While pay and benefits remain important to nurses, they may not hold the sway they once had, with some employers finding nurses more interested in good places to practice, participation in decision making and opportunities for career growth.   

  • NJHA Launches Major Nursing Initiative

    Nov. 5, 2009 - With an ongoing nursing shortage, a major transformation in the nursing work environment is needed so that healthcare facilities can continue to provide safe, effective quality care to patients. To help address this issue, the New Jersey Hospital Association's Institute for Quality and Patient Safety, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has launched a major three-year initiative, Transforming Care at the Bedside, that will train and support nurses so they can spend more time with their patients while increasing job satisfaction.

  • HHS Secretary Sebelius Announces Senate Confirmation of Dr. Regina Benjamin as U.S. Surgeon General

    Nov. 2, 2009 - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the United States Senate unanimously confirmed Dr. Regina Benjamin as the nation’s Surgeon General.
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    Nursing / Midwifery News From Medical News Today

  • Collaborative Arrangements To Have Central Role In New Nurse Practitioner And Midwife Legislation, Australia

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    RACGP welcomes news that the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon MP, has support the introduction of collaborative arrangements between nurse practitioners, midwives and medical practitioners. The amendments proposed to the Midwives and Nurse Practitioners Bill 2009 incorporate a requirement that, in order to access the MBS and PBS schemes, nurse practitioners and midwives will need to enter into a collaborative arrangement with one or more medical practitioners.

  • RNs File Department Of Public Health Complaints Against UC Davis Medical Center

    6 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am
    Nurses Charge Public Endangered as Hospital Management Unlawfully Rations Nursing Care to Patients Registered Nurses at multiple units within the University of California Davis Hospital have filed a series of Department of Public Health charges against the facility, alerting the state to what risk of public endangerment.

  • NCEPOD Highlights Importance Of Training And Safe Staffing Levels - Royal College Of Nursing, UK

    6 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am
    Responding to today's publication of the National Confidential Enquiry Into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) study, Dr Peter Carter of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) stressed the importance of ensuring safe staffing levels and giving nurses the opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills, so they are able to provide quality end-of-life care.

  • NMC Launches First Annual Devolved Dialogue In Scotland

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    We launched our devolved dialogue programme in Scotland this week; members of the NMC will meet with Scottish politicians, public and patient groups, regional trade union representatives, nurse directors and other partners, to discuss the core priorities for nursing and midwifery regulation in Scotland, examining how these differ from the rest of the UK and how we can address them as a four-country regulator.

  • Nurses And Midwives To Receive Whistleblowing Guidance From Regulator, UK

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Nurses and midwives are to have guidance to help them raise and escalate concerns in a way that won't get them into trouble with their regulator. Since the summer we have been working with key professional and patient groups to develop information that will support nurses and midwives to raise and escalate concerns they may have that people could be at risk of harm.
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    ALLNURSES: Nursing Articles

  • Why am I doing this, anyway?

    TDFlMedicRN
    4 Nov 2009 | 9:43 pm
    “****, ****, ****, ****!” I had not realized up until that point that subvocalized cursing could be so loud, but even though the only sounds he could make were the "sh" and the "t", he was going to say it. He was young, he was angry – he was a brand new quad who had woken up to find himself paralyzed, trached, and in a strange hospital in a strange town. Worse yet, nobody was listening to him – and he did have something to say besides the continuous recitation of his favorite word. “Good luck, dude, you’re gonna love this one,” the…

  • Nurse Heal Thyself

    Lindsey McGraw
    1 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am
    “Nurse Heal Thyself” by: Lindsey After I wrote the initial article about my decision to have reconstructive surgery 17 years after surviving breast cancer (“Quest for Girls” published on this site) the preliminary work was done. Now it was time to complete the final phase of my project to become whole again and receive my final implants. This experience proved to be much more enlightening than my past surgical experience of initial reconstruction, and I couldn’t imagine how it would change me both physically and emotionally. Arriving with full knowledge of what…

  • My Papa, why I am the nurse I am today.

    learning4life
    23 Oct 2009 | 5:38 pm
    My grandfather whom I have always called Papa was a loving, generous, happy, intelligent man. He got colon cancer. He fought with everything he had for two years then decided; but not before considering the thoughts of his wife; my grandma, only daughter; my mom, and his only granddaughter, me; his body had taken all the chemo it could and he was tiered. He said if we thought he should keep trying he would. We told him it was ok and if he was tired we would find the best place for him to rest. His journey began two years prior. He received the diagnosis of colon cancer and began chemotherapy.

  • I made it through

    tatara
    10 Oct 2009 | 5:14 pm
    One of my earliest memories as a child was my mother telling me that I was prettier than my sister because I had the sweetest of smiles. I believed I was really very charming and I could say that my personality was oozing with confidence back then, because I was the only one in my kindergarten class with white and intact set of milk teeth. As years went by, I slowly became the timid, introvert pupil in our school. I got so self-conscious while growing up because my perfect smile was replaced by large, corn kernel-looking discolored teeth! Ah, I thought, I had to do something to reverse…
 
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    brainscramble.org

  • Singing the “new nurse” blues

    Caroline
    26 Oct 2009 | 5:52 pm
    I (think I) write a lot about happy, touchy-feely, successful moments in the ICU. I do try to keep this blog mostly positive, because I generally hate, hate, HATE negativity. (Ha…?) I made the mistake of going to work with a bad cold, thinking I could tough out a 12-hour shift. :::laughs hysterically::: I was keeping my fingers crossed that the Nursing Gods would have mercy on my soul. Here I was taking one for the team, knowing that they were understaffed already due to previous sick calls. You heard it here first, folks: The ICU takes no prisoners! I had the busiest assignment…

  • Confidence boost!

    Caroline
    21 Oct 2009 | 6:31 pm
    I know there will soon come a day when I feel righteously incompetent. Hell, there’s a piece of me that feels that way every day at work, but I also feel like the last few nights brought me a new confidence. Brief recount: I was on orientation for 6 months, went on vacation for almost 3 weeks, and came back officially unleashed on night shift. I had been feel very ready. The first 4 nights were slow. I basically had one, floor-status patient. One night I had a guy on Q6 vitals who slept. That means that in 12 hours, I checked his vitals twice. TWICE. Okay, due to my own insecurity, I…

  • 6 months in!

    Caroline
    10 Oct 2009 | 1:35 pm
    I’ve been in Europe for 2 weeks. Just another bonus of being a nurse: paid vacation! (5 weeks of it, actually. Woot! Government perks.) We got home last night, and I had 15 hours of plane rides to do some thinking. I’m coming off orientation on Tuesday night. It’s a nice little “welcome home from Europe!” and “happy 27th birthday!” present. The reason I hadn’t been blogging prior to vacay was, well, honestly, I had started to feel a little stagnant and frustrated, and was trying to just “get through” the rest of my precepted work…

  • The right thing

    Caroline
    7 Sep 2009 | 5:23 pm
    I can’t write to much about the incident that has inspired this blog post. To briefly sum things up, I have managed to piss off a lot of people over a decision I made for a patient who was finally able to die on his own terms. Doing the right thing is rarely easy. The most important job we do is not chest compressions, ABG analysis, or vasoactive drip titration. (Admittedly, though, those are really important, too…) Nurses are patient advocates. End of story. It’s rare for me to encounter direct conflict at work. For the few years in between my first college degree and…

  • Time to get your winter scrubs!

    Caroline
    4 Sep 2009 | 2:26 pm
    Now that I’ve been a nurse for, I dunno, a few months give or take a few days, I admit that my scrubs are actually kind of wearing out. I only have a couple of pairs, and I try to rotate them equally, being the anal, obsessive-compulsive ICU nurse that I am. Some of them get blood on them and have to be completely pitched. Some have bleach wipe stains from whatever c-diff positive patient I took care of that day. Some are pilling with multiple washes. And don’t even get me started on my scrub pants. It’s a constant battle. Enter scrubsgallery.com. They really have evolved…
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    impactednurse

  • the politics of healthcare.

    impactEDnurse
    4 Nov 2009 | 12:54 pm

  • Encompassing Care Delivery.

    impactEDnurse
    30 Oct 2009 | 10:03 pm
    You hear a lot these days about ‘patient centered care’ as the health system (on paper at least) moves away from the old disease-centered model that would base treatment decisions largely on the physician or nurses previous clinical experience in response to objective data from various tests and assessments. The patients role would be passive. The diagnoses of their illness or disease would be ‘extracted’ from them and then the treatment would be imposed upon them. With the newer model of patient centred care, the patient is empowered to participate much more collaboratively in their…

  • mind games.

    impactEDnurse
    26 Oct 2009 | 5:05 pm
    :: You don’t have to believe everything you think :: I was awoken sometime shortly after 3 am by a noise just outside the bedroom window. Swiped away from counting M&M’s with Johnny Depp in the map room of a Spanish galleon just off the coast of Havana, it took me a few moments to orient myself to what was going on. Dink-a dink-a dink-a dink-a dink-a dink-a….. Then silence except for the sound of a distant dog bark. Just as I was about to drift off to sleep again. Dink-a dink-a dink-a dink-a dink-a dink-a….. What was that? On the boundary of our back garden, just behind our…

  • Lost on Rocky Mountain.

    impactEDnurse
    16 Oct 2009 | 12:03 am
    That’s the thing about hills… you can go up, you can go down. Two directions. 
How hard could it be to get lost? “Um, Kelly……do you think we’re lost?” It was nearly nine-thirty by the time we pulled into the small car park at the trail head. Still in shadow, the parking area was cold and wet underfoot, despite a day stirring to blue sky promise. From the very first muddy scuffle, the track rose steeply without so much as a warmup. The guidebook advised us: Rocky Hill Summit Circuit return – 7 km. Please note that sections of this track are steep and slippery. At…

  • Adventure dehisce.

    impactEDnurse
    26 Sep 2009 | 9:08 pm
    I will shortly be heading off on an adventure in New Zealand for a few weeks to re-fibrillate the old batteries. Probably wont be posting too much during this time (after all…adventures are for letting all this sort of stuff drop away, no?) But I do hope to post the occasional log of our trip which you will be able to read here: Not Just a Nurse. And I have a favor to ask…..whilst I’m gone, would someone mind watering my blog from time to time? Take some time to think of the funniest medical related story you can remember and drop it in the comments of this post. Maybe it is…
 
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    code blog - tales of a nurse

  • Change of Shift & The Doctor Anonymous Show

    First of all, hightail it over to Reality Rounds for the latest edition of Change of Shift!  She did a splendid job of making it very spooky by renaming our blogs.  (I am Corpseblog!) And tune in tonight at 6pm PST to the Dr. Anonymous show, where he will be interviewing me.  Talk about scary :-)  I am excited to finally be asked (I've waited years!) but also nervous because I am not exactly well-practiced in live interviews!

  • Grand Rounds Volume 6, Number 6

    Welcome to Grand Rounds!  This is volume 6, number 6.... and the 6th time I am hosting... during the week of Halloween.  Does anyone else find that creepy coincidentally satanic fascinating?! (Incidentally, if you are reading this through RSS, I am aware that the formatting is less than optimal.  Very sorry about that and we are trying to fix it!) For this edition, I thought we could go out Trick or Treating on Medblogger Lane.  I'm sure we will find some colorful stories along the way... The first house we come to seems amiable enough.  The porch light is on and when the door is…

  • Blog World Expo 2009

    Last week I attended the Blog World Expo conference in Las Vegas.  This is the first year that medbloggers had a track all to ourselves!  The sessions I attended were interesting, and as part of the audience I was delighted to watch my fellow medbloggers on the panels.  There were lots of thoughtful questions & answers, and many silly antics (how many times DID Doctor Rob get onto the big live Twitter feed anyway?? blogworld blogworld blogworld!) Unfortunately, due to a splitting headache, I was not able to attend the last session, but I had plenty of chances to meet and spend some time…

  • Grand Rounds

    Grand Rounds is up at Sharp Brains today! Next week, Grand Rounds will be held here at codeblog for the 6th time (Yes, GruntDoc, I counted!)  Use the submit your story/contact form at the top of the page, or email to codeblogrn gmail.  There is no theme, but it will be very close to Halloween, so if you want to submit something super-scary, I'm all for it!

  • Choose Wisely

    He knew she was angry with him. "Whenever I come to see her, I reach out and take her hand, but she looks away." Husband and wife for well over 50 years, they had been through a lot.  They met in another country in another time, and to hear him tell it, it almost seemed fated that they'd end up together.  Since then, they'd moved many times, raised a family, supported each other through myriad illnesses.  They were growing old together. Unfortunately, "growing old together" doesn't always work out like we hope it will.  Diseases and illnesses ravage our bodies; dementia ravages our…
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    Crass-Pollination: An ER blog

  • Stickers for kidz: Not in Happy's world

    Nurse K
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:58 pm
    Hi, I'm Happy Hospitalist, and I'm opposed to stickers for sick children:I'm not sure putting a happy robot on a sticker and proclaiming ones [sic] exciting visit to the emergency [room or department depending on if you're me or Whitecoat] is the best public health policy. Perhaps we need to take a different course of action before another entire generation of citizens feel obliged to use the

  • How many doods was that?

