Nursing

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    PixelRN

  • My 2 tiny peeps are finally here!

    8 Nov 2009 | 8:35 pm
    See and download the full gallery on posterous Permalink | Leave a comment  »

  • 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…
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    Correctional Nurse . Net

  • Inmate Seizures – They Aren’t All Fake!

    Lorry Schoenly
    11 Nov 2009 | 8:22 am
    Correctional nurses can get jaded about treating inmate seizure disorders. After all, many perks can be claimed by those diagnosed with the condition including a coveted lower bunk and some real nifty medications. So, it would be easy to think that any inmate coming in with a history of seizures or appearing with seizure activity is merely faking it. Inmates Have More Seizures Around 1% of the US adult population will be diagnosed with a seizure disorder (1 in 100). In contrast, 4% of the US inmate population has a seizure disorder (1 in 25). That is a huge disparity and gives greater…

  • 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…
 
 
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    Nursing News

  • NYC FluLine and Free H1N1 Vaccinations

    21 Nov 2009 | 4:02 am
    New York City has just launched NYC FluLine , a free service to provide New Yorkers with medical advice regarding flu-like symptoms through 311.

  • Nurses answer swine flu questions on new hotline

    20 Nov 2009 | 11:48 pm
    These days, a simple fever raises questions: Do I have the H1N1 flu and if I do, should I go to the doctor? Before you rush to the clinic or hospital, there's a simple call you can make.

  • Web site offers Ill. hospital report cards

    20 Nov 2009 | 7:32 pm
    You can now look up information about Illinois hospitals on the Web. A collection of data, ranging from prices to the number of medical procedures they perform, goes online Thursday.

  • New Publication Offers Relief to Those Suffering from Pain and Other Distressing Symptoms of Illness

    20 Nov 2009 | 3:03 pm
    New Publication Offers Relief to Those Suffering from Pain and Other Distressing Symptoms of Illness The National Institute of Nursing Research Brochure Highlights the Benefits of Palliative Care Dealing with the symptoms of a serious illness is difficult.

  • The Hospital of the Future

    20 Nov 2009 | 10:43 am
    Technology is transforming the way the medical systems work. Michelle Andrews Premium Health News Service November 20, 2009 Katherine Thomas doesn't remember much about the 19 days she spent in the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital in Houston.
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    nurses - Google News

  • Visiting nurses will take more H1N1 appointments Monday - Ridgefield Press

    21 Nov 2009 | 3:08 am
    Visiting nurses will take more H1N1 appointments MondayRidgefield PressThe agency will take appointments Monday from 9 am to noon for a Tuesday Nov. 24 clinic from 5 pm to 7 pm at the Parks and Recreation Department and a and more »

  • Hot line puts flu info at fingertips | Nurses will answer questions about the ... - The Register-Guard

    21 Nov 2009 | 12:04 am
    KCBY.com 11Hot line puts flu info at fingertips | Nurses will answer questions about the The Register-GuardOregonians worried about whether they or a family member have H1N1 now can easily get in touch with a nurse to talk over their symptoms. State Unveils Flu Hot LineKPTV.comState unveils H1N1 phone hot lineThe Register-Guardall 9 news articles »

  • Efficiency expected at today's H1N1 clinics - Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

    21 Nov 2009 | 12:03 am
    Globe and MailEfficiency expected at today's H1N1 clinicsRochester Democrat and ChronicleAdditionally, those nurses will already have had the syringes filled as health officials work to make the clinics more efficient. Bay State flu 'crisis'Boston HeraldSwine flu diminishing, but not gone; seasonal flu on the horizonColorado Springs GazetteMilford plans swine flu clinic for kidsMilford Daily NewsNorthland's NewsCenter -News Channel 7 -Foxboro Reporterall 3,736 news articles »

  • Jackson nurses offer apology - MiamiHerald.com

    20 Nov 2009 | 8:54 pm
    Jackson nurses offer apologyMiamiHerald.comSeveral nurses offered personal apologies to a lesbian kept from seeing her dying partner in 2007 at Jackson Memorial Hospital. BY STEVE ROTHAUS Several Gay nurses at Jackson Memorial Hospital personally apologize to lesbian whose Tips-Q GLBT News (blog)Steve RothausMiamiHerald.comall 4 news articles »

  • Tehachapi Nurses Sharpen Their Skills - TurnTo23.com

    20 Nov 2009 | 4:50 pm
    Tehachapi Nurses Sharpen Their SkillsTurnTo23.comNearly 40 nurses that work in the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District got a refresher course during the hospital's annual Competency Skills Fair. and more »
 
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    Nursing / Midwifery News From Medical News Today

  • Respirators And H1N1 Information Distributed To Registered Nurses At Sacred Heart Medical Center Out Of Concern For Nurse And Patient Safety

    20 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am
    Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA), representing more than 1,600 registered nurses at Sacred Heart Medical Center, is holding a press conference to highlight serious concerns about the safety of nurses and patients at Sacred Heart Medical Center during this H1N1 pandemic.

  • Royal College Of Nursing Responds To The Queen's Speech, UK

    19 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am
    The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) responded to proposals for the forthcoming Parliamentary session, welcoming in particular the Government's commitment to provide free personal care to those with the greatest need.

  • More Beds Without Enough Nurses Doesn't Make Sense - Australian Nursing Federation

    19 Nov 2009 | 4:00 am
    The future care of vulnerable elderly residents in nursing homes rests on an increase in qualified staff - more people in beds without more nurses will equal chaos and misery. Australian Nursing Federation Federal Secretary Ged Kearney said recent threats by aged care providers who are demanding $500 million in Government funding to provide more places for residents needs to be balanced against the needs for more nurses and personal carers.

  • New Nursing Education Standards Address The Care Of People With Dementia

    19 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am
    The NMC has been addressing many of the issues raised in the Alzheimer's society report Counting the Cost: caring for people with dementia on hospital wards as part of our review of pre-registration nursing education. Our review, which recently highlighted the need for future nurses to be educated to degree level, will help to prepare them for the challenges of caring for people with dementia.

  • "Guided Care" Receives Award For Innovation In Practice Improvement

    19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Guided Care, a new model of comprehensive health care for people with multiple chronic conditions, has received the 2009 Medical Economics Award for Innovation in Practice Improvement from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) and Medical Economics magazine. Chad Boult, MD, MPH, MBA, principal investigator of the Guided Care study and director of the Roger C.
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    ALLNURSES: Nursing Articles

  • Society Needs Care Too

    leovineknight
    11 Nov 2009 | 1:08 pm
    Society Needs Care TooReplacing Patient-Centred Nursing with Society-Centred Nursing in Mental Health Care Settings Overview Patient-centred nursing care is problematic in mental health settings because it may lead to inward looking therapeutic activity, sick role development and inertia. Interventions may over-emphasise psychiatric and psychological issues at the expense of serious re-socialisation programmes, while an imbalance of service user rights and service user responsibilities may effectively disable the practitioner. For these reasons, rehabilitation often fails service users,…

  • 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 charge nurse told me as he…

  • Nurse Heal Thyself

    Lindsey McGraw
    1 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am
    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 the procedure entailed and with promised results being…

  • 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.
 
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    brainscramble.org

  • I will never forget you

    Caroline
    8 Nov 2009 | 4:31 pm
    In nursing, you learn to take the good with the bad. I’m starting to think there must be a lot of bad in this profession, because there sure is an awful lot of good. (Do I mean that the other way around?) I’m talking about the best part of my job. The days when you know you made a difference. The weeks when the continuity of care is absolutely perfect and seamless, and you see a guy from start to finish, from sickness to health. The days when they look in your eyes and say, completely genuinely, “I just talked to Jesus and he said to tell me is an angel standing in front of…

  • 27 going on 50.

    Caroline
    8 Nov 2009 | 4:19 pm
    It’s a damn good thing I didn’t post anything yesterday because it would have read something like this: I think I might have killed my patient with a gigantic wad of rookie mistakes. Calling my boss in the morning to quit. Considering a career change. Seriously. I was so overcome with the weight of this experience that I almost vomited on my way out of the hospital.  I then proceeded to sit in the parking lot and cry for 15 minutes. I then drove home, sat in the garage and cried some more, at which point I went upstairs to bed, cried some more, had my husband talk me down, went…

  • 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…
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    impactednurse

  • exploring nursing craftwork.

    impactEDnurse
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:55 pm
    Nursing has always suffered from a bit of an inferiority complex. As science and technology (and eventually bureaucracy) wrapped their tendrils into the developing health system, nursing became more uncomfortable. It took a look at what it did and couldn’t quite put its finger on what that was. There was never any doubt in its importance. Everyone seemed to appreciate that. But when the profession looked at what a nurse did it just didn’t seem to be enough. Nursing was a profession that just didn’t seem…well…. professional. So it looked lustfully at how doctors had…

  • reflections on a skanky ho.

    impactEDnurse
    16 Nov 2009 | 10:39 pm
    A few months back I heard a new word that I liked the sound of. The word was skanky. And like a kid with a new toy I would pull  it out of my voice box to muck around with, in  an annoying repetitiveness that drove Kelly crazy. “How long has that lettuce been in the fridge? It’s looking a little skanky”, and “Smudge have you just dropped one? You skanky dog!”, and “ …this is one skanky shift”. Flipping its meaning, I would throw it out there to describe a little awesomeness. “ That movie was skank!” or “ Thanks for your help during the shift…you were…

  • mindfulness training for medical staff.

    impactEDnurse
    15 Nov 2009 | 11:43 pm
    Mindfulness: the quality of being fully present and attentive in the moment during everyday activities. Despite our best intentions, the health system can oftentimes slide into a dehumanising experience for healthcare workers. The overwhelming waves of white-cap workloads, chronic stress levels, and compassion fatigue can converge to sweep the feet from under the most experienced practitioner, leaving them flailing. We often forget that to look after our patients, we need first to look after ourselves. One strategy that is gaining increasing credibility in mainstream medicine is the use of…

  • a nasty accident.

    impactEDnurse
    14 Nov 2009 | 9:55 pm
    Not being too keen on trauma porn1, and being an avid scooter commuter, I was a little distressed to be sent what might be the most intestinally expunging scooter accident in history. Was this some sort of mass casualty head on high speed collision? Did some poor scooter rider hit a giant kangaroo? Turns out the actual story is a little more bizarre: A 56-foot, 60-ton sperm whale died on a beach in Taiwan in January, 2004. Researchers wanted the carcass to perform an autopsy and for research, so they loaded the whale onto a tractor-trailer and set out through the city of Tainan, heading for…

  • motivational speech.

    impactEDnurse
    14 Nov 2009 | 1:59 am
    One of those days where your care factor equals zero and the last thing you can stomach is an eleven out of ten, in your face, out of control, short staffed, vomit encrusted, urine soaked, cataclysmic, calamitous, buzzer infested, cold coffee,  stress soup of a shift? Well what you need is a little motivational speech. Actually….Hell no, what you need is a BIG motivational speech. Here it is. Now get out there and make a difference to peoples lives. Seize the day..for we are lions.
 
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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

  • Nurse wants to "kill" Happy Hospitalist

    Nurse K
    20 Nov 2009 | 3:40 pm
    Sorry, but this shit is too good to pass up:I'm concerned about an encounter I had with a nurse the other day. So much so that I'm considering contacting the authorities for protection. Could this be the beginning of a sweeping epidemic of nurse violence against doctors?So, I'm thinking, oh shit, dood is going to call the cops for a restraining order. Maybe a nurse punched him, went to town on

  • Don't make me have to GPS your ass to find out what's wrong with my patient

    Nurse K
    18 Nov 2009 | 8:51 am
    Hi, ER docs of the world! It's me, Nurse K. Good to see ya, how's your service going? Lots of volume? Bonus good this year? Staffing issues have a solid plan in place for resolution? Good payer mix? That's good to hear.Okay, now that we've broken the ice, lemme bridge a little concern we all have here in the ER. Why the Hell do you think that we wouldn't be interested in things like, oh,

  • Eyeball FAIL

    Nurse K
    17 Nov 2009 | 10:29 pm
    Charge: There's a dood with some unspecified allergic reaction coming in with a history of COPD. I'll eyeball him, and if he doesn't look too bad, he can go to your [tiny as a premature baby's gonads] room, and if he looks crappy, we'll keep him here in [the really well-equipped huge resuscitation room meant for sick people].Me: Mmm-kay.Later, somedood comes rolling in via stretcher, and I can

  • This even cracked the doctor up...

    Nurse K
    17 Nov 2009 | 4:01 am
    Gay locum doc: OKAYYYY, here's the plan, we're going to thend you to the county detox facility to thober up!Drunk chick: Oh, Hell no, you penis-fucker, you! I'm not going there!

  • Here's a pen and paper and a stamp

    Nurse K
    16 Nov 2009 | 10:27 am
    Me: Yo, how you doin' up in here? Everything kosher? Gotta try to keep the f-bombs and shit to a minimum...Belligerent Drunk (yelling): Man, what the fuck shit is this? Can I smoke me some medical marijuana? THEN maybe I'll calm down!! Me: Uh, no we don't have medical marijuana. You just need to keep your voice down, mm-kay?Belligerent Drunk: What? That's bullshit! I'm totally writing my
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    crzegrl, flight nurse

  • Grand Rounds Vol 6. No. 7

    Emily
    10 Nov 2009 | 3:02 am
    Hello and welcome to this edition of Grand Rounds! As I contemplated the possibilities for a cheeky theme and racked my brains for something pithy or unique, my thoughts consistently fell on the fact that tomorrow is Veterans Day in the United States. Veterans Day is simply a day off for some. For others it is a day in which we take the opportunity to show those, who sacrificed greatly for the freedoms we enjoy, appreciation. Tomb of the Unknowns Arlington National Cemetery Photo Credit: Emily McGee What does this have to do with an international edition of a medical carnival? Without Freedom…

  • 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…
 
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    Digital Doorway

  • Recovering From the Shock Of Suicide

    Keith, RN
    17 Nov 2009 | 2:47 pm
    Losing a close friend to suicide is like having the fabric of one's life torn open without warning. It is a shocking loss, a bitter and horrific loss. What could be more disruptive to the normal trajectory of life?Having lost a friend to homicide (by police) in 2001 and now a friend to suicide in 2009, there is a continuum of grief and mourning along which I continue to travel. Ironically, it is only quite recently that I feel I've made significant progress in accepting and coming to terms with my friend's 2001 murder, so perhaps I have been handed this newest challenge in order to further…

  • The Dance of Sudden Loss and Grief

    Keith, RN
    14 Nov 2009 | 4:49 pm
    Today I am reeling from devastating news of the sudden and tragic death of a very dear friend. Death frequently seems to visit when least expected, and this lack of ability to prepare for loss is one of the factors that can make it so difficult to cope when death pays a call.Eight years ago, another dear friend died unjustly at the hands of the police, followed by the death of my great-aunt, my beloved dog, and my step-father. Digesting this recent history, one of my personal themes for the majority of the last decade has been recovery from grief and traumatic loss.Now with another friend…

  • What Next?