    Nurse K
    4 Nov 2009 | 3:03 am
    A small group of partyeurs straight from the underbelly of a downtown night club show up all looking pretty fucked-up with chief complaints of status-post asswhoopin'. Two were looking really fucked up, drunk, and angry and the other two were slightly fucked up, drunk, and angry. So what happened?Me and my homeboys were just trying to have a good time, minding our own business (yuh-huh, heard

  • Look, get off your ass and put on a mask or something

    Nurse K
    3 Nov 2009 | 7:09 am
    Happy, as we all know, has some sort of OCD variant when it comes to diet, exercise, and non-smoking. He rode his white stallion of perfection into the Land of Crayzee again with his insistence that--get this shit--nurses and doctors should be able to refuse to care for patients who have the smell of smoke ("third-hand smoke") on their clothes/hair/skin, etc.Do nurses have a right to refuse to

  • Hypotensive patient ambulance report

    Nurse K
    3 Nov 2009 | 2:05 am
    Me: Yo, CrayzeeCentral ER, Nurse K speaking or whatever, go ahead...Medic: Hi, CrayzeeCentral, we're bringing you an elderly dood from the nursing home with a recent admission at your facility for urosepsis and pneumonia...His blood pressure has been like 65/30ish all day at the nursing home, but apparently the "action zone" there is like 42/25 because that's when they decided to call us.

  • Personal patient scribes and associated Hell

    Nurse K
    2 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pm
    So anyway, I was all up in this chick's room trying to do my shit when the scribe came in. Oh Hell no, this patient has a personal scribe. Here we fucking go.No, by scribe, I don't mean the pretty little pre-med student that follows the ER doc around and basically takes dictation from him all day so he doesn't have to be bothered with charting, I mean the patient's cousin or whoever who loves to
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    crzegrl, flight nurse

  • Grand Rounds & Change of Shift Host—Yes Both!

    Emily
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:07 pm
    He all, I am indeed hosting Grand Rounds on 10 November and Change of Shift of 12 November! So please, get me your submissions ASAP….and help a girl out? Please put the corresponding Carnival in the subject line! Submit to me— emily at crzegrl dot net Will let you know deadlines soon!

  • Grand Rounds & Change of Shift Host—Yes Both!

    Emily
    6 Nov 2009 | 8:07 pm
    He all, I am indeed hosting Grand Rounds on 10 November and Change of Shift of 12 November! So please, get me your submissions ASAP….and help a girl out? Please put the corresponding Carnival in the subject line! Submit to me— emily at crzegrl dot net Will let you know deadlines soon!

  • I am sick of pink

    Emily
    30 Oct 2009 | 5:41 pm
    I am sick of pink. Pink runs, pink toothpaste packages, pink yogurt. I am sick of pink articles, pink signs, pink nail polish. Every time I see pink it reminds me that my mom has cancer. It reminds me that the first time an “expert” saw her breast mass two years ago they said it was nothing. You bastard. You fucker. You may have taken my mother away from me. If you would have done your job she may not be going through chemo. She may have had no lymph node involvement. 22 TWENTY-TWO LYMPH NODES EVERY FUCKING ONE You should wake up for the rest of your life and explain to her…

  • Becoming a Flight Nurse Update

    Emily
    30 Oct 2009 | 11:07 am
    Many, MANY of you have sent me emails and posted comments asking for more information about becoming a flight nurse. I have read every single one of them, and have realized how important it is for me to finish my “Becoming a Flight Nurse” venture.  Your questions are adding a new level of depth to the content, so please keep asking!  I promise it will not be for naught. As I keep plugging away at that part of my blog, and resume a more regular blogging schedule, (if ever I had one), please be patient as I work to respond. If you are interested in getting email updates from me…

  • Her Words

    Emily
    30 Oct 2009 | 8:07 am
    Her footsteps echo rhythmically, the first two hesitant, the rest intentionally systematic so as to not seem rushed.  The lights glaring should be the source of her perspiration, but the cold air vent blowing from the ceiling chill her bare arms against the nerves causing her sweat soaked blouse. Although she braces herself for the echo, her voice startles her as she speaks into the microphone.  She was told they were waiting patiently for her, but she was unsure. She hoped there was at least one left to hear her words.
 
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    Digital Doorway

  • Chemicals are Everywhere

    Keith, RN
    3 Nov 2009 | 6:32 am
    How does one stay healthy while living in a world saturated with chemicals, especially when one is chemically sensitive? People walk around bathed in clouds of laundry detergent and dryer sheets, and the canaries among us---myself included---suffer the consequences.Perfumes, scented candles, deodorants, laundry products, household cleaning products, the list goes on and on.My wife and I are working hard to heal ourselves from chemical sensitivity, but when one of the best ways to heal is avoidance of the offending substances, we are challenged to find a way to truly save ourselves from the…

  • The Peripatetic Nurse is on the Road

    Keith, RN
    1 Nov 2009 | 2:24 pm
    Dear Readers,My wife and I are now on the road, making our way down the East Coast towards the warmer weather. Our travel blog, Mary's and Keith's Excellent Adventure, is becoming increasingly robust with photos, videos and tales from the road.Our new lifestyle poses many exciting challenges and novel experiences, one of which is health care. While we still have health insurance from my old job until November 30th, the next step will be securing (at least) minimal catastrophic coverage from that date forward, and then making sure we take very good care of ourselves while we travel. Good…

  • A Hallowe'en Change of Shift

    Keith, RN
    30 Oct 2009 | 7:59 pm
    A thrilling edition of Change of Shift is up at Reality Rounds.....Enter if you dare.....

  • Our Imprisoned Splendor

    Keith, RN
    24 Oct 2009 | 5:51 pm
    The following quote by Sogyal Rinpoche truly speaks to me right now:"The quality of life in the realm of the gods may look superior to our own, yet the masters tell us that human life is infinitely more valuable. Why? Because of the very fact that we have the awareness and intelligence that are the raw materials for enlightenment, and because the very suffering that pervades this human realm is itself the spur to spiritual transformation."Pain, grief, loss, and ceaseless frustration of every kind are there for a very real and dramatic purpose: to wake us up, to enable, almost to force us to…

  • Saying "Adios" to My Hispanic Mother

    Keith, RN
    21 Oct 2009 | 9:06 pm
    Yesterday, I visited an elderly woman for whom I served as visiting nurse about a decade ago, and with whom I have maintained a sweet connection for years. We have kept in touch throughout the years, and although I no longer work in the city where she lives (about 45 minutes south), we talk periodically and I visit when I can. I had already explained to her that my wife and I have sold our house and are going traveling for the foreseeable future, and the need for a last visit was too strong to ignore or postpone until it was too late. A Puerto Rican woman about the same age as my mother, she…
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    Emergiblog

  • The Need for Help Hits Close to Home

    Kim
    3 Nov 2009 | 3:53 pm
    Sam Nouv runs a little donut shop about a mile from my house. When John was in the hospital, that’s where I bought the donuts for the nurses. After immigrating to the U.S. from Cambodia in 1987, Sam started working at the shop and by 1990 he owned it (Update via Steve in comments: When he was 13, his parents were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. He spent several years in a displacement camp in Vietnam before finally being sent to the States as part of an entire plane load of orphans). With the exception of a few holidays, Sam is in the store every morning at 3:30 am and works until 6:00 pm.

  • It’s Not WHAT You Say…

    Kim
    29 Oct 2009 | 10:31 am
    A ghoulish horror awaits you at Change of Shift, as Reality Rounds goes to the dark side. I almost expect the zombies from “Thriller” to come dancing out of my den! (shudder) Read at your own risk! Want to host? Contact me. I should come out of hiding in a few hours! A terrible injustice is being perpetrated against a very dear friend. Zippy is being held hostage. Dr. Rob told me about this at Blog World Expo. We know where he is. He’s been forced into areas of high radiation and indoctrinated with huge radiology books that would numb the mind of Einstein. He was forced to…

  • Post Blog World Post

    Kim
    20 Oct 2009 | 5:19 pm
    Oh geeze – these parents are actually arguing about which laxative to give their kid! “The modern way to bring up their baby.” Baby? That kid is four-years-old if he’s a day. And the trauma! Dad wants to give the kid his laxative. Mom says “No! It’s too harsh!” Good grief. Of course, in 40 years, the kid will have to deal with his parents being constipated. The circle of life… Then again, Castoria did taste better than Milk of Magnesia. Or so I have heard… Re-entry into the real world after four days in Vegas has taken a bit of time. Got…

  • BlogWorld/New Media Expo – The Exhibited, The Uninhibited!

    Kim
    17 Oct 2009 | 12:52 am
    First day of the general BlogWorld sessions and as usual, I came away with renewed energy, a plethora of ideas and a dramatically decreased bank account! No, not on gambling – I hit the Barnes & Noble on-site kiosk. God, I love books! But the highlight of the day? I met my Blogfather! Meet Hugh Hewitt, talk show host extraordinaire! I think if you did a “paternity” test on every blog online today,  75% of them would be related, in some way, to Hugh’s influence. Blog World CEO Rick Calvert was interviewed by Hugh, and he mentioned the medblogger track! This banner…

  • One For the Medblogger History Books

    Kim
    15 Oct 2009 | 10:58 pm
    The first medblogger track at BlogWorld/New Media Expo is now history. And it went beautifully! The panels were informative, the audience engaged and we even got Paul Levy in via telephone hook up through a device that looked like a giant Star Trek communicator! A most interesting day! The first surprise was seeing Ramona’s “Blogger Quilt”! She made it for the conference to be given to one of the medblogger attendees via drawing. It is beautiful! And even better, on each of the white diagonal lines is the signature of one of the medbloggers. So, the drawing was held before…
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    Head Nurse

  • Please, I'm begging you:

    Jo
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:40 pm
    If there's anybody out there who reads/speaks German fluently, or who can read/speak technical German, could you contact me at the link to the right, under "Speak"? Years ago I posted about a Mercedes Selekta typewriter I'd found, and about how I couldn't translate the manual. It turns out that there's a very pleasant person out in the ether with the same trouble, and more than that, his machine is broken. The manual is in the most dense, multisyllabic German I have ever seen, so I can't be of any help to him. I'm hoping we could at least get some of the manual translated, so his machine will…

  • Fort Hood, Texas, 11/5/09.

    Jo
    5 Nov 2009 | 5:24 pm

  • Product Review: Things That Have Stood The Test Of Time Edition!

    Jo
    5 Nov 2009 | 3:27 pm
    Faithful Minions will recall that I occasionally do product reviews here. They can range from the medical to the girly, with large doses of general-life stuff thrown in.Herein are my reviews of things which have stood the test of time. Be amazed.1. Neuton Electric Lawn MowerI bought this a year ago and have used it on long grass, short grass, wet grass, dry grass, in a boat, with a goat...oop, sorry. I've used it in every condition imaginable in Central Texas, which involve bushwhacking and muddy ground and very grouchy toads.Provided I don't try to mow very wet, very high grass in very humid…

  • Bonus Lazy Wednesday Post: Apple Crisp Thingy!

    Jo
    4 Nov 2009 | 10:52 am
    Preheat your oven to 350* or thereabouts. Ten degrees either way won't matter.Peel, if you feel like it, and core two apples (if they're big) or three (if they're small). I use a mixture of 2/3 Honeycrisp to 1/3 Granny Smith, if you're being particular.Slice them thickly or chop them into chunks, whichever takes less energy.Open a bottle of wine or beer. Take a swig.Set the chopped apples aside in a pie pan.Take a big bowl, or maybe just a big-ish bowl, out of the cabinet, or you can use a roasting pan, or whatever. No biggie.Mix roughly a cup of rolled oats (not steel cut or instant) with a…

  • Lazy Wednesday Link Round-Up

    Jo
    4 Nov 2009 | 8:57 am
    First, Nurse K is back! Not that I knew that she ever went away in the first place; somehow, I either totally missed or forgot about her blog. Either way, I'm pleased to be reading it/reading it again.Another blog I've just run across is Made A Difference For That One. Check it out: he's a surgeon in Iraq, with fascinating stories.There's currently a frenzy over The Joint Commission and Press-Ganey at Sunnydale, and it's raising my blood pressure. MDOD has a nice, nice takedown of the whole PG system; be sure to read the latest comments.Check out another doc blog, Ten Out of Ten (another one…
 
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    It shouldn't happen in health care

  • It is better to give than to receive!

    Max E Nurse
    5 Nov 2009 | 4:34 am
    I consider myself spiritual, but not particularly religious… Lets leave it at that… but today I shall start by quoting the bible…. Here goes…. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Acts 20:35 Wow!!! I feel better for that! Anyhoooo, where am I going with this.  I’m definitely a “giver” at work. I give to my patients my time, my experience and expertise, handsome good looks and a listening ear…as…

  • It’s finally happened.

    Max E Nurse
    22 Oct 2009 | 4:15 am
    Well it finally seems to have happen..I think! (hmmm, I’ll rephrase that before someone makes a smart arse comment about me finally thinking…) Well I think it has finally happened! No not that! When I first started out in General Practice, I felt a little intimidated and a lot impressed when I went to the Doctors and asked advice on a particular patients care and, on just hearing the name, they would rattle off about that particular patient as if they had memorized their notes.  I mentioned this to one of them, and they said… “You’ll be the same in a few…

  • You called your Nurse Practitioner what?

    Max E Nurse
    16 Oct 2009 | 4:14 am
    Some while ago, I wrote a post called “You called your baby what???”  Well I thought perhaps I should turn it on its head and tell you what I get called from time to time, this post amazingly doesn’t include swear words!  Yes, amazingly I have been called some unpleasant things in my career. I decided to write this post after a week in which I have seen 3 of my regular patients and have been called several things, most of them quite sweet. As a Nurse Practitioner I have a few problems with people calling me “Doctor”.  I’m a man, I wear a tie, and I run a…

  • Blog fog and 9 legged spider???

    Max E Nurse
    2 Oct 2009 | 4:33 am
    Arrg…it’s happened again. So busy the week has disappeared and my blog has remained unposted…. Kim can relate…in fact read her post… One thing did get my attention this week….Yes I was fasinated by a story about combatting erectile dysfunction. Apparently the venom from a poisonous spider can help as a remedy for erectile dysfunction.  Seems quite obvious really, any insect bite can cause redness, heat and swelling….well what more do you need to combat ED (That’s Erectile Dysfunction not Emergency department…..nobody knows the cure for…

  • Heroin for free decreases crime!

    Max E Nurse
    24 Sep 2009 | 5:00 am
    So over my few weeks off I hear a story on the news, that makes me stop and scratch my head a little… (and no I didn’t get splinters). Now perhaps I’m missing the point, perhaps I’m being controversial and am going to get slated for the following post, but it seems to me I am not the one missing the point, and from what I hear and read about the subject the more I seem to be the only one who thinks it’s laughable.   Anyhow, lets look at the story…. The BBC website entitled their article : Heroin supply clinic cuts crime No! Not crimes against heroines!
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    Life in the NHS

  • Interlude

    Julie
    18 Oct 2009 | 11:54 pm
    Apologies for my absense. Several times over the last few weeks I have thought of a blog post that I might want to write and post, but something (not entirely sure what) has stopped me. The question is – am I just lazy? Is it just that the obsession to score over 100,000 on bejewled blitz on facebook was too great? Or am I just an ordinary person who from time to times loves blogging then needs an interlude of several weeks for a break from it all? This month has been a big one for our small family. My teenage son, Matt has gone off to University and I have discovered just what empty…

  • Transitioning into nursing from different careers – A Guest Post by Richard Hemby

    Julie
    2 Sep 2009 | 11:39 am
    As a UK nurse who has moved into a managerial career in the NHS, I was intrigued to receive a request for a guest post by Richard Hemby. Ok so he is keen to advertise the work he does for an online resourse for US college qualifications. The sentiments and much of the information given here by Richard are also true in the UK and for that reason I am publishing a guest post written by him here: The demand for many types of professional skills is diminishing.  Companies all across the country are being forced to downsize, due to economic constraints.  Many of those faced with unemployment are…

  • Living in the past

    Julie
    27 Aug 2009 | 12:45 pm
    Today we have been informed by the Patient Association that a small but significant minority of nurses are cruel and uncaring. We have been told that some nurses in the NHS hold (often elderly) patients in contempt, that they fail to deliver even basic nursing care to them. Sadly, I am not surprised by this. Today also we are told that school students have achieved the best ever levels of GCSE results and that rather than being better educated and better prepared for modern life they are in some way lacking from the necessary skills for life. On the basis of my knowledge of these two issues,…

  • British Justice

    Julie
    23 Aug 2009 | 1:33 am
    Over the years there have been many miscarriages of justice. I guess that because we don’t execute people then it is always possible to release a person who has been wrongly convicted. Recently the body of a young woman killed in 1979 was exhumed after the convicted killer was released when DNA evidence not available at the time showed he wasn’t the killer. 27 years in prison for something you didn’t do is a long time, and Simon Hodgson is not alone in serving years in prison in this way. The Charles Smith blog gives a whole list of British Miscarriages of justice, and…

  • Managing upwards

    Julie
    22 Aug 2009 | 1:18 am
    Having no team to manage is often a blessing. I have to admit that I have had very few people reporting to me who have been troublesome, and the stories I hear from colleagues about the workshy, the incompetent, the people discovered working while off sick and so on are just that. I have had a few difficult staff; one who tended to cry during our one to ones without good reason, one who appeared to do little work and hated to be challenged about why this was the case and another when I was a district nurse who couldn’t understand why 4 inch heels might not have been a good idea. Dealing…
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    Not Nurse Ratched

  • Thoughts on the changing landscapes of social media

    notratched
    3 Nov 2009 | 11:55 am
    I woke up to this status update on Facebook this morning, and it pissed me off (“yay! I’m raising my kid to kill an animal for fun, and I think it’s just fine that the animal may be out there wounded and terrified and alone!”). Which made me unable to go back to sleep. Which made me wonder why I have this person on my friends list to begin with. Which, since I was awake and mad, made me contemplate the changing landscape of social media in terms of where my interests and loyalties lie. I used to reserve Facebook strictly for people I knew personally in real life. The…

  • For us nightshifters: drowsy driving prevention week

    notratched
    2 Nov 2009 | 3:40 pm
    Drowsy Driving Prevention Week: Nov. 2-8 November 2, 2009 by Marijke Durning, RN   Filed under National _____ Month/Week/Day Leave a Comment Can drowsy driving be equated to drunk driving? If you look at the statistics of crashes and deaths caused by sleepy drivers and compare them with those of drunk drivers, it won’t take you long to see the similarity. The National Sleep Foundation notes that a study in Australia compared various levels of sleepiness with blood alcohol levels and what they found may be surprising. Being awake for: 18 hours equaled a blood alcohol level of 0.05 24…

  • Swine flu: updates on vaccine thoughts

    notratched
    24 Oct 2009 | 6:25 pm
    I’ve changed my mind about the swine flu vaccine (let’s give up on calling it H1N1…it’s not catching on), but it’s pointless for me anyway because I’ve actually had the swine flu. Not the best way to develop antibodies, but I don’t seem to be about to die, so I guess it’s worked out. This flu for me hasn’t been anything to mess around with. The media says either it’s milder than the regular flu or everyone is dying like flies, and at work I see people who are mainly not very sick but are afraid they will GET very sick, so I…

  • Social media policies in health care: are they going too far?

    notratched
    12 Oct 2009 | 8:35 am
    My workplace, like many others, has put us on notice that they’re developing an official social media policy. In the meantime they spoke sharply about stuff we should avoid posting about (room numbers, diagnoses, and obvious stuff like that). I wish this weren’t necessary and that healthcare professionals would not need to be told this sort of thing, but, fortuitously, the day before the notice I had e-mailed a friend on Facebook and encouraged her to knock off some of the stuff she was posting (no, it wasn’t me who ratted people out!). But I guess it is necessary, and I…

  • I knew my skepticism was well founded about this flu shot business

    notratched
    8 Oct 2009 | 2:36 pm
    Distributed for peer review last week, the study confounded infectious-disease experts in suggesting that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch swine flu. via theglobeandmail.com Yes, it’s anecdotal, but I’ve been sick ever since I got my flu shot and have had a bad feeling about all these quickly approved vaccines. Unpatriotic or no, I am VERY DUBIOUS about both flu vaccines this year. From @not_ratched
 
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    The Nurse Practitioner's Place

  • Sick of Pink By Crzegrl

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    31 Oct 2009 | 5:46 pm
    I am sick of pink. Pink runs, pink toothpaste packages, pink yogurt. I am sick of pink articles, pink signs, pink nail polish. Every time I see pink it reminds me that my mom has cancer. It reminds me that the first time an “expert” saw her breast mass two years ago they said it was nothing. You bastard. You fucker. You may have taken my mother away from me. If you would have done your job she may not be going through chemo. She may have had no lymph node involvement. 22 TWENTY-TWO LYMPH NODES EVERY FUCKING ONE You should wake up for the rest of your life and explain to her grandchildren…

  • Nurse Practitioner Has A Brand New Grandson!

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    15 Oct 2009 | 2:53 pm
    We are in St. Petersburg enjoying the arrival of our second grandson. His name is Edward Clayton Cunningham and is just as cute as I knew he would be. It was nice that his Auntie Ciara was able to come down to see him too. I can't believe that my first grandson William is already almost a year and a half. How time flies.On the first smilebox, click on the button on the lower right side to turn the pages. On the bottom one, click on each pic to make them pull into the larger middle box. Enjoy!Make a Smilebox scrapbookMake a Smilebox postcard

  • A Nurse Practitioner Interview From Me For A Nursing Student

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    3 Oct 2009 | 7:59 pm
    The following was an email that I received from a nursing student and I thought that it would make a great post. Hi there.. I am a nursing student and have to write a paper about advanced practice nursing including speaking to an advanced practice nurse. While researching, I actually ran into your blog a few times and enjoyed reading through your posts, so I figured I would just ask you a few questions, that is, if you don't mind of course. brief answers are sufficient - I know you're a busy woman! and I don't need to take up much of your time =) I see from your blogs that you are an FNP in…

  • The Flu Is Here

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    2 Oct 2009 | 7:45 pm
    God, I'm tired. The flu has arrived during the last two weeks and several of my patients are sick. I started swabbing for the flu and am getting several negatives for either A or B. I am calling it the mystery flu. It has the exact same symptoms of both variants but is not testing positive on either test strip. Anyone else seeing this in their offices?Symptoms reported so far:First noticed is a scratchy, sore throatStuffy head with severe headacheFever (variable level from low grade to almost 104)Body aches (pretty severe)Some are reporting nausea with or without diarrheaThese symptoms pretty…

  • Change of Shift is Up!

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    18 Sep 2009 | 8:47 pm
    Change of Shift is up! Go over and enjoy it!
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    Nurse Ratched's Place

  • The Fort Hood Shooter: Working with a Killer

    Mother Jones, RN
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:33 pm
    My iPhone started ringing just as my nursing colleagues and I were getting ready to report off to the next shift at Undisclosed Government Hospital. The frantic caller was one of our nurses. She cried, “Are you on lockdown? Don’t leave the unit!” I signaled everyone in the room to cut the chatter. Then we heard the patients in the television room gearing up. I’m not going to replay everything that happened last night. I can’t do it. Suffice to say that things got tense at the nurses station when the name of the Fort Hood triggerman was released. We knew him. He was a former…

  • Google Robbed My Piggy Bank

    Mother Jones, RN
    3 Nov 2009 | 1:36 pm
    It all started so innocently. A couple of years ago I signed up for Google AdSense. It looked like a fair deal. I was working with a legitimate company—not a fly by night operation—so I figured that I didn’t have anything to lose. I won’t say that the money started rolling in. It didn’t. The checks were barely worth the postage, so I asked Google to hold onto my meager earnings and I started a Google savings account. It was my piggy bank. I was keeping that money there for a rainy day. Many months passed. Then one day I really needed the cash. I’ll spare you the details, but I…

  • RN Chat

    Mother Jones, RN
    30 Oct 2009 | 5:26 pm
    Meet Phil Baumann. He’s holding nursing chats on Twitter. I like this guy. He’s smart. I encourage you to join in the conversation. Sorry I won’t be at the next chat, Phil. I’ll be at work. Maybe next time, but until then, keep chatting. RN Chat – Nurse Ratched's Place

  • To Serve and Protect–or Not

    Mother Jones, RN
    30 Oct 2009 | 5:56 am
    We’d all be in trouble if law enforcement was doled out by insurance companies. To Serve and Protect–or Not – Nurse Ratched's Place

  • And the Envelope Please…..