    Keith, RN
    11 Nov 2009 | 7:02 pm
    Being on the road, not working and simply traveling, I wonder what will become of my identity as a nurse and a health care provider. While I still introduce myself as a nurse, I begin to wonder to myself just what that means exactly. Am I a nurse because I think like one? Is it the tattered license in my wallet? Or is it the fourteen years of experience that simply make it so? Is my "nurseness" still intact when on sabbatical, or does it take a back seat to my basic humanity?These days of living on the road with my wife and dog as peripatetic travelers is beginning to challenge even my own…

  • When Calamity Strikes

    Keith, RN
    6 Nov 2009 | 3:33 pm
    Well, experience demonstrates again and again that even when one is "off duty" as a nurse or medical professional, one's training can kick into gear at any moment.Today, I was placidly sitting in my cousin's living room with my laptop. Knowing that there were several roofers crawling around above our heads, some modicum of loud sounds was not unexpected. However, when a series of crashes occurred in a space of several seconds, I looked up to witness a body falling rapidly through space towards the ground past the window opposite the couch where I was seated.With my wife yelling for help and…

  • 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…
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    Emergiblog

  • It Matters Where You Live

    Kim
    18 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pm
    I never read this Cherry Ames book. It couldn’t possibly be as interesting as working in a hospital! Nurses were supposed to work in hospitals! Where they would wear their cap! Why on earth would you want to do anything without your cap? Back in 1966 it was the sole reason I was planning nursing school! (Cut me some slack, I was nine.) Today, I am in the midst of studying public health. Yes, there is life outside the hospital. But there was never a “Cherry Ames, Public Health Nurse”. Or so I thought. I was wrong. This is it. Here is the quote from Amazon.com: Cherry, the…

  • Domestic Violence – Did I Miss You?

    Kim
    9 Nov 2009 | 12:07 am
    Apparently once you remember that tuberculosis is spread by spitting… You are then allowed to spit. Reminds me of an incident. Elderly lady. Elegant, actually. Didn’t speak English. Smiled at everyone she passed. She smiled at me. Just before turning her head, clearing her throat and spitting three feet across the hallway. Then she smiled and continued down to her husband’s room. I didn’t take it personally. I did, however, feel my jaw hit the floor… (Postcard courtesy of Michael Zwerdling, RN of the Zwerdling Nursing Archives.) Emily over at crzegrl.net really…

  • 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…
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    Head Nurse

  • I was looking for the perfect spacer post and found it at Movin' Meat:

    Jo
    17 Nov 2009 | 4:52 pm
    I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.This will make the most sense to rabid xkcd fans like myself. I'm pleased that they included the "Hammertime" comic, which was my first exposure to the strip and remains one of my favoritest ever.

  • As my pal Mazen says from time to time,

    Jo
    16 Nov 2009 | 6:33 pm
    "Deez? Eez bool-cheat."Yes, it is. It is indeed bool-cheat.I fear my gallbladder is on the fritz. (Slightly used, low-mileage gallbladder: anybody got one?) After my twice-monthly cheezburger last week (nom nom nom nom), I was down for two days with abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, a low-grade temp, and other things you really don't want to hear about. Since then, my right upper abdominal quadrant has hurt like a son of a bitch, and I really don't have a lot of appetite.Friends came over last night for homemade bread, beef stew, and apple crisp, and I didn't want any of it. That, my friends,…

  • Tales from the CVCCU

    Jo
    15 Nov 2009 | 2:10 pm
    As part of our training, we interns have to go to the cardiovascular CCU at Holy Kamole. They deal with things there that, thank Frog, I will never have to see. Bone-marrow transplants gone wrong I can handle; neurological disorders hold no sway in my nightmares. But heart and lung and kidney and what-have-you transplants? Are the stuff of horrid, horrid dreams. I am meant to do a thorough neuro exam every hour. I am meant to understand dermatomes, Brown-Sequard syndrome, and incomplete cord transections. I am not meant to handle eight vasopressor drips on one patient.So it was with fear and…

  • Sunday Sublime

    Jo
    15 Nov 2009 | 8:02 am

  • Somebody snuck a camera into the CCU.

    Jo
    15 Nov 2009 | 4:48 am
    Because this is, to the last detail, how we spend our days.I'm the one in pink.
 
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    It shouldn't happen in health care

  • H1N1…to jab or not to jab…that is the question?

    Max E Nurse
    16 Nov 2009 | 4:59 am
    It’s crunch time…the H1N1 jabs are here. We were one of the last places to receive the first batch. Patients and staff are approaching me, asking whether they should have one or not.   My instinct is to shirk the issue and hide under my couch, but alas I can not do that. Everyone asks me all the questions, and I can give the answers to all but one….”Are you going to have the jab?”  So lets answer that now…. I virtually hang out with a few conspiracy theorists who tell me that the jab is a government ploy, or that the jab itself has been rushed through…

  • 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…
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    Not Nurse Ratched

  • Moving along in the ER

    notratched
    15 Nov 2009 | 10:40 pm
    I’m slowly bouncing back from H1N1 and trying to get into some kind of a groove. That flu just kicked my ass. I was actively sick for about 3 weeks and am now still kind of weak. Still, I was able to return for three hard nights in a row and keep my energy up (it was only after that that I slept like a stone). I’m trying to be an unusual nurse and, you know, take care of myself. My orientation obviously was disrupted by my not going to work for weeks, so I still have another three shifts’ worth. At this point my preceptor is trying with various degrees of success to sit on…

  • 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…
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    The Nurse Practitioner's Place

  • Nurse Practitioner's Response to The American Spectator's View Of The New House Health Care Bill

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    11 Nov 2009 | 3:09 pm
    Below is Peter Ferrara's opinion of the Health Care Reform Bill that is being considered. I am offended by two points that he makes while referencing health care providers. Read and then go to below to see what I was having a problem with.. One confusion arising from the House bill is that its provisions are phased in over several years. Over the first 10 years of full operation, the House bill actually cuts Medicare by $800 billion, as scored by CBO. The cuts for Medicare Advantage plans will be close to $200 billion, and despite President Obama's phony shtick that if you like your health…

  • Happy Nurse Practitioner's Week

    Nurse Practitioners Save Lives
    8 Nov 2009 | 11:01 am
    Once again it's Nurse Practitioner's week. Please take some time and visit your favorite NP and let them know just how much you appreciate their hard work and time taking care of you and yours. Also, stop by and leave a nice comment on your favorite NP's blogsite. They'll love it!

  • 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…
 
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    Nurse Ratched's Place

  • Listen to Your Doctor, Uncle Sam

    Mother Jones, RN
    16 Nov 2009 | 7:10 pm
    Dear Uncle Sam: I know it’s been a rough week. I’m sure you’re grieving the lost of life at Fort Hood just like the rest of us, but I’m compelled to write you this letter. I hope you take it in the spirit in which it is meant. I read an article at Salon.com today that made me wonder about your judgement. Since when did you stop listening to your doctors? The article was about Dr. Kernan Manion, a psychiatrist who wanted to help troops before they went postal on military bases. Uncle Sam, Dr. Manion use to work for you at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Then he got fired.

  • 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
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    REBIRTH

  • Days Off

    Labor Nurse, CNM
    8 Nov 2009 | 1:35 pm
    I have been finding my days off, be it a true day off or post call day, go by so quickly that they aren't enough. I feel the need to sleep in late, yet if I do I feel like I've cut off so much of my time off. I dread the sun going down and the need to start dinner because it means the day is coming to a close.I fantasize about having chosen a different path in life. Like, had I stuck to writing

  • 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
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    RehabRN

  • Nuggets for November 19

    RehabNurse
    19 Nov 2009 | 8:50 am
    Theoretically, I'd like to post these weekly on the same day, but darn it, if something doesn't pop up and distract me!Anyway, here are a few of the goodies I've been saving all week to share with you. Enjoy this pre-Thanksgiving feast! It's calorie-free!News of notePregnancy outcomes good for MS patients (from www.reuters.com)Some of my people are really going to like this one. Overall, MS seems to get better in a lot of women while pregnant.On another MS note, I found this interesting blog called Fingolimod and Me by a woman who's participating in a drug trial for fingolimod, aka FTY720. I…

  • When's my next vacation?

    RehabNurse
    19 Nov 2009 | 8:14 am
    I started thinking that after a hard day of lifting the other day. I really enjoy my job, which I could think about at home, sitting on the couch, reading a book in between the work I assigned myself to do at home. Boy, moving is hard work!The hotel at Madison is nearing capacity. We're running out of room. People are coming in because the holidays are popular. Lots of volunteers visit us and drop off goodies. Some of our regulars have this routine figured out pretty well.On top of that, I'm finishing my grad class...slowly but surely. I'm hoping my funding for next semester doesn't go away…

  • One down, one to go

    RehabNurse
    14 Nov 2009 | 7:15 am
    One online course is complete. Hooray!Now it's just wait and see for the other one. Lots and lots of stuff going on this weekend and then they idyll is broken. Back to work...

  • Nuggets for November 11

    RehabNurse
    11 Nov 2009 | 6:07 am
    So many goodies, so little time. For those of you who take care of America's veterans and active service personnel, this one's for YOU! If you want to learn more about military nursing traditions, check out this great page at medi-smart.com for a list of varied websites, from oral histories of military nurses in Vietnam to other military nurse resources.I still can't get over what happened at Fort Hood. One of my coworkers recently lived there. I am still thanking the Big Man for the civilian police officer who took down the shooter. I was working at Madison when I read Nurse Ratched's…

  • One card

    RehabNurse
    11 Nov 2009 | 6:02 am
    He opened it, and one line made the difference:"Thank you for your service."To all veterans today, I say thank you, too. Look around you, there are probably more veterans than you think. Some World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Cold War veterans, too, who stood watch, on the fronts of barriers and demilitarized zones, in the air, and in oceans deep, to keep us all safe.
 
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    Travel Nursing Blog

  • There’s no time like the presesnt?

    Jeff
    20 Nov 2009 | 7:11 am
    As Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years approach a lot of travel nurses find themselves between assignment this time of year and they tend to want to put off finding a new travel nursing job until after the holidays are over. Who can blame you, really? You don’t want to end up being the new kid on the block and getting scheduled to work any of those days by taking a new travel nursing job during the holiday season. And with all the fun holiday traditions going on and the countless gifts you want to buy people, this is not the time of year you want to be on the phone with recruiters,…

  • Ask a Travel Nurse: Should I sell my home to be a travel nurse?

    Jeff
    18 Nov 2009 | 7:39 am
    A reader recently asked my advice on whether or not to sell her home to travel. She wanted to know which would be better, keeping her home for the tax implications, or renting an apartment and using it to maintain a “tax home”. The answer to her question depended on many specifics. If looking at it from a strictly monetary point of view, (as in, which would be cheaper?), then we can take a look at the following example: Let’s say that your mortgage was $900 a month, but to rent an apartment and use that as your “tax home”, it would only cost you $600 a month. Sure, you…

  • Scrubs Magazine is now in prin…

    Jeff
    18 Nov 2009 | 7:16 am
    Scrubs Magazine is now in print. Use their zip code tool to find where to get it during your next travel nursing job. http://bit.ly/W93CL Related posts:Cool new magazine for nurses If you have ever wanted a magazine for nurses that...What are your thoughts on scru… What are your thoughts on scrubs? Cute or solid? Characters...Packing for your travel nursing job Packing for a travel nursing job is an unique challenge.... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

  • Travel nursing has changed in …

    Jeff
    18 Nov 2009 | 7:10 am
    Travel nursing has changed in the last year, but what about the future? Where do you see it going? http://bit.ly/UuyWB Related posts:Ask a Travel Nurse: Will a hospital take a first time traveler? A recent question involved whether or not a hospital would...Ask a Travel Nurse: What happens to travel nurses when hospital decides to stop working with their travel nursing agency? In keeping up with the travel industry, this week I... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

  • Featured Travel Nursing Pediatrics RN Job in Colorado

    Jeff
    17 Nov 2009 | 7:49 am
    Great Hospital in Colorado Springs is looking for some help in their Peds Unit. They need 2 travelers to work a variety of shifts on these 13 week assignments. Please contact Medical Solutions at (866) 633-3548 with any interest in these positions. Click here to learn more about this travel nursing job. Related posts:Featured Travel Nursing ICU RN Job in Texas Great TX hospital in a San Antonio suburb is...Featured Travel Nursing Pediatric RN Job in California Hospital in LA is currently looking for two experienced...Featured Travel Nursing ER RN Job in Massachusetts Great hospital in MA is…
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    phil baumann online

  • How to Make Health Care Remarkable – the @ePatientDave Interview

    Phil Baumann
    12 Nov 2009 | 10:21 am
    Dave deBronkart is a Freedom Fighter. In 2007, Dave battled metastatic cancer and emerged a passionate advocate for leveraging the Web to connect patients with the content and support and inspiration they need to cope with the human consequences of disease. The Web has brought forth new ways of connecting the world and brings with it questions and answers about how to safely and effectively extend the power of health care from face-to-face meetings to remote but important regions of human experience. It’s important for us to understand the integrative nature of health care: no single…

  • An Interview of @EndreJofoldi of HealthMash

    Phil Baumann
    11 Nov 2009 | 10:44 am
    The Web abounds with health care information (good, bad, ugly). In fact, for all practical purposes we have an infinite abundance of content on the web. And this abundance has produced a scarcity of meaning, relevance and reliability. So any attempts to provide searchers of content are welcome efforts. THE WORLD WIDE HEALTH WEB HealthMash is one of the newer search engines for health care content and media by a team from Hungary and the US. HealthMash returns an array of finds and displays them within categories. Here in the US, most of the Web products that receive the most attention come…

  • An Interview with #hcsm Founder @danamlewis

    Phil Baumann
    10 Nov 2009 | 11:17 am
    In the last 18 or so months since I blogged about health care and social media from a nurse’s perspective, I’ve seen a jump in interest in how we can mashup healthcare and the Web. Every new territory needs its leaders. One such leader is my friend Dana Lewis who founded a Twitter chat focused on social media in health care communications. The chat is called Healthcare Social Media and uses the hashtag #hcsm to rally participants in a weekly conversation Sundays at 8:00pm Central. She recently won the 2009 Excellence in New Communications Award from the Society for New…

  • 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…
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    Lost on the Floor

  • A Good Place to Die?