    Mother Jones, RN
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:41 pm
    This nurse is smiling because today is a special day. Change of Shift is up over at Reality Rounds, and it’s time to announce the winner of the You’ve Come a Long Way Baby Uniform Contest, sponsored by ScrubsGallery.com. I want to thank everyone for the entries. You guys rock! There is so much writing talent out there. Seriously. Why aren’t all of you blogging? 1st Prize goes to a Canadian nurse who goes by the pseudonym, Frosty Nurse. She doesn’t blog, so I’ve posted her entry on my site. Frosty Nurse is the winner of a $100 gift card from ScrubsGallery.com.
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    REBIRTH

  • From The Other Side

    Labor Nurse, CNM
    29 Oct 2009 | 10:02 am
    What I've been finding interesting now that I have been working a few months on the labor floor is the differences in nursing care. Now, having been that bedside labor nurse for many years, I clearly understand the value in a good nurse. I'd like to think I was good at bedside labor nursing care, but now I often wonder what the providers I worked with prior to becoming a midwife thought of my

  • Online Reviews

    Labor Nurse, CNM
    14 Oct 2009 | 11:50 am
    So have you seen the latest Angieslist.com commercial? I got a kick out of it, personally, but it got me thinking. Can we trust reviews of health care providers on websites? I know this question has come up plenty of times before on other sites and other forums, but...The commercial shows a couple in the hospital, the woman very pregnant. A female voice over narrates the scenes. It goes

  • All About Choice

    Labor Nurse, CNM
    11 Oct 2009 | 11:59 am
    This has been one of the best posts I've read in a while. Thank you, Heather.My postings has been sparse of recent as life has thrown me some major schedule curve balls...but I've been keeping up as best I can on all my fave blogs. I really enjoy all the thoughtful posts on birth and maternity care, but Heather really got me thinking.We are such frickin hypocrites, aren't we? I mean, we (I speak

  • Highly Delayed Rebirth Carnival 1.3

    Labor Nurse, CNM
    4 Oct 2009 | 10:44 am
    Well, folks, life has been crazy- good and bad- and had seriously delayed the carnival and my blogging capabilities.... but alas! Finally, here is the third edition of Rebirth Carnival, which focuses on first births.Many women find themselves drawn to midwifery and childbirth care because of their own personal experiences. Ciarin shares how her personal births led her to midwifery path.Molly

  • We Can Never Predict Timing

    Labor Nurse, CNM
    8 Sep 2009 | 4:04 pm
    ...in many areas in relation to childbirth....Or, in my case, totally overlook the fact that I was on call over the Labor Day weekend and couldn't put together the Rebirth Carnival.I will be putting it up later this week....
 
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    RehabRN

  • The three D's

    RehabNurse
    2 Nov 2009 | 6:57 pm
    Ah, things I do when I should be reading more of my homework...listening to three D's right about now...Dan FogelbergDenys Lable (and a couple of friends...)and last but not least,Declan MastersonA little pipe music never hurt anyone!Stay tuned...will be back!

  • Fall weekend

    RehabNurse
    31 Oct 2009 | 6:48 am
    It's so beautiful in our neck of the woods, even though the weather's been really weird for our part of the country. Most of our trees in the yard have turned red, yellow or orange. With all the wind, many of the leaves have fallen.Bubba's had fun at the many Halloween parties he's attended. One more tonight and we're done! At least I can say we got our money's worth from his costume, which he picked out himself. He's quite the shopper--it was also on sale.Dahey's driving again delivering goodies and swapping and trading hither and yon. Thankfully we have cellphones or I'd never know where he…

  • Run, jump, and play with scissors

    RehabNurse
    29 Oct 2009 | 6:46 pm
    That's been the story of my days, for weeks it seems.Running...I do that all day long. And with the remodel, they plan on making my trip longer. We will have the entire building for our unit, so it will be a very long walk. I suppose this means they'll get those tracking devices again soon, for our own safety, of course.Jumping...was what I did after I got all my notes written. If it wasn't someone coming in, it was someone going out to a test or procedure. One patient had a test and then was sent to acute to resolve an emergent issue. Yes, they do really happen that fast. Why no one noticed…

  • Thriller CoS is on the rise

    RehabNurse
    29 Oct 2009 | 4:56 pm
    Check out the latest Change of Shift over at Reality Rounds if you dare...and no, Michael Jackson won't be there...BWAHAHAHA!

  • Nuggets for October 21

    RehabNurse
    21 Oct 2009 | 5:12 pm
    Yes, it's that time again, folks, so here's a roundup of the latest and greatest goodies I've found in between reading for grad school (aka the secret escape plan at your very own desk) and stuff from my daily life on the floor.Medical goodiesIn nursing school, you learn about all the different lab values. Some, like the various cardiac enzymes, are taken a little more seriously than others. Some values can be off. This article at www.medscape.com called False Positive Cardiac Troponin Results described my day recently.Another interesting article, also on Medscape, discussed the Cutaneous…
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    Travel Nursing Blog

  • Here are four reasons you shou…

    Jeff
    6 Nov 2009 | 1:49 pm
    Here are four reasons you should consider travel nursing. What about you? Why are you a travel nurse? http://bit.ly/49cuVa Related posts:Top 10 Reasons to be a Travel Nurse I thought I’d try to do a Top 10 list... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

  • Travel Nursing Checklist Item #16: Accepting the travel nursing job

    Jeff
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:18 am
    At this stage in the travel nursing process you should hopefully be hearing one way or the other about the hospital’s decision to hire you. Sometimes the hiring manager will offer you on the job right on the phone, though that is rarer. Most often what will happen is that the hospital hiring or nurse manager will get back in touch with their contact at your travel nursing company who will let them know that they are interested in offering you the travel nursing job. When your recruiter calls you, you will want to take the chance to verify the information about the travel nursing job…

  • Working the morning shift on y…

    Jeff
    6 Nov 2009 | 6:47 am
    Working the morning shift on your travel nursing job? Here is some sleep advice so you can get up early and refreshed. http://bit.ly/10bduR Related posts:Working the night shift in nursing. Just think, when most of us go to bed at...The new Change of Shift (a nur… The new Change of Shift (a nursing blog carnival) is...A new change of shift is up. C… A new change of shift is up. Check it out.... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

  • Travel nursing lets you make n…

    Jeff
    5 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am
    Travel nursing lets you make new friends. And here are 8 people at a hospital you may want to include among yours. http://bit.ly/22sRl2 Related posts:Guest Author Series – How To Avoid Loneliness On The Road One of the hardest things about being married to a...The pros and cons of travel nursing If you are just starting your exploration into a travel...Rating a hospital with NurseRatings.org is so easy a crash test dummy could do it. I just ran across a site that if properly... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

  • Featured Travel Nursing PICU RN Job in California

    Jeff
    5 Nov 2009 | 5:22 am
    Hospital located in Southern California is looking for a PICU travel nurses to work in their 30 bed PICU unit. Travel Nurse is responsible for applying the nursing process in the care of patients ranging from neonates to adults. Plans and administers patient care according to patient needs, established standards of care, and PICU policies and procedures. Travel nurse will also be responsible for: assessing and caring for patients requiring continuous monitoring and invasive procedures. Assessing for appropriate development for age. Assessing the patient’s condition and nursing needs in…
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    Young and Restless Nurse

  • More reasons not to believe anti-vaccine groups

    Katie Bee RN
    23 Oct 2009 | 7:34 am
    A new study finds that the level of mercury (you know, the dangerous methyl-mercury that is in jet/aircraft exhaust, fish, fumes from coal-burning power plants, and not the non-existent mercury in childhood vaccines) is no different in non-autistic children than autistic children. Seems to make sense, and further confirm the fact that the (now non-existent) preservative thimerosal in childhood vaccines cannot cause "autism", which is an extremely complex spectrum of diseases that ranges from mild learning disabilities to seizure disorders to extreme mental retardation. Autism spectrum…

  • More on H1N1 Vaccine - It's a good thing for all

    Katie Bee RN
    16 Oct 2009 | 6:49 am
    I don' think I could have summarized the arguments against the H1N1 vaccine than in this post on Science Based Medicine. Dr. Novella's debunking of the silly and false statements of natural medicine proponents against vaccines is a little more abrasive and in-your-face than I prefer, but it's a good summation with all the concrete evidence to refute these "reasons" to not be vaccinated.I am still stunned, almost appalled, at nurses telling people that vaccines are dangerous, and that they are not going to receive the H1N1 vaccine because it jeopardizes THEIR health, and they shouldn't be…

  • Get the H1N1 vaccine

    Katie Bee RN
    1 Oct 2009 | 7:11 am
    We are in a pandemic, that is killing people. Mostly small children and pregnant women. We have a safe and effective vaccine to prevent death. Get it when you can.Here are some of my favorite excuses for not getting vaccinated:1) The "swine flu" isn't serious.I would like to begin by having people define "serious". Personally, I find an illness that literally incapacitates you for 5-7 days and fills your waking moments with aches, pain, fever, and generally misery "serious". In other words, I would not want it, nor would I want my child to have it.2) The vaccine was "fast-tracked", is too new…

  • Why blogs cannot replace respectable, ethical journalism

    Katie Bee RN
    29 Sep 2009 | 7:12 am
    I am a former journalist, and have a degree in this wide-ranging category of professional reporting and writing. I decided not to enter the journalism field, as I wanted more human connectedness in my career. I have since found that I can do an adequate blend doing both nursing and journalism, and I am continually surprised (pleasantly) at the similarities between the two professions and the way I can meld them into something really fun and challenging.Anyway, as a former journalism prototype, I have been alarmed by the growing field of rogue journalism that is blogging. Now, granted, large,…

  • Health System Reform - Don't kick the can

    Katie Bee RN
    25 Aug 2009 | 6:49 am
    Last night, I was at the library (you know, those horrible government funded/run competition that keep the book stores out of business), where a lot of people seem to come just to use the free internet. But as I was glancing at what people were doing, I saw a man, probably in his 30s-40s, doing an internet search for "health care unemployed". I just wanted to cry right there. Lost in all this political screaming match is the attempt to do something good for people - to ensure that they can still get health care if they lose their jobs. People screaming that those without health insurance…
 
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    phil baumann online

  • Zen and the Art of the Tweet

    Phil Baumann
    6 Nov 2009 | 12:31 pm
    I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of our collective mindfulness lately. Every month, millions of more people are increasing their connectivity to the Web. Facebook’s gravity keeps swelling. Twitter continues to flap upwards in users. Mobile devices and operating systems continue to evolve and proliferate. It seems every week a new feature or service or gadget makes a debut. The Web is not only expanding like a universe but it’s also infiltrating every nook of our daily lives. And it’s expanding and infiltrating at an accelerating pace. What effect is all this…

  • Healthcare’s Google-Facebook-Twitter Platform

    Phil Baumann
    4 Nov 2009 | 5:32 pm
    Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr Can’t we just have one place on the web where all of us around the world can congregate to acquire reliable health care content, connect patients with each other, have conversations, trade experiences and otherwise partake in the vastness of health care? That certainly is a dream – an idea which many patients and families and professionals ponder. After all, Google, Facebook and Twitter respectively demonstrate the power of Search, Social Media and Real-time Connection to accomplish a whole host of objectives. What if we had a health care…

  • Twitter Lists Are Here to Stay – Deal With It

    Phil Baumann
    1 Nov 2009 | 7:19 am
    Image by Mykl Roventine via Flickr Twitter Lists! Twitter Lists! Twitter Lists! It’s all we hear about on Twitter and blogs about Twitter and tweets about the blogs about Twitter Lists. It’s nuts. Yes, I’ve been playing around with the new shiny feature too. Why not? I’m nuts myself about Twitter but I have my own reasons for that. So what’s the big fuss? Robert Scoble loves ‘em. Chris Brogan…not so much. (I’m largely with Scoble, but I understand where Brogan’s coming from.) There are different ways to view Twitter Lists: They’re…

  • A Clinical Infusion of Google Wave

    Phil Baumann
    12 Oct 2009 | 7:42 pm
    Getting beyond the hype and anti-hype over Google Wave, I’ve been exploring and experimenting with the collaboration platform since my invitation. While learning the new features and interacting with others on the service, I’m gaining some appreciation for the underlying technology Google claims will revolutionize how we communicate and collaborate. I plan on a few more detailed posts and screencasts demonstrating Wave’s features, but here are some general ideas (at this point I’m running on science fiction) about how Wave (or its future analogues) could be used in a…

  • Healthcare on Google Wave

    Phil Baumann
    10 Oct 2009 | 12:31 pm
    Google Wave is one of the latest products to be rolling out of the never-ending stream of real-time social media technologies. I’ve been experimenting with Wave for a little over a week and still have much to learn. Wave may be an impressive collaboration platform for small groups but it is not a terribly great public social medium – at least not just in its present form. If developers can build filtering and other utilities on top of Wave’s API, then the protocol may eventually empower new kinds of social media. Here’s a little test I’m conducting. Below is list…
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    Lost on the Floor

  • What’s Your Pain?