    Wanderer
    17 Nov 2009 | 7:46 pm
    Why This Wisconsin City Is The Best Place To Die : NPR. The result of all this attention is that nearly all adults who die in La Crosse, 96 percent of them, die with a completed advance directive. That’s by far the highest rate in the country. Note this doesn’t say that these folks died without care, it doesn’t even mention what those advanced directives are.  It doesn’t matter, it’s that these folks have had the opportunity to explore their desires and wishes about how to proceed at the end of their lives.  And it is done before the end is nigh, giving folks…

  • The Least of Your Worries

    Wanderer
    11 Nov 2009 | 10:58 am
    If you have end-stage cancer, and it’s incurable with whole body involvement, you’re in pain and don’t realistically have much time left, one would think it is time to consider hospice, palliative care or using medications like opiates to help you live out the rest of your days in some semblance of comfort.  Declining medications to quell the pain as you are worried about addiction is, in the light of everything else, seems kind of silly.  Worrying about being addicted to opiates is really the least of your worries. Your cancer is going to kill you before you become…

  • A Little Bit of Sunshine

    Wanderer
    9 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am
    Every now and then I run into a patient that reminds me why I do this job.  It’s not the ones that we save, the ones we see over and over again, the ones who are generally pleasant, polite and just nice, but one who manages to touch that part of you that lives behind the wall that so many of us put up to stay detached and uninvolved.  That remove becomes so ingrained that it is a reflex.  So often we shy away from letting our patients too close for fear that something untoward might happen.  Maintaining our professional distance is a survival tactic in our increasingly chaotic work…

  • 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…
 
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    Miss-Elaine-ious RN

  • Random suggestion:

    miss-elaine-ious
    14 Nov 2009 | 9:34 pm
    If you buy a ring because it’s cool, and buy it a bit snug, and not realize that the metal used is one of the hardest metals out there, DO NOT PUT IT ON YOUR FINGER. Buy a bigger size. Seriously. We needed 3 pairs of ring clippers to get that stupid thing off you.

  • Crying

    miss-elaine-ious
    12 Nov 2009 | 8:01 pm
    I am a sucker for animal commercials, commercials from a telecommunications company that has a man at Vimy ridge call his grandfather, or movies with an old man longing to take adventures with his wife and flies his balloon house with an annoying boy scout. Oh and girlie sappy movies. I cry like a baby to the point that my fiance brings extra napkins “just in case”. I do not cry at work. Have never even been tempted- even when I’m overwhelmed. I have seen numerous people die, families crying, bad things happen, but I don’t cry. Internally I feel bad for the family, but I have never…

  • H1N1 otherwise known as HINI (hi-nee)

    miss-elaine-ious
    11 Nov 2009 | 11:25 pm
    I'm about a month late with this post as everyone has already posted but here I go.H1N1 Flu has taken over my hospital. Between the politics of who gets the shot first, of whom is on influenza-type precautions and whom is not, and then the people storming the waiting room with a cough, it is driving me bananas.Some are, in fact, very sick. And as typical with Emergency Departments* with the 'flu we don't really know if their respiratory distress is actually from Influenza, or if it's bacterial. Oftentimes it's both: a secondary infection with the primary immunosupression from the "Hi-nee".

  • Go nurse go

    miss-elaine-ious
    20 Sep 2009 | 8:33 pm
    http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2009/09/grass_lake_college_students_st.html

  • Small rant.

    miss-elaine-ious
    17 Sep 2009 | 1:35 pm
    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/09/17/mb-body-bags-butler-jones-manitoba.html?ref=rssShipping body bags to First Nations reserves isn't a crime, people die there too and health care workers need proper materials to prepare the body. Sending them in larger numbers along with influenza supplies... I can understand the upset, but come on people.Were they to ship all other supplies at a different time? We'd be complaining about Health Canada wasting resources next. I highly doubt that the people of Health Canada were thinking: "Wow it's a First Nation community, we aren't going to…
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    This won't hurt a bit

  • I'm not sure who's running the show these days

    18 Nov 2009 | 3:35 pm
    Apparently Bobby has been taking lessons from The Donald. Monday he told me I was fired. I'm going to blame that one on my husband. No he's not an Apprentice watcher, but he has a habit of saying "Fired" when someone makes a mistake. Since I am shouldering the blame for the "what the fuck," incident, I think fair's fair. Everyone at work that I've told that story is surprised. You curse regularly? Really? I guess I have become good at suppressing the sailor talk. Just not around my impressionable toddler. Anyway, I was fired for daring to take away the crayons he was using to decorate the…

  • SNAG

    13 Nov 2009 | 3:19 pm
    Where did our society get the idea that guys needed to be all stoic-like, hiding any sign of emotions away? We even have a derisive acronym for guys who are too in tune with their feelings - The Sensitive New Age Guy. Clearly that message has not reached my rough and tumble little man. Yes, there are times when he doesn't want kisses from mommy and will scrub them from his cheeks.. But usually, he is a little cuddle bug. When he is not throwing his cars at the cats or trying to scale the furniture, he is happiest sitting in my lap, with my arms wrapped around him. He has voluntarily, and…

  • Night on the town

    8 Nov 2009 | 3:18 pm
    You know how sometimes you get yourself all excited and worked up about some upcoming event, and then the actual event can't meet exceptions? I was a little worried that I was going to experience something of the sort this past week. John Cleese, one of my favorite comedic actors of all times, was putting on a live show, and we were going. As a date. With dinner before hand. No toddler. I had been looking forward to this for 2 months, when I first saw the advertisement in the paper. I had the tickets purchased before I was over my disbelief that this was real. And, I was concerned that the…

  • 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.
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    RealityRN

  • Student Nurse Charting

    admin
    11 Nov 2009 | 1:17 pm
    We have recently had to stop student nurses from charting their assessments on the computer. There was discussion about whether or not the student’s charting could be used against an RN in a court of law if the assessments did not agree. There was also discussion about the RN who signed off on the student’s charting be liable for that assessment when we felt the RN was only acknowledging that the student did chart. Anyone else have this problem? lrs

  • how should we reward seniority among nurses

    admin
    7 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pm
    We are having a bit of an issue on our unit between the “old” nurses and the “new” ones. Or, as our people put it, the senior vs the junior nurses. Sounds suspiciously like high school to me. The nurses with the most seniority feel they should get the best shifts, the most and first choice vacations, less call time and less weekend time. They are convinced they have earned these benefits, they are entitled to them, they should get them at the expense of everyone else, and all of the “new” or “junior” nurses should have to “pay their…

  • Nursing Infographic

    admin
    4 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am
    Hey All, I am a graphic designer (not a nurse) and I recently created this infographic about nurses and what they do. It deals with wages, demographics, the shortage and other relevant stuff. http://nursingschool.org/nurses-by-the-numbers/ I just wanted to share with you all. Thanks!

  • 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…
 
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    Adventures of GuitarGirl RN

  • Your Private Doctor

    GuitarGirlRN
    9 Nov 2009 | 6:28 am
    Your private doctor does not work down here in the ED. He is probably not going to see you here. He didn't call to "reserve" you a bed. Your doctor can't call here and "order" someone to see you right away.Also, all the specialists in the world don't work here either. Blowing off your dermatologist appointment to come here and get your weird rash checked out because you "just want to get to the bottom of this" was probably not a great idea, since we're just going to send you to the dermatologist anyway.