    Wanderer
    1 Nov 2009 | 6:49 pm
    It’s something we ask all of our patients.  As nurses we want, no, need to know if our patient is in pain.  So we ask, “On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst pain you have ever had, how would you rate your pain?”  Or we use the faces method, or whatever method of assessing pain is in vogue at the moment. So very often with a straight face, the patient looks at you and says, “I’m in 9 out of 10 pain.”  Just like that.  Straight faced.  Vitals are completely normal.  Face calm, nearly serene, talking and laughing on the cell phone, with not a…

  • Attack TB where it lives

    Wanderer
    31 Oct 2009 | 4:48 pm
    UPTON, NY — Attempts to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) are stymied by the fact that the disease-causing bacteria have a sophisticated mechanism for surviving dormant in infected cells. Now, a team of scientists including researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU), Weill Cornell Medical College, and The Rockefeller University has identified compounds that inhibit that mechanism — without damaging human cells. The results, described in the September 16, 2009, issue of Nature, include structural studies of how the…

  • The Work Week in Quotes

    Wanderer
    25 Oct 2009 | 11:34 am
    Some weeks are better than others.  But what can turn a bad week into a decent week is the things patients and your co-workers say. “So is this one of them vibratin’ beds” asked the extremely odd dude being admitted.  “No sir, we don’t have Magic Fingers in the hospital.” replied his nurse. “So, is he in sinus?” asked the nurse on getting report on a patient who is known to be in atrial fib after being told that the rate is in the 40’s.  “Yes,” replied the other nurse, “he’s in sinus, but it’s really…

  • Deep Fried Delights

    Wanderer
    19 Oct 2009 | 2:16 pm
    I’ve got this pain in my chest, *gasp* feels like an elephant sitting on it, *uhhhh* now it’s in my arm too, and I feel a little short of breath.  I just need another one of these: Chicken-fried bacon This was sold at the same stand where we found the country-fried pork chips, so we picked up a basket. Whoever named these the 2008 Best Taste Winners must have been seriously off their medication; chicken-fried bacon proved to be the very definition of too much of a good thing. The thick-sliced bacon fried in a crazy heavy country batter was so rich that one of our testers could…

  • True Health Care Refrom – TBATM

    Wanderer
    17 Oct 2009 | 11:31 am
    The Blog that Ate Manhattan: TBTAM on Healthcare Reform. Great read.  And far too true.  While I may not totally agree with Mad as Hell Docs (not sold on single-payer), they tie in with the whole idea of cutting out lobbyists and making this a discussion between the us and our docs.  To Hell with Big Insurance, Big Pharma and the lot.  My favorite quote: Healthcare won’t get fixed as long as the stakeholders in health care with the biggest voice in its reform are the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, medical device makers, lawyers and others whose business thrives on the…
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    This won't hurt a bit

  • Time for a change

    3 Nov 2009 | 9:56 am
    Let me tell you what - this falling back thing can suck it. Toddlers don't know that they are supposed to sleep an hour later, nor do cats realize that their feeding times have been bumped back by an hour. Here is a math problem for you - say you have worked hard to get your toddler to stay asleep until 6 am. yes, I know 6 am is not considered sleeping in by most circles, but 6am is volumes better than say 5 am. Now, turn the clocks back an hour. What time will said toddler wake up now? Today, with much effort, and 15 minutes of listening to "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" I kept him in the crib until…

  • Yes, the glass can be half full

    23 Oct 2009 | 8:59 am
    My plans for today involved a run and planting 100+ bulbs that just arrived yesterday. The weather's plan for today? Dark, chilly and wet. Not buckets of wet like last week, but not inviting to a morning spent outdoors. Does anyone else ever feel like the weather has a personal vendetta against them? That sentence probably speaks volumes about my personality. Well, looking on the bright side, if I make it to Greenlake, I will probably have it mostly to myself. I'm trying to spend more time focusing on the positives, instead of constantly harping on how much everything sucks, sucks, sucks.

  • Outbreak

    15 Oct 2009 | 8:35 pm
    It has been constant swine flu triage lately at work. Seriously. Swine flu is bad news for pregnant women, and our docs have instituted the policy that any patient with flu/cold symptoms needs to be triaged either through the clinic or after hours, through L&D. I'm sure that the clinics are swamped, but man it sure seems like flu symptoms inevitably appear at 1 am. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the vaccine, because while I generally don't seem to get the flu (even when not vaccinated, and caring for my sick, sick husband), I am also not usually surrounded by this many infectious,…

  • Sick children (but not my own)

    7 Oct 2009 | 9:13 am
    We have had a confirmed case of H1N1, aka swine flu, in our NICU. Ok, so bad, bad news. The reaction of our management? Put all pregnant, laboring and post-partum patients into a reverse isolation where anyone entering their room has to wear a mask. Hello, I'm your nurse, let me coach you through contractions, with half my face covered. Ok, now I am going to help you push for 4 hours, with half my face covered. Here, let me spending 45 minutes helping you breast feed your 37 week baby, with half my face covered. I am sure that it is going to help our therapeutic communication skills a…

  • Last Gasps of Summer

    27 Sep 2009 | 8:42 pm
    The weather this weekend has been fantastically gorgeous. Sunny, upper 60s, beautiful. Tomorrow, however, a dark cloud is supposed to come, dumping cold, cold rain on us all week long. I had big hopes for this weekend - plans of a family bike ride come to mind. But then, I managed to wrench my back mulching the yard last week, and then spent a night flipping a large, laboring woman like a pancake (baby kept having decels, but managed to keep it together enough to be born via traditional route, thus breaking my string of C-sections. Hurrah.) Anyway, I am able to limp around, bolstered by…
 
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    RealityRN

  • Nurse Patient Ratios

    admin
    22 Oct 2009 | 9:06 am
    I just hired on at a large regional hospital and am nearing the end of my preceptorship on a crazy-busy surgical unit. The morale is terrible and I moved 1200 miles to come to this job. We commonly have 6-7 patients each every day and it seems like as soon as a bunch is hired, a few leave. Our director is never present on the floor but seems to think that this is a safe and normal working environment. Yesterday, I didn’t even use the bathroom unitl 3 o’clock. Nurses have to stay late to chart, yet we get yelled at for overtime. Am I disillusioned or what? New Nurse

  • Senior Nursing Clinical

    admin
    16 Oct 2009 | 9:53 am
    I am a senior nursing student and I was just wondering if it was normal to feel…not fully competent. Although I have learned so much and have attended clinicals and so forth we had to do a “simulation scenario” about a patient and a possible scenario. One of us is the primary nurse and we have to figure out what to do. Anyways, I was the primary nurse with a pt getting a blood transfusion and having an anaphylactic reaction. I knew that I needed to give Epi but I was all over the place. I felt jumbled in my thoughts. I didn’t know when the appropriate time to call the…

  • Nursing Student with Felony

    admin
    7 Oct 2009 | 10:36 am
    I attended nursing school for 2 years & am on the wait list for clinicals. Three years ago, did a dumb favor for someone that I thought was my friend. I am now a felon for possession w/ intent to distribute heroin. I received 4 years probation, but will receive an early discharge next July. I have recently completed a medical assistant program & am wondering if I’ll be able to get licensed in Wisconsin as an RN. I am having a hard time finding a job as a MA. Does anyone know if Wisconsin will grant me a license? I have worked with someone before that was a felon with a drug…

  • Adjudication Witheld charge in FL

    admin
    2 Oct 2009 | 11:35 am
    I am accepting a plea bargain to a money laundering charge that has nothing to do with nursing and it will be adjudication withheld. So with that being said and not actually being convicted can my Florida nursing license be terminated? Christina

  • Nursing Shoes

    admin
    30 Sep 2009 | 10:10 am
    Sometimes as a nurse I was told I had a “dark” sense of humor. Is that a reflection of my negativity toward my job and the people in my day or merely a coping mechanism? What is the difference? Is a dark sense of humor as important as a good pair of nursing shoes? When I worked the the hospital as a registered nurse, some days I did not want to go to work. Dealing with patient illness and staffing politics and standing on my feet five days a week or more was wearing on my soul. I was beginning to feel frustrated and disillusioned with working as an RN. I began to question whether or not I…
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    Adventures of GuitarGirl RN

  • In Memoriam

    GuitarGirlRN
    19 Oct 2009 | 8:51 am
    Sheila was born on September 21, 1934 on a small homestead farm on the plains of midwestern Canada. She was the second of seven children. They grew up in a one-room log cabin, farming grain and livestock.Sheila and her family lived the life of rural homesteaders: no electricity until Sheila was eleven years old ("It'll come down the road soon enough," her father said), and no indoor plumbing until the "big house" was built a year after Sheila had left home for the big city.She went to the local one-room schoolhouse (by horse-drawn sled in the winter), helped on the farm, and idolized her…

  • Bleh.

    GuitarGirlRN
    13 Sep 2009 | 7:54 am
    Sorry I've been gone so long. It's likely I'll be gone even longer, because these days I don't have the energy or gumption to post.I'm in school full-time, scrambling to finish my BSN. Work has been really, really bad lately--so bad that management has had to come in to do patient care because we're so busy and so short staffed--and it's not even cold and flu season yet!And, on top of that, my mom, who has been fighting stage IV colon cancer with metastases to the liver (and probably lungs at this point) has taken a turn for the worse. She decided to stop chemotherapy after the last round was…

  • Overheard in Triage

    GuitarGirlRN
    15 Aug 2009 | 11:00 pm
    Man: Do you have a CAT scan machine here?Me: (stares at man)Man: Seriously. Do you have a CAT scan machine?Me: Yes, sir, this is a modern urban hospital. We have a CT scanner here.Man: OK. How do I get one?Me: A doctor has to order the test.Man: Oh. So I can't just sign up for one?Me: No.Man: Are they expensive?Me: They're not cheap. Do you have any medical problems that you'd like to discuss?Man: No. I just wanted to see what my brain looks like. Thanks anyway! (gets up and leaves)

  • Thanks, Nurse Jackie

    GuitarGirlRN
    15 Aug 2009 | 9:08 am
    There's been a lot of...well, not "furor," mostly just talk... about Showtime's series Nurse Jackie. Blah blah blah, not a good example of a nurse, blah blah blah detrimental to the public image of nursing...blah blah blah.I've only seen the first episode (I don't have Showtime, and am waiting to Netflix the whole season to watch all at once), but I can't say anything bad about it.However, I've become a huge fan of the show because of its effects on patients and their families in the ED.Yesterday, a very difficult patient was about to go upstairs to her room. For her whole stay, she had been…

  • Finally, an apology!

    GuitarGirlRN
    14 Aug 2009 | 7:43 am
    (Unfortunately, it was completely unnecessary, but whatever, I'll take it...)We had a middle-aged guy come in with severe scrotal swelling and pain--it was so bad that he couldn't walk or even close his legs. If anyone even came near him, he would start crying and screaming "please don't touch me! Please!" He was a diabetic and on dialysis. And unfortunately, there was a really specific smell coming from his area--probably Fournier's gangrene.I gave him a ton of pain meds but nothing was even touching his pain, and we needed to do a CT of his pelvis to see how bad it was--and to examine him.
 
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    Pinoy R.N.

  • Peritoneal Dialysis Seminar for Nurses

    Lyle, RN
    30 Oct 2009 | 7:03 pm
    Renal Nurses Association of the Philippines (RENAP) Cebu in cooperation with Fresenius Medical Care - Philippines invites all Registered Nurses to attend the training on "Peritoneal Dialysis with Return Demo" on November 14-15, 2009 (Saturday-Sunday) 8:00 - 5:00 PM at Function Hall, Mango Park Hotel, Maxilom Ave, Cebu City, Philippines.Ms. Ela M. Orioste BSN, RN, MAN, CRNC of and support team from Fresenius Medical Care will be the resource speakers of the said training.Onsite Registration Fee is 1,500 Php (inclusive of meals, snacks, 1 year membership to RENAP)Pre-Reg for RENAP Members…

  • Dress Code for Examinees in the Nurse Licensure Examination

    Lyle, RN
    27 Oct 2009 | 12:26 am
    SITE EXCLUSIVE:Get 15% discount when you buy your scrub top at Scrubs Gallery. Just enter coupon code, PINOYRN15when you order. Coupon valid until November 15, 2009.-------------------------------------------The Professional Regulation Commission - Board of Nursing (PRC-BoN) recently issued a memo amending its previous memo prescribing dress codes for examinees in the Nursing Board Exam.In the new memo sent to PRC regional offices, Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) and to Presidents and Deans of Nursing Schools, Colleges, and Universities -- Examinees…

  • Nursing Job Fair in Davao

    Lyle, RN
    20 Oct 2009 | 3:53 pm
    The Department of Labor and Employment Regional Office XI will be holding a job fair for nurses today at the NCCC Mall in Matina, Davao City as part of the celebration of the 52nd Nurses Week.Nursing recruiters from Manila and Davao will be conducting interviews for approximately 1,000 healthcare job vacancies. Physical therapists and other allied medical professionals are also welcome to apply.Visit www.PinoyRN.co.nr now for other up-to-date nursing news and information.

  • Nursing Seminar: Nursing Care of Kidney Transplant Patients

    Lyle, RN
    13 Oct 2009 | 2:30 am
    The Renal Nurses Association of the Philippines (RENAP) Cebu Chapter will be having a seminar entitled, "Nursing Care of Kidney Transplant Patients" on October 26, 2009 from 1 PM to 3 PM at the Mango Park Hotel in Maxilom Avenue, Cebu City.National Kidney and Transplant Institute's Eusebio Alvarado, RN MAN CRNC will be the guest speaker.Fees:Registration - Php 500 (inclusive of snacks and certificate)RENAP membership - Php 300 (1 year)Accreditation exam - Php 550Nurses who wish to attend the seminar are advised to pre-register by contacting the following people:Harby O. Abellanosa, RN CRN »…

  • November 2009 Nursing Board Exam Updates

    Lyle, RN
    8 Oct 2009 | 10:52 pm
    The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) reminds first-time examinees that the deadline in filing for application in the November 2009 Nurse Licensure Examination will be on October 16, 2009 (Friday).Meanwhile, the Saudi Gazette reports that the PRC will be holding a special nurse licensure examination in Hong Kong in December for Filipinos living there.For review tips and other updates on the November 2009 Nursing Board Exam, be sure to submit your e-mail address to our mailing list below.November 2009 Nursing Board Exam Tips and UpdatesDelivered by FeedBurner Visit www.PinoyRN.co.nr now…
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    PHILIPPINE NURSING BULLETIN

  • Sept-Dec 2009 IELTS Test Dates

    admin
    19 Oct 2009 | 7:32 am
    Sept-Dec 2009 Ielts Test Dates ©2009 nursingbulletin.com: One-stop Hub Philippine Nursing News and Resources, Nursing Licensure Examinations, Nursing Board Exams Results, Nursing Updates. All Rights Reserved.. Bookmark It Hide Sites

  • This, too, shall pass

    admin
    7 Oct 2009 | 10:02 pm
    Long ago, a king, plagued by many worries, harassed on every side, called his wise men together. He asked them to invent a motto, a few magic words that would help him in time of trial or distress. “It must be brief enough to be engraved on a ring,” he instructed, “so I can see [...]

  • Medscape News: Vaccines, Hygiene Key to Minimizing H1N1 Spread

    admin
    27 Sep 2009 | 7:14 am
    September 26, 2009 - The good news is that the vaccine against influenza A (H1N1) will be available by the middle of October, that more people are getting immunized against influenza than in the past, and that the virus’s genetic make-up is not changing. The genetic stability means that the vaccine is highly likely [...]

  • Medscape: Ginkgo Biloba Less Effective for Raynaud’s Disease Than Nifedipine

    admin
    27 Sep 2009 | 6:57 am
     The blanching, cyanosis, and rubor in the hands known as Raynaud’s disease is often treated with the calcium channel blocker nifedipine, but it has been shown that it can also be effectively treated with ginkgo biloba extract. A poster presented at the American Academy of Family Physicians Annual Scientific Assembly reported on a randomized trial [...]

  • Medscape: HIV Vaccine Shows “Modest” Efficacy in Phase 3 Trial

    admin
    27 Sep 2009 | 6:20 am
    September 24, 2009 - A prime-boost HIV vaccine is safe and 31% effective in the prevention of HIV infection in the more than 16,000 adults who participated in the trial, according to the Surgeon General of the US Army, which sponsored the clinical trial of the vaccine. “These new findings represent an important step [...]
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    Nursing Ideas

  • Sioban Nelson Learning from the History of Nursing

    rdjfraser
    30 Oct 2009 | 1:11 pm
    Sioban Nelson PhD Dean and Professor - Lawrence S Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing After starting the MN at the University of Toronto, I have had a few readings from Sioban about understanding the history of Nursing. These articles really helped my understanding of nursing. Being young in the profession this historical analysis helps to ground and better understand nursing. During this episode we talked about Dr Nelson’s background and how she integrated her understanding of historical analysis into her academic work. Links Nursing (wikipedia) Timeline of Nursing Sioban’s latest book:…

  • Esther Green – Leading Cancer Care in Ontario

    rdjfraser
    23 Oct 2009 | 11:54 am
    Esther Green – RN MSc Provincial Head of Nursing & Psychosocial Oncology – Cancer Care Ontario I had the privilege to sit down with Esther Green, who is working at Cancer Care Ontario. We had a great discussion on how she came to her role and what she is doing there. She brings up interesting insights into how she is integrating research on advanced practice nursing, recruitment and retention and patient safety in her current role. Links Denise Bryant-Lukosius PEPPA Framework (Particapatory, Evidence-Based, Patient-Focused, Process for Advanced Practice Nursing (APN) Role…

  • Chris Salgado World Cafe (Lost Episode)

    rdjfraser
    22 Oct 2009 | 11:37 am
    Chris Salgodo RN, BN, MA Chris Salgado RN, BN, MA Program Leader – Children, Youth & Families Program Vancouver Coastal Health I really must apologize to Chris about this podcast. We had a great conversation in January last year (2009). We met at the Canadian Nursing Association – Nursing Leadership Conference. She had a very interesting idea about how to engage with nursing staff. She works in public health who have their fingers on the pulse of what familes, clients and communities partners need form nursing leadership. Using the World Cafe approach she was able to engage…

  • Spreading Good Ideas not Infectious Disease

    rdjfraser
    7 Oct 2009 | 10:21 pm
    Dr Michael Gardam Director of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control – Agency for Health Protection and Promotion Director of Infection Prevention and Control – University Health Network An experienced and passionate physician in the field of infection control, Dr Michael Gardam is now working with the Agency for Health Protection and Promotion on provincial issues of protection and control. After hearing him give a talk at Princess Margaret I knew I needed to speak with him. In this talk he shares major insights into how Ontario began to public reporting, what they are…

  • Moving from Clinician and Scientist to Leader and Director

    rdjfraser
    30 Sep 2009 | 4:30 am
    Dr Mary Jane Esplen – Part 2 Director – de Souza Institute This is the second half of the interview with Mary Jane. In this portion of our conversation we move from psychosocial oncology to how she has evolved from nurse to her current role as Director of the de Souza Institute. Mary Jane shares her development as a researcher and scientist and how her skills of learning, research and grant writing have helped her take on the steep learning curve she is on. Links The Brazilian Ball de Souza Institute & de Souza Institute Steering Committee Questions: Mary Jane Esplen: Do you…
 
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    Nurse.com News

  • Six U.S. Nurses Take Home Top Honors in 2009

    Nurses spend their careers helping others, rarely reaping widespread recognition for a job well done. But the spotlight is shining on six nurses named 2009 Nursing Spectrum and NurseWeek Nursing Excellence Awards National Nurse of the Year winners.

  • Daily News: Cocaine Vaccine Studied

    Immunization with an anti-cocaine vaccine results in a significant reduction in cocaine use, according to a clinical trial reported in the October 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

  • SPECIAL COVERAGE: H1N1 Influenza News

    Visit us here periodically for summaries of H1N1 flu news.

  • Depression in LTC Often Goes Untreated

    Older adults living in long-term care face a sad state of affairs. As many as 50% of residents of LTC have depression, and only about 25% of them are identified and receive treatment, according to Neva L. Crogan, RN, PhD, GCNS-BC, GNP-BC, FNGNA, secretary of the National Gerontological Nursing Association and research associate professor, University of Arizona in Tucson.

  • RN Organizes Husband?s Recovery Process

    I pictured the progress of my husband?s illness as a gathering of dark clouds that closed off any avenue of light, clusters of heavy, tentative drops, a downpour held in suspension for months.
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    Nurse Practioners in Business

  • Disaster Planning for Business

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    4 Nov 2009 | 8:03 pm
    Disasters come in all shapes and sizes. They usually strike when least expected, often times without any warning (earthquake) and sometimes with (hurricane). Either way, we often find ourselves, our homes and our businesses vulnerable. Disaster planning is something that tends to be put on the back burner…after all, it’s never going to happen to us, right? Wrong. It does, and we need to be prepared for that “never gonna happen” event. Making a disaster plan is really just a business plan for disasters. Here are a few things to address: Take a look at everything in your…

  • NP Interview: Amelie Hollier, DNP, FNP-BC, FAANP

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    30 Oct 2009 | 9:08 pm
    Have you ever wondered what it takes to run a successful educational company? Author and co-author more than a dozen books? And still have a full time clinical practice? On Sunday, October 18, join us as we interview Amelie Hollier, DNP, FNP-BC, FAANP.  She is a full-time nurse practitioner in family practice in Lafayette, LA. and she is President and founder of Advanced Practice Education Associates (APEA), a Nurse Practitioner education company.  She teaches nurse practitioner review courses across the United States for her company and routinely presents to nurse practitioner groups on…

  • 12 Steps to Grow Your Nurse Practitioner Practice

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    29 Sep 2009 | 6:28 pm
    Nurse Practitioner business owners wants to grow their business and practice. Doing so not only allows us to be more successful, but also allows us to be of service to more people. However, just like small business, not all practices are successful. Here are 12 steps you can take to help you be identify areas examine and strategies to assist you in building the business of your dreams. Take care of yourself. It’s not easy having a business/practice. You work hard. In order to keep up with the demands, it’s essential you take care of YOU. Identify and know just who your clients…

  • NP Interviews: Nancy Dirubbo, FNP-C, FAANP – Travel Clinics

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    28 Sep 2009 | 8:10 pm
    Do you wonder about having your own NP  practice? Maybe even two of them? Nancy Dirubbo, FNP-C, FAANP has started not one, but two different practices in two different niches. You may remember Nancy from a few years ago when we talked about her very successful women’s health practice. During this interview we will be talking about her Travel Health Clinic which assists travelers in all aspects of traveling healthy including pre-travel consultation and immunizations.  Bring your notebook and join us on this very informative call to learn about the travel health niche. If you have not…

  • Negotiation Skills

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    28 Sep 2009 | 6:15 pm
    Nurse Practitioners entrepreneurs are often faced with negotiating some sort of contract be it for services, supplies or collaboration. While there are plenty of books and courses available to sharpen your negotiation skills, Tim Berry recently posted “Three Simple but Powerful Rules for Negotiation” that helps bring this to a simple but elegant solution. How does it feel to be them? Basically Berry is suggesting you put yourself in their shoes. While I understand what he is saying and basically agree with it, I’d also caution you to consider where they are coming from, and…
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    NurseConnect.com General Nursing and Career Blog

  • Resourceful Nurses? The Problem with Workarounds

    Nurses are a savvy, resourceful group. I’m not sure if this is an innate or acquired trait. But it is definitely a common one in our profession. Perhaps necessity really is the mother of invention. Whether or not they call it by name, most nurses are familiar with the concept of a “workaround.”   A workaround is an unapproved strategy used for accomplishing a required task. There are many reasons that nurses resort to workarounds. Due to the crisis nature of much of our work, we often lack the time to troubleshoot malfunctioning equipment, missing or damaged supplies, or…

  • Unsettling Hospital Settings

    Long before I became a nurse, I recall having a conversation with a friend about her sister’s hospital experience. I was surprised when she shared with me an unanticipated and positive outcome of her sister’s ordeal. Like so many families across the world, she and her family spent many hours, anxiously waiting outside her sister’s room. They were temporary inhabitants of the facility’s waiting room. As my friend and her family sat alongside other worried families, they struck up deep conversations. In fact, they established an ad hoc support group.   For hours, these family…

  • Lessons Learned from the Airline Industry

    Recent news has been full of speculation about a domestic flight reportedly “overshooting” its destination. The pilots of the flight purportedly experienced a “loss of situational awareness” which resulted in a worrisome 78 minutes without communication with air traffic controllers. While the plane eventually landed safely, the temporary loss of contact created a flurry of concern, leading to the pilots’ licenses being revoked.   This recent news story made me draw comparisons with our profession as nurses. There are many similarities between health care and the health airline…

  • Medical Supply Madness: Should We Standardize?

    How many times have you walked into your work area’s supply closet only to find yourself staring at empty bins? Do you sometimes feel confused and frustrated by your supply closet’s wide array of similar supplies? This can be especially frustrating – and time-consuming – when nurses are new to a work area, or are visiting the area (as travel or float nurses). But, even when you have worked in an area for a long time, there have probably been times when you raced into your supply closet for a vital supply, only to find that many of your reliable supplies have been somehow rearranged.