  • 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…
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    Pinoy R.N.

  • Room Assignment for November 2009 Nurse Licensure Examination (MANILA)

    Lyle, RN
    19 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am
    School and room assignments for the November 2009 Nurse Licensure Examination are now available for nursing examinees in Manila.The nursing board exam testing centers are classified into two: Complete and Removal.Room Assignments for November 2009 Nurse Licensure Examination - COMPLETE Room Assignments for November 2009 Nurse Licensure Examination - REMOVAL Examinees are reminded to use the same name in all examination forms. If there is an error on spelling, examinees must request the room watcher(s) to correct it.PRC Room assignments for other cities such as Lucena, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo,…

  • November 2009 Nursing Board Exam PRC Room Assignments for Baguio and San Fernando, La Union

    Lyle, RN
    14 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm
    The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) - Baguio Regional Office has made available the school and room assignments of examinees in Baguio and San Fernando, La Union for the Nurse Licensure Examination scheduled on November 29-30, 2009.NLE November 2009 (Baguio) NLE November 2009 (La Union) Examinees are advised to take note of the following:Follow the APPLICATION NUMBER posted on the list.Any corrections pertaining to your NAME and/or DATE OF BIRTH only, kindly call (074) 304-3180 and ask for Mr. Billy Pablo.NOTE:Other updates such as PRC room assignments for other areas, last-minute…

  • Basic Test Taking Strategies for the November 2009 Nursing Board Exam

    Lyle, RN
    11 Nov 2009 | 12:01 pm
    With a few weeks left before the nursing board exams, here are a few practical tips for our future nurse colleagues. This is part of Pinoy R.N.'s continuing commitment to assist examinees prepare for the November 2009 Nursing Board Exam. These tips may be basic but has proven to be very useful test-taking techniques:Cover the choices when reading the question. This way, your thought process will not be influenced by the choices.Before looking at the choices, try formulating your answer then look at the available choices. Choose the choice closest to your own answer.Always read all of the…

  • 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…
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    PHILIPPINE NURSING BULLETIN

  • Blood Products and Transfusions Mini-Trivia

    admin
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:46 am
    Blood Products and Transfusions Mini-Trivia What blood products are measured when checking a complete blood count (CBC)? White blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, platelets, red blood cells What is the problem with using FFP in patients on Coumadin? It will reverse the anticoagulation quickly; however, it is more difficult to get the patient back to a therapeutic level. What else can [...]

  • Fat-Soluble Vitamins mini-trivia

    admin
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:37 am
    Name the fat-soluble vitamins. D, E, A, K (DEAK) Where are the fat-soluble vitamins absorbed? In the terminal ileum Where is vitamin B12absorbed? In the terminal ileum What must bind B12in order for it to be absorbed? Intrinsic factor Where is intrinsic factor produced? It is produced by the gastric parietal cells. What are the vitamin K-dependent clotting factors? Factors 2, 7, 9, 10 ©2009 nursingbulletin.com: One-stop [...]

  • Causes of Hypercalcemia (MNEMONICS)

    admin
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am
    MNEMONICS ANYONE? What are the causes for hypercalcemia? CHIMPANZEES: Calcium supplementation Hyperparathyroidism Iatrogenic Milk alkali syndrome Paget disease Addison disease Neoplasm Zollinger-Ellison syndrome Excess vitamin A Excess vitamin D Sarcoidosis ©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

  • ABRUPTIO PLACENTA

    admin
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:21 am
     ABRUPTIO PLACENTA: Premature separation of otherwise normally implanted placenta. SYNONYMS Placental abruption Premature separation of the placenta Couvelaire placenta Sher’s grades: 1: Minimal or no bleeding; detected as retroplacental clot after delivery of viable fetus 2: Viable fetus with bleeding and tender irritable uterus 3: Type A with dead fetus and no coagulopathy; type B with dead fetus and coagulopathy (about 30% of grade [...]

  • Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

    admin
    20 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am
    Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis:A  degenerative disease (or group of diseases) which affects the upper and lower motor neurons. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: the term applied to the sporadic and most common form of the disease. Includes a number of overlapping syndromes such as pseudobulbar palsy, progressive bulbar palsy, progressive muscular atrophy and primary lateral sclerosis. Familial ALS: an autosomal [...]
 
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    Nursing Ideas

  • Marla Salmon – Nursing an Entire Nation

    rdjfraser
    19 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm
    Marla E Salmon ScD, RN, FAAN Dean & Professor – University of Washington School of Nursing A conversation with Marla Salmon ScD RN FAAN, current Dean and Professor at the University of Washington and former Chief Nurse of the United States of America. We discuss her experience working with Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and her career moving from patient to nation care. This interview was a fun and candid conversation that was made possible thanks to the kind introduction by Carla Hall and Jane Palmer from Sigma Theta Tau International, both of whom were the first live audience for…

  • Irmajean Bajnok Sharing Nursing Best Practice Around the World

    rdjfraser
    11 Nov 2009 | 12:19 pm
    Irmajean Bajnok RN PhD Director of International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines – Registered Nurses Association of Ontario Sitting down with Irmajean Bajnok we discuss her experience and how she came to be Director of the IA-BPG. We talk about how the BPG came to be but also about how she hopes that they are able to support nurses in the workplace and create a health work environment for them to practice in. Recently the RNAO won the an award from Sigma Theta Tau International, for Practice Academe Innovation Collaboration, below I posted a short video I took in Indianapolis of…

  • 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…
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    Nurse.com News

  • DNP Option Keeps Nurses Focused on Bedside Care

    To provide expert evidence-based nursing care across diverse settings and systems, the Doctor of Nursing Practice, or DNP, has become more popular among nurses in New York and New Jersey.

  • Daily News: IHA Poster Submission Deadline Set

    The Institute for Healthcare Advancement is inviting nurses and other healthcare professionals to submit poster presentations about health literacy by Feb. 26 for its 2010 conference, which is scheduled for May 6-7 in Irvine, Calif. The conference?s theme is ?Health Literacy in the Real World: Programs and Solutions That Work.? Applications can be submitted online by logging on to www.iha4health.org.

  • SPECIAL COVERAGE: H1N1 Influenza News

    Visit us here periodically for summaries of H1N1 flu news.

  • Opinion: RNs Teach While Providing Care

    All nurses grow into teachers, whether formally or informally, because teaching is woven into every aspect of what we do.

  • Army Nurses Brave Afghanistan?s Combat Zones

    ?I am counting down the last 10 days or so until I go home. I can?t wait. It?s been a blessing to serve, but this six months has been hard. Just lask week a medic I trained was my patient, and another medic I knew was shot in the head and died. I need some time to reflect and be with my family.? ? Michelle Racicot, Aug. 16, 2009
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    Nurse Practioners in Business

  • Breaking the Rules

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    16 Nov 2009 | 4:47 pm
    For many Nurse Practitioners, breaking the rules is something new. We have been educated and trained that we need to follow the rules. Granted, there are rules that are there for our protection as well as for the healthcare consumer’s protection. There are rules about safe medication administration, privacy rules, infection control rules, and unspoken rules about what to do when we don’t know something. There are rules that society puts into place for the good of society. We have rules about what it is to be honest and kind to others. And there are consequences when we take from…

  • NP Interview: Susan Scanland, MSN, CRNP

    Barbara C. Phillips, NP
    8 Nov 2009 | 10:32 am
    Join me as we speak with Susan Scanland, MSN, CRNP.  She is the CEO and founder of Dementia Connection LLC (formerly known as GeriScan) provides geriatric education to health care providers and health consumers. She has provided over 500 geriatric presentations in 40 states and is a published author. If you are at all interested in, or work with geriatric clients, you have likely come across her monthly newsletter which goes out to nearly 10,000 health care providers. Join us on Sunday November 15th at 5pm Pacific to as we talk with Susan about her 10 years in business, how she has seen the…

  • 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…
 
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    NurseConnect.com General Nursing and Career Blog

  • Another Nursing Lesson Learned

    Someone asked me for a blue pen at work the other day. I responded by handing over a pretty blue ballpoint from my scrub pocket. She shook her head. “Not a blue pen! A pen that dispenses blue ink.” Alas, my pens only write in black. The other nurses couldn’t help but ask, “Why in the world do you need to write in blue ink?” I didn’t hear her answer.   Like pencils and plastic spoons, blue ink pens are a rarity on my unit, and with good reason. After the demise of Kardexes, most of us stopped carrying pencils. And, since we sign everything in black ink, why bother to carry any…

  • Nurses Cast Long Shadows

    Are you brand new to nursing, comfortably experienced, or a seasoned bedside warrior? In any case, as a professional nurse you inevitably cast a long and significant shadow. Your daily efforts affect patients, family members, colleagues and the general public.   Some nurses choose to expand their sphere of influence by inviting other medical professionals to “shadow” them in their work. It’s hardly unusual for nurses to mentor nursing students or newly hired nurses; but, if your facility permits this type of mentoring, why not ask if you can extend this invitation to include other…

  • Do you feel safe at work?

    Workplace violence is on forefront of many minds today, as details unfold around last week’s devastating attack in Texas. Our hearts go out to the victims and their loved ones and to everyone affected by this horrific event. As we attempt to process this shocking news, many of us find ourselves paying closer attention to our own work environments, and to the places where friends and family report to work.   While this incident is painfully fresh, the concern is not new. Workplace violence has been an increasing public concern for several years. And, healthcare environments are…

  • Nursing Terms, Favorite to Least Favorite

    Don’t you just love the euphemisms in nursing? Take, for instance, the word “diaphoresis.”  I’m not sure at what point a patient goes from having “moist skin” to “diaphoresing.” But, we all know to be concerned when the linens are soaked with sweat.   Another needlessly awkward word is “purulent.” Perhaps it helps soften the blow when we wish to inform the doctor that a patient’s wound is full of pus. I occasionally hear that, in order to be purulent, a wound must also be putrid. Does a wound have to smell bad in order to be considered purulent? To be honest, I…

  • 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…
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    NursesPTO

  • Scrub nurse tips

    Jennifer Smith
    20 Nov 2009 | 4:53 am
    This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Being the best nurse When I read Rachael’s new post on how to be a better scrub nurse, it got me thinking about how many cases we have done together and she left out something I thought was very important. What did she forget to mention? A great scrub nurse will learn as much as they can from their surgeon. Most of the surgeons I worked with were amazing teachers. I wanted to know why they were using a vicryl tie rather than a silk. Why did they choose the sh needle? Why the 6-0 prolene on a bv-1? I always asked a ton of questions, I studied my…

  • Lucky Charms/Honey Nut Cheerios

    Wendy Jones
    18 Nov 2009 | 3:37 am
    Lucky Charms/Honey Nut Cheerios Ok, even I was a bit shocked by this….but these two cereals are practically identical if you look at the nutritional information….seriously look for yourself! Lucky Charms Honey Nut Cheerios Calories 110 110 Calories from fat 10 15 Total Fat 1g 1.5g Saturated fat 0 0 Cholesterol 0 0 Sodium 190mg 190mg Potassium 45mg 115mg Total Carbohydrate 22g 22g Dietary Fiber 1g 2g Sugars 11g 9g Other Carbohydrate 10g 11g Protein 2g 2g All the vitamins and minerals were identical except that Honey Nut Cheerios has slightly more magnesium and phosphorus…but who needs…

  • Mammogram controversy

    Jennifer Smith
    16 Nov 2009 | 7:50 pm
    As a nurse who has worked in the surgical field for 11 years I am baffled by the new recommendations from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force. One of the new guidelines is women should not be taught to do self breast exams. Another is that mammograms are not recommended until age 50, instead of age 40; they are to be done every two years rather than yearly. Herein lies my confusion; the American Cancer Society does not agree with these new recommendations. I have assisted with hundreds of breast surgeries ranging from simple biopsies to full mastectomies. My grandmother had breast…

  • Early signs of pregnancy

    Wendy Jones
    13 Nov 2009 | 3:06 am
    If you are wondering about this you are probably already anxious, nervous, and confused about what may or may not be happening to your body. I wanted to give a few clues to you that something more really might be going on.  As a registered nurse completing my Nurse Practitioner degree in Women’s Health I wanted to share with you a list of the early signs of pregnancy. 1. A missed period. This is the most obvious sign of pregnancy, but it is possible for some women to bleed lightly or spot during pregnancy. Of course a missed period can be due to stress, extreme weight gain or loss, and…

  • Debt consolidation and collection agencies

    Rachael Keilin
    11 Nov 2009 | 2:25 am
    This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Debt consolidation Nurses CAN talk turkey to collection agencies! In the last post I told you to avoid debt consolidation agencies, but I really want you to understand why and not think I’m just prejudiced against these financial behemoths. It seems like it would be such a wonderful relief to be able to hand over all those nasty and tense phone calls from creditors. But the reality is that the phone calls don’t stop just because you engage the services of one of these companies. The way they typically work is this: you pay them an up-front…
 
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    Sunbelt Staffing

  • Anxiety Disorders: Help the Patient Understand it’s Not Their Fault

    Angela Stevens
    16 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    While working in the mental health field, I’ve met many people who suffered with some form of anxiety disorder. There are several types of anxiety disorders, and severity can range from mild to debilitating. Typically, by the time a person seeks help, the anxiety disorder is seriously affecting some portion of their life. Most anxiety disorders can be broken down into a few broad categories, which include phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Within each of these categories, there are smaller subsections that specifically describe…

  • The Highs and Lows of Being a Nursing Home Nurse

    Angela Stevens
    9 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    I learned a lot about nursing homes during my grandmother’s stay at our local nursing home. She actually was a resident on several occasions for different reasons. This was the first glimpse I had at the extreme versatility of a nursing home nurse. Many nursing homes have different levels of care. Some areas are for rehabilitation or recovery, while others provide long-term care. My grandmother used both sides of our local nursing home, which allowed me to meet and get to know a number of the nurses. The responsibilities of a nursing home nurse ranges from helping a person who has broken a…

  • 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…
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    Soliant Healthcare Job Blog

  • 16 Reasons Why Every Medical Professional Should Volunteer

    Ryan Winter
    18 Nov 2009 | 10:54 am
    Some medical professionals volunteer because it feels good to make others feel good. Some do it to expand their horizons. But not enough people do it. Why should you volunteer?16 Reasons Why Every Medical Professional Should Volunteer is a post from: Soliant Health

  • 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
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    Nursing Show Blog