  • Positively Adapting to the Nursing Environment

    Perhaps it’s due to my background in city planning. Maybe I took one too many courses in environmental psychology. At any rate, I firmly believe that our environment plays a key role in our lives. Whether we are at busy at work or resting at home, we are affected by our environment.   Think about it. Even the mere image of a beach or mountain landscape can help many of us to relax. Some people seek out the solace of pastoral scenes or peaceful sanctuaries. Restorative environments help us to revive our spirits and keep things in perspective. On the other hand, stressful…
 
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    NursesPTO

  • Debt consolidation – First steps

    Rachael Keilin
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am
    This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Debt consolidation It’s been said that the best trauma surgeons have a slower pulse when shit hits the fan rather than the ultra-tachycardia that us mortals achieve when chaos begins. I’ve thought about that a lot lately when I watch the news and see job loss rates in the tens of thousands, month after month. And when I’ve seen the people I work with have to dip into savings accounts to pay off their monthly bills. No getting ahead, just lucky to tread water and stay afloat. I think of the unlucky ones out there whose debt is…

  • Nursing students: choose your career.

    Wendy Jones
    4 Nov 2009 | 5:11 am
    When you are in nursing school you get a chance to visit different types of units and learn about areas of nursing you are not familiar with. This is the time when most students start thinking about where they would like to work after graduation. Floor nurses This would be those nurses that work general medical-surgical floors. This type of nursing usually involves a heavy patient load (sometimes as many as 8-12), but typically with minimally sick patients. These patients could be your broken leg, infected wound, and minor surgeries. The RN in this case has responsibility for many patients,…

  • ER nursing and the flu clinic. Not for me

    Wendy Jones
    2 Nov 2009 | 5:34 am
    I recently worked a shift in the ER in…… “the flu clinic”…… Now I had never even worked in the ER before. It’s a whole different world down there. This flu clinic is a new short term addition to the ER with the increased number of patients coming in for flu like symptoms. The regular ER just can’t handle the volume. So lucky me, I was volunteered to float to the ER to work in the flu clinic because my home unit was closed. If you have ever been in the ER you probably know it seems like a big chaotic unorganized place with lots and lots of noise, or at least that is what I…

  • How to do the best job as a surgical nurse – from a surgeon

    Rachael Keilin
    31 Oct 2009 | 12:39 pm
    When you went through your OR training for surgical nursing in nursing school, I’m sure that you heard from the experienced scrubs about what made a good scrub nurse and all the many different things you needed to know to become one. I want to offer you my perspective from the other side of the table – what does a surgeon want to see in a scrub? What will make you requested by the doctors and therefore make you the last person to be “downsized” in these uncertain economic times?   (BTW I once heard of a surgical scrub nurse getting fired in the middle of the day,…

  • Ways to make money in your time off. Part II- Direct sales

    Rachael Keilin
    29 Oct 2009 | 8:10 pm
    There are literally hundreds of different companies that now have no (or very few) physical stores but instead use individual salespeople to sell their products to friends and co-workers. But to paraphrase George Orwell, not all companies are created equal. In addition to some really fabulous opportunities, there are also a lot of pyramid schemes whose main goal is to rip you off. My first piece of advice is a repetition of what I said in my earlier post: make sure you like and enjoy the product(s) you are going to sell. Before you make any commitment, try the products out yourself. For one…
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    Sunbelt Staffing

  • A Special Education Teacher’s Role in an Inclusive Classroom

    Angela Stevens
    2 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    An inclusive classroom is one of the placement options for a student with a learning disability. This is the least restrictive form of education for special needs students and it allows the student to be included in a typical classroom environment with his or her peers. There are two roles a special education teacher may play in an inclusive classroom — permanent or temporary co-teaching. One of my good friends, Sarah, has taught in both types of classrooms over the years, and she found that she prefers the temporary co-teaching model. However, that is her personal preference and not an…

  • Neonatal Nursing – Highs and Lows

    Angela Stevens
    26 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    Working in the mental health field with children, I have come to realize that any work with children who are ill is quite stressful on the caregivers. Doctors, nurses, healthcare staff, and mental health staff all have stressful jobs to begin with, but when that profession focuses exclusively on children, it seems the stress factor increases exponentially. While working with children, I have made numerous friends in the medical field who specialize in pediatrics. One lady in particular stands out – Debbie. For many years, she was a neonatal nurse before she began working with me to help…

  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder

    Angela Stevens
    19 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    Working in the mental health industry, I have seen a variety of mental health disorders. For each disorder or condition there is usually one patient that epitomizes the condition for me. The person that best exemplifies narcissistic personality disorder is Violet. Violet had many of the classic symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. Some of the symptoms included: Believing one is better than others Demanding constant attention and praise Difficulty maintaining healthy relationships Exaggerating talents and achievements Fragile self-esteem Inability to recognize other’s feelings…

  • Preventing a Lice Outbreak

    Angela Stevens
    12 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    The first step in preventing the spread of lice in a school setting is for the school nurse to remind teachers of the signs of a lice infestation. Teachers must look for students who are constantly scratching their head, especially on the back of their neck or behind their ears. Adult lice are about the size of a sesame seed and may be gray, white, or tan. If a student is suspected of having lice, the child should be sent to the school nurse who will then comb through the child’s hair to verify infestation. If the child does have lice, she will be kept in the clinic until a parent or…

  • Why is Speech Therapy Important?

    Angela Stevens
    5 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    I remember being a child in school, seeing the other children that used to be picked up by school aides for speech therapy. I knew that they were leaving for speech, but I didn’t really know what that was or why it was necessary. I just knew that I wanted to go and that I was so jealous of those kids who got to leave class, regardless of why it was. As an adult, I see speech therapy in such a different light. It’s not about getting to leave class and do something different from the other students, although that is an incentive for kids who might otherwise be unwilling. It’s about…
 
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    Soliant Healthcare Job Blog

  • A Look at the Effects of Social Media on Healthcare

    Jennifer Bradford
    4 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    According to a 2008 report by the California Healthcare Foundation, 34 percent of Americans searching for health information online go directly to social media sites, behind only health portal sites and general search engines. So what does the healthcare industry become when information for patients and practitioners is measured by Tweets and views, by fans and followers? Patients [...]A Look at the Effects of Social Media on Healthcare is a post from: Soliant Health

  • Future Effects of Nanotech on Health Care

    Ryan Winter
    21 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    Industry journals estimate that in the medical world alone, there are more than 150 nanotech-based drugs and delivery systems in development. So what will (or could) nano-scale constructions mean for health-care in the next few years?Future Effects of Nanotech on Health Care is a post from: Soliant Health

  • Generic Vs Brand Name Medications

    Jennifer Bradford
    20 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    Most pharmacists will tell you that generic medications are comparable to their brand name counterparts. However, recent studies and editorials have indicated that not everyone feels this is necessarily true. What is the responsibility of a pharmacist in this age of abundant medications to give information to the consumer?Generic Vs Brand Name Medications is a post from: Soliant Health

  • How to Access Incentives to Become a Nurse

    Ryan Winter
    6 Oct 2009 | 6:00 am
    We’ve heard countless people relay success stories of those willing to help alleviate America’s nursing shortage. But what’s the reality? Is it possible to have some (or all) of your costs for becoming an RN paid for? Though you might not happen upon an all-expenses-paid dream scenario from a facility desperate to recruit you, there are hundreds of incentive programs to help take the financial sting out of becoming a nurse.How to Access Incentives to Become a Nurse is a post from: Soliant Health

  • Advantages of Electronic Medical Records

    Jennifer Bradford
    28 Sep 2009 | 12:38 pm
    The need for electronic medical reporting is one of the few things that Republicans and Democrats largely agree on, but putting the theory into practice may prove to be more difficult than anticipated, and it remains to be seen whether the system will deliver as expected.Advantages of Electronic Medical Records is a post from: Soliant Health
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    Nursing Show Blog

  • Hospital Fined and Under Surveillance Due to Increased Incidence of Wrong-Site Surgery

    rnproducer
    3 Nov 2009 | 5:46 pm
    The largest hospital in Rhode Island has been fined with $150,000 after its fifth case of wrong-site surgery since 2007. Prior to the latest fine, the same hospital has been fined $50,000 in the past for three cases of brain surgeons operating on the wrong parts of the heads of three patients. In the latest incident, the supposedly operation on two different fingers has been done to a single finger instead. According to the report, instead of marking each finger as the surgical sites, the marking was put on the wrist. The marking which was to be the primary indicator of the surgical site was…

  • Cardiac Medication Classifications for Nurses and Episode 103

    rnproducer
    31 Oct 2009 | 4:05 pm
    Welcome to Episode 103 To take the survey, click here takethesurvey.com/rawvoice The Nursing Show is a proud member of the ProMed Podcast Network. Subscribe to the show, free! —– Right Click to download (Macs Option Click) Subscribe with iTunes here (need iTunes — it’s free) RSS Feed to subscribe (copy url to Juice, Zune Marketplace, or your favorite podcatcher) Click the arrow below to listen to the show: [audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/nursing_show/traffic.libsyn.com/nursingshow/NursingShow_20091030.mp3]…

  • Newly Graduated Nurses Find Difficulty Getting Jobs Despite Staffing Shortage

    rnproducer
    31 Oct 2009 | 9:14 am
    Staffing shortage is one of the issues nurses are facing today. However, despite the lack of nurses in the different areas of nursing specialty, newly graduated nurses are having a hard time getting employed in an institution. According to the article from advanceweb.com, part of the problem is because of economic recession, senior nurses return to work as regular staff, taking extra available shifts. Another reason is institutions prefer to hire nurses who are already experienced. Since new graduates must be precepted before they can work independently, it would be like an investment in the…

  • South African Surgeon Bongi Shares His Blog on Nursing Show TV

    Jamie Davis
    25 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am
    Another new segment for Nursing Show TV recorded from Blogworld Expo. This time around, Doctor Anonymous helped me out with the microphone and interviewing Bongi – a trauma surgeon from South Africa who has a very interesting blog on common injuries seen in his country. Visit his blog at http://other-things-amanzi.blogspot.com ———– ———– Do you host a medically oriented blog or podcast? We would like you to consider joining us next year at Blogworld Expo and add your ideas to the discussion on medical blogging, ethics, and have fun with the…

  • Nurse Care for Toxic Gas Poisoning and Episode 102

    rnproducer
    23 Oct 2009 | 6:29 pm
    Welcome to Episode 102 To take the survey, click here takethesurvey.com/rawvoice The Nursing Show is a proud member of the ProMed Podcast Network. Subscribe to the show, free! —– Right Click to download (Macs Option Click) Subscribe with iTunes here (need iTunes — it’s free) RSS Feed to subscribe (copy url to Juice, Zune Marketplace, or your favorite podcatcher) Click the arrow below to listen to the show: [audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/nursing_show/traffic.libsyn.com/nursingshow/NursingShow_20091023.mp3]…
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    Nursing Homes Abuse Blog

  • Another State Invalidates Nursing Home Arbitration Agreements

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:10 am
    On October 16th, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that an arbitration agreement between a nursing home and one of its residents was invalid because the resident’s son did not have the authority to sign a voluntary arbitration agreement on her behalf.  Frank Koricic lived with his elderly mother, Manda Baker, and assisted her in her activities of daily living.  Ms. Baker was originally from Croatia and had limited ability to read, speak, or understand English.  Because of a decline in health, Ms. Baker was admitted to the Beverly Hallmark nursing home (now doing business…

  • Medications Such As: Visocol, OsmoPrep, or Fleet Phoso-Soda May Cause Kidney Failure Or Death In The Elderly

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:17 am
    We've all gone through the unpleasant task of preparing for a colonoscopy.  Drinking an unpleasant liquid or popping pills for the purpose of giving the doctor a better view of our colon's contents is.... anything but pleasant.  Now, news has surfaced that, depending on the product you used to prepare for the procedure, the experience may not have been merely unpleasant-- but downright dangerous. On December 11, 2008, the FDA ordered the makers of Visicol and OsmoPrep to put a black box warning on their products alerting consumers to the fact that the drugs can cause kidney damage…

  • Bed Sore Problems Compounded: Amyloidosis

    4 Nov 2009 | 5:12 am
    One of the nursing home negligence cases my office is currently investigating involves the death of a man related to complications related to amyloidosis.  Turns out, the man was suffering from an advanced bed sore on his coccyx (also called pressure ulcers, pressure sores or decubitus ulcers) that had progressed so far that the bone in the area had become infected (osteomyelitis). Elderly nursing home residents, especially those suffering from other diseases such as bed sores, have a higher risk of developing amyloidosis, a disease which can damage various tissues and organs.  This…

  • 7 Cases Of Legionnaires Disease Attributed To Assisted Living Facility

    3 Nov 2009 | 4:22 am
    Seven cases of Legionnaires' Disease have been reported at an assisted living facility in Waverly, Maryland.  According to the Baltimore City Health Department, all the people were living at Stadium Place Apartments before they were diagnosed with the disease.  So far, the disease has claimed the life of one of the residents. What is Legionnaires Disease? Legionnaires disease is an infectious disease caused by the Legionella bacteria.  There are two types of Legionnaires disease: Legion fever (where people generally develop pneumonia) and Pontiac Fever (symptoms similar to the…

  • 31 Allegations Of Abuse At Chicagoland Nursing Home

    2 Nov 2009 | 4:49 am
    In defense of nursing facilities, any person can make an allegation that the facility provided abusive care.  Consequently, the unfounded allegations can and should be discarded.  Nonetheless, when many people complain of poor care at the same facility--- and many of the allegations are substantiated, there should be real cause for concern. CBS 2, a Chicago television station, recently reported on such a facility, Westmont Nursing & Rehab Center, in Westmont, IL.  In its report, CBS interviewed staff and family members who witnessed abusive situations such as: Failing to…
 
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    Off the Charts

  • Are Domestic Violence and Pregnancy Preexisting Conditions?

    jm
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am
    By Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN Kaiser Health News recently ran a story about an attorney who was denied private insurance coverage based on a “preexisting condition”—that is, treatment she’d received following a domestic abuse incident. A majority of states have passed laws prohibiting insurers from denying coverage based on treatment for domestic violence, but  eight states as well as the District of Columbia have no such legislation. It is a challenge to track the occurrence of such denials. Insurers often use alternative ways to find out about a history of domestic…

  • An End to Interruptions: Nurses Preventing Medication Errors

    jm
    5 Nov 2009 | 7:54 am
    By Christine Moffa, MS, RN, AJN clinical editor By NathanF/via Flickr (Creative Commons) I have a hard time focusing when I am repeatedly interrupted. How many times have you walked down the hall to get something, met with an unexpected request or encounter, and then found you couldn’t remember where you were going or why? A few years ago I was working as float nurse in an outpatient facility. One of the specialties I floated to was the pediatric clinic. There were seven or eight nurses (a mix of RNs and LPNs) working at the same time, with half assigned to administering medication,…

  • Nurses as Cheerleaders?

    jm
    4 Nov 2009 | 8:37 am
    By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief 1906 Cheerleader Postcard/via Halloween Street, Flickr While I was attending the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing 40th biennial convention at the Indianapolis Convention Center last weekend, it was obvious that there was another event going on in the complex. In contrast to the nurses (and we’re talking the experienced practitioners, educators, and researchers who, for the most part, are in the AARP-eligible segment), there were numbers of mothers and their teen and preteen daughters, most of whom were in make-up…

  • ANA Releases Letter Urging Nurses to Get Vaccinated

    jm
    3 Nov 2009 | 8:40 am
    As the influenza season begins, the American Nurses Association (ANA) calls on all registered nurses to get the seasonal influenza vaccine. After all, as nurses, we have an ethical obligation not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect our patients and our families from influenza illness. ANA has long emphasized to nurses that vaccination is one simple step that everyone should take. Simultaneously, during the 2009-2010 influenza season, this nation is also facing a major health threat caused by the H1N1 virus.   The above is an excerpt from a letter by President Rebecca Patton,…

  • Trauma in Pregnancy: An Expert’s Calm Look at What Nurses Need to Know

    sfoleyajn
    3 Nov 2009 | 8:06 am
    Anatomical changes in the third trimester of pregnancy. Illustration by Anne Rains. By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor In this month’s CE feature on Trauma in Pregnancy, author Laura M. Criddle takes a calm look at a distressing subject. After outlining possible mechanisms of injury, Criddle reminds readers that “trauma care priorities don’t change when the patient is pregnant.” Initial interventions will still focus on the “ABCs”—airway, breathing, and circulation. She also points out that the fetus’s best chance for survival is “vigorous resuscitation of the mother,”…
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    Nurse Story

  • The International Academic Nursing Alliance (IANA): A useful nursing database

    Terri Schmitt
    3 Nov 2009 | 11:11 am
    I know my blogs have been lacking lately…. let’s blame it on my comprehensive exams…. (which I passed by the way :^). Anyway, I have a couple of good posts in the works so be looking for a post concerning online DNP and PhD programs in nursing and upcoming profiles of important (but maybe little known) nurse leaders and researchers. Today, I wanted to provide a brief overview of a useful database that many of you may be interested in. Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), the nursing honor society, has developed a database of international academic nursing information. Here,…

  • My Ecuador students made Advance for Nurses Online Magazine

    Terri Schmitt
    8 Oct 2009 | 9:32 am
    I am so proud of them and their work. Good job Nurses. http://nursing.advanceweb.com/Editorial/Content/Editorial.aspx?CC=208098

  • Amazement with Nursing Students: How do they do it?

    Terri Schmitt
    9 Sep 2009 | 9:23 am
    I was reminded this week, by one of my students that happened into my office, how busy nurses and nursing students are. She is not even aware that she raised this issue of ‘busyness’ with me; it is only by the chance wandering of her into my office that triggered this post. This particular student is a full-time nurse, has children, and is going back to school to get a bachelor’s degree in nursing, something we should have given to her with her original nursing degree… but that is another soapbox and post. Not only is she working 40+ hours per week, married, raising…

  • Chocolate: It is REALLY Good for you!!!!

    Terri Schmitt
    28 Aug 2009 | 5:48 pm
    Prompted by a press release of a new article in the Journal of Internal Medicine, a high familial risk of cardiovascular disease, interest by my friends at Askinosie Chocolate (www.askinosie.com) and my own personal curiosity I have decided to investigate the strength and claims of the health affects of chocolate!!!! Yes, I know you all are terribly excited about the prospect of  your health care provider writing a prescription, at your next visit, for daily consumption of chocolate. I must admit that after doing the research I may be doing just that… (along with my prescriptions for…

  • Why our current health care system doesn’t work

    Terri Schmitt
    21 Aug 2009 | 3:49 pm
    O.K. I am totally cheating and stealing from an e-mail conversation I had with my wonderful and brilliant sister who has been a Labor and Delivery nurse for 19 years. I know I am belaboring this, and I promise this is the last post, but seriously… American health care is broken and here are just a few reasons why. She pointed to the need for tax breaks for small businesses to provide health care! I agree!!!!! “Excellent point about tax breaks. however, businesses do get tax breaks, individuals who have to insure themselves don’t though (that is unfair).” I have about…
 
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    Nursing

  • New Lifestyle Magazine for Nurses

    Rebecca Wasley
    5 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am
    Starting November 15th, nurses will have a new lifestyle magazine focusing on food, fashion, fitness and nutrition, and the balance of work and family as it relates to nursing.  "Scrubs"will be published 3 times a year and available in nursing apparel stores. "There are many things nurses have in common," says Michael Singer, who came up with the concept for the magazine. Some of those shared issues are working crazy hours, being in careers that are physically and emotionally demanding, and constantly being in a caregiving role. "We also found that nurses were doing so many incredible…

  • Registered Nursing a "hotjob"

    Rebecca Wasley
    4 Nov 2009 | 8:21 am
    Yahoo! hotjobs lists nursing as one of the top six job that are triving in this down economy.  Registered Nurses Registered nursing tops the health-care occupations with the greatest number of total jobs (2.5 million). Openings are expected to rise 23 percent from 2006 to 2016. Recent news reports say that 116,000 jobs for registered nurses are currently open in hospitals, with another 100,000 unfilled positions at nursing homes. An additional 587,000 new jobs are predicted to open, which makes nursing the single-largest occupation in terms of career growth. Prepare to land an opening by…

  • Increased Demand for Nurses Continues

    Rebecca Wasley
    3 Nov 2009 | 12:44 pm
    Cross Country Healthcare Inc. (Nasdaq: CCRN) said its third-quarter earnings fell 84 percent, but the company added that it is seeing demand increase for its nursing contracting services. The need for nursing professionals continue to grow even as profits decline for healthcare companies. Despite low earning Cross Country Healthcare Inc. did comment that there has been an increase in demand for nurses.  They do not believe it is H1N1 or flu related due to the fact that the demand has increased across a number of specialities.  The challenge now for Cross Country, and a lot of…

  • Pay it Forward with a Career in Nursing

    Rebecca Wasley
    28 Sep 2009 | 11:10 am
    An Evanston, IN health-care company and two local colleges, Extended Care Clinical LLC, Wilbur Wright College in Chicago and Everest College in northwest Indiana, have put together a program that offers free nursing school education and job after for those currently unemployed.  This initiative known as the “Pay it Forward” program aims to help those out of work while also looking to fill the ever-increasing nursing positions available. Qualified candidates are to receive a 120-hour training course and those who pass can become certified nursing assistants. They would also be…

  • Nurse Brown is Heard in Washington

    Rebecca Wasley
    18 Sep 2009 | 11:15 am
      Oncology Nurse Theresa Brown was invited to the White House by President Obama and his staff after they read her post, “A Nurse’s View of Health Reform”, which detailed her perspective on the need for healthcare reform.  She sat front row at one of President Obama’s speeches where he quoted her blog saying: Sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of what the debate over reform is all about. It’s about stories like the one told by an oncology nurse named Theresa Brown. A few weeks ago, Theresa wrote a blog post about a patient of hers. He was in his…
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    Nurse In Australia

  • Job security luring more students into nursing

    Ross
    4 Nov 2009 | 7:48 am
    credit: Shermeee Job security has always been a great factor of nursing. In my experiences on the job, it’s pretty rare that a nurse gets fired – you basically have to be grossly incompetent, breach some serious code of conduct or be solely responsible for some dire situation that occurred. This is not to say that nurses take registration lightly, or become sloppy because of the knowledge that their job is pretty secure. On the contrary, I think most people are very aware that the threat of litigation and the need to be deemed competent underlies every shift we work, and generally…

  • Should nurses light patient’s smokes?

    Ross
    28 Oct 2009 | 4:35 am
    An interesting situation regarding smoking and patient’s rights has developed in Tasmania this month, opening up a whole new world of questions on nurses obligations, rights and rules at work. The heart of the issue is that A wheelchair bound, tobacco addicted MS sufferer has had his smoking privileges canned, after nursing staff have been prohibited from lighting his cigarettes. From The Mercury: “A Tobacco-addicted patient and his nursing home are at odds over regulations that stop staff helping him to smoke. Brendan Nutting, who is paralysed from the neck down and has lived at…

  • Are nurses injecting incorrectly?

    Ross
    19 Oct 2009 | 10:17 pm
    This week’s interesting video comes from Western Polytech Hospital in America, where hundreds of people recently lined up for flu vaccinations in a makeshift clinic. What’s interesting about it is that a news story on the clinic sparked some calls from nurse viewers, who were concerned about the injection techniques displayed & queried whether or not in some cases the correct vaccine dose was even being administered. Watch the video below: Click to view video if unable to view correctly. Performing injections correctly takes a bit of practice, and clearly the video shows some…

  • Damning Hospital Reports, Government Takeovers… and all that jazz

    Ross
    15 Oct 2009 | 6:55 am
    credit: EMS_EMT Who should run our hospitals? Are our standards still comparatively high, or slipping further into embarrassing depths? Back in 2007 (before winning the poll, interestingly enough) PM Kevin Rudd vowed to fix the Australian health system by mid 2009, or else a move would be made to take control of public hospitals. In May ‘09 we were given an indication of the government’s intention to renege on this issue, when we heard that “the Rudd Government is expected to stop short of a financial takeover of public hospitals and instead seek control of other health…

  • Congrats!

    Ross
    7 Oct 2009 | 9:33 pm
    This month Nurse In Australia gave away some cash simply for getting involved in the new Australian Nursing Forums. We’re pleased to announce that we have a winner – Meggles from Western Australia took home $50 cash just for posting on the forums – well done! If you have something to say (doesn’t everyone?) and you want to make your voice heard – head over to the registration page and set yourself up with a username, it only takes a few seconds and you can post anonymously if you wish. It’s the best place to share a story, ask a question, or tell us what…
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    The Nursing Site Blog

  • Nursing Issues in Health Care Reform Bill

    5 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    There are some very important issues for nurses in the Health Care Reform debate. They include: Funding for nursing education and the education of more nurse educators Rights and responsibilities for... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • LPN to RN

    2 Nov 2009 | 10:32 am
    With RN programs impacted and waiting list growing, many are turning to LPN/LVN programs to get their nursing career started. Some will find that this is the part of nursing they love, and others... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Nurses Needed: The Nursing Shortage is NO Myth

    27 Oct 2009 | 11:25 am
    Recently, the PBS program NOW re-ran it's program on the nursing shortage. You might want to take a look. The recession may have slowed down the shortage temporarily, but the shortage is NO myth! For... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • From Uniforms to Unions and the H1N1 Vaccine Debate

    23 Oct 2009 | 12:08 pm
    A few tidbits of info... It seems New York State has rescinded its mandatory H1N1 flu shots for health care workers policy. With a shortage of flu vaccine, they have decided to prioritize who gets... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • YAZ/Yasmin Under Investigation from FDA

    16 Oct 2009 | 2:47 pm
    One of the points about health care reform is that the high cost of health care has to be contained. When companies and drug manufacturers mislead the lay public and health care professionals about... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
 
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