  • Patients More Satisfied in Care if Errors are Disclosed

    rnproducer
    16 Nov 2009 | 3:44 am
    Patients do see beyond the error when health practitioners disclose the truth. In the news article from the Boston Globe, results from a conducted survey by Dr. Lenny Lopez of Massachusetts General Hospital from 2,500 patients who had been patients in 16 hospitals in Massachusetts revealed that those who were told about adverse events were twice as likely to call their care good or excellent as patients who were not told about them. Four out of ten mistakes were reported by hospital staff. Errors that required additional treatment was more likely to be discussed than the others and errors…

  • Nursing Neurological Evaluation and Episode 105

    rnproducer
    13 Nov 2009 | 6:41 pm
    Welcome to Episode 105 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: NursingShow_20091113.mp3 ———————————– Sponsors NursingTopStudent.com all of the tools student nurses need for less than $1 a day. Audio and video study…

  • Tattoed or Not Tattoed – Nursing Students Asked The Question

    Jamie Davis
    9 Nov 2009 | 5:17 am
    With tattoos becoming more and more noticeable, the question is being debated about whether having a tattoo affects patient care.  One Missouri nursing school recently implemented a policy that stated that all tattoos must be able to be hidden by the standard student nurse uniform requirements outlined by the school. Some students planning to attend are upset with the policy which they contend infringes on their person rights to self expression.  They argue that the Missouri Southern State University policy intended to ensure their graduates can get jobs in hospitals with “no visible…

  • Newborn Jaundice Care and Assessment and Episode 104

    rnproducer
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:37 pm
    Welcome to Episode 104 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: NursingShow_20091106.mp3 ———————————– Sponsors NursingTopStudent.com all of the tools student…

  • 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…
 
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    Nursing Homes Abuse Blog

  • Admissions Suspended At An Emeritus Assisted Living Facility Following The Discovery Of: Medication Errors, Bed Sores & Falsified Medical Records

    20 Nov 2009 | 4:03 am
    After discovering multiple health and safety problems, Florida officials have suspended the admission of new residents to Emeritus at Crossing Pointe-- a Florida Assisted Living Facility.   A September inspection of Emeritus revealed: An 82-year-old patient who died after staff failed to provide her heart medication for four days Inaccurate resident counts by facility managers Residents with infected bed sores (also called decubitus ulcers, pressure ulcers or pressure sores) Neglected patients-  some Alzheimer's patients had toe nails so long that they curved around their toes…

  • Nursing Home Spotlight: Pershing Convalescent Home- Berwyn, IL

    19 Nov 2009 | 5:21 am
    Pershing Convalescent Home is a small 51 bed nursing home located in Berwyn, IL, a suburb of Chicago.  This nursing home facility received only one out of five stars, which is a much below average rating, according to the government’s Medicare website.  The facility’s health inspections rated a mere one out of five stars, which is a much below average rating.  In the past year, the nursing home had 14 health deficiencies, which is 6 more than the average number of health deficiencies in Illinois and in the United States.  However, this is an improvement…

  • Patient Beaten To Death At Nursing Home With Long History Of Safety Violations. Should This Facility Really Be Considered A Skilled Nursing Facility Or Simply A Haven for Thugs?

    18 Nov 2009 | 4:55 am
    Murder charges may soon be filed against 62-year-old Ardyce Nauden, after he beat brutally Andres Cardona at Chicago's Columbus Park Nursing & Rehab Center.  The beating occurred after Cardona allegedly tried to take Nauden's lunch. The August incident, resulted in Cardona being injured so badly that he was admitted to a hospital and placed on a ventilator.  Recently, Cardona died from his injuries. By any standard, Columbus Park Nursing & Rehab Center fails to provide a safe environment for patients.  According to public records compiled in the Chicago Tribune's…

  • Want Some Psychotropic Medication? Give This Nursing Home Psychatrist A Call.

    17 Nov 2009 | 4:37 am
    In its seemingly endless series of well-done articles regarding the 'state of nursing homes' in Illinois and throughout the country, the Chicago Tribune, recently highlighted a well traveled Chicago psychiatrist-- Michael Reinstein. Putting it mildly, Dr. Reinstein has a very unique style of practicing medicine-- one that commonly entails use of the powerful psychotropic medicine, clozapine.  Among Reinstein's unusual practice 'accomplishments': In 2007, he prescribed medication to 4,141 Medicaid patients According to an audit report, Reinstein sees 60 patients per day, 365 days per year…

  • Blood Thinning Medications, Such As Coumadin, Pose Substantial Danger To Nursing Home Patients Involved In Falls

    16 Nov 2009 | 4:20 am
    Coumadin (generic name - Warfarin), is an anticoagulant (blood thinning medication) that is commonly used to help treat and prevent blood clots that could cause a heart attack, stroke, or pulmonary embolism.  This prescription medication works by blocking the creation of certain clotting mechanisms, which prevents blood clots from forming.  The goal of warfarin therapy is to decrease the clotting tendency of blood but not to prevent clotting altogether. Complications related to diet Certain foods and drinks can impair the effect of warfarin.  If you are taking warfarin, you…
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    Off the Charts

  • Mammograms – What’s the Real Bottom Line for American Women?

    jm
    20 Nov 2009 | 9:02 am
    by sunsets_for_you/via Flickr Diana Mason, AJN’s emeritus editor-in-chief, posted here on the new U.S. Preventive Services Task Force mammography recommendations earlier this week, noting some troubling questions AJN had raised years ago about how much evidence actually supports the wholesale acceptance of yearly screening for women age 40 and older. But we know that the bottom line for many American women remains this: “Are you really telling me that it’s better not to know as early as possible that I might have cancer? You must be kidding!” After all, we’ve all…

  • Top Recent Reader Comments

    jm
    19 Nov 2009 | 1:04 pm
    We like your comments. In fact, we need them. We’re grateful when you express an opinion, raise a question, respond to each other. Below we’ve collected some recent comments that we particularly appreciated. We have a constantly growing number of readers or visitors. We’re happy about this–but we hope that more of you will go beyond reading and take a moment to let us know your responses. (About your privacy: When you comment, you have to give a valid e-mail address to the system. However, this e-mail address will not be published unless you deliberately insert it…

  • Mammography Screening: Change Isn’t Easy

    jm
    17 Nov 2009 | 11:29 am
    Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, AJN editor-in-chief emeritus By jared, via Flickr (creative commons) Exactly what is the evidence supporting annual mammography screening and breast self-examination for women over the age of 40? The U. S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) conducted a systematic review of this issue and concluded that the evidence for mammography screening of women before the age of 50 years is equivocal and the evidence for breast self-examination is inconclusive. The report notes that the Task Force reached a different conclusion about the quality of the studies on…

  • What Do Medical Researchers and Legislators Have in Common? Conflict of Interest, for One

    jm
    16 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm
    By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN interim editor-in-chief In a not-so-old blog post I did last month, I reported on a conference I attended in Vancouver.  There, editors from JAMA presented a study revealing that ghostwriting was a major problem for the leading medical journals. Articles were being drafted by writers other than the researchers. In some cases, the writers didn’t have access to all the data, which meant that analyses, conclusions, and—in some cases—recommendations for treatment were based on incomplete or misinterpreted findings.  As described in a New York Times…

  • FDA Commissioner’s Letter to Health Care Professionals About H1N1 Vaccine Safety

    jm
    13 Nov 2009 | 2:28 pm
    Below we reproduce a letter from Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to all U.S. health care professionals. It explains why the FDA (and most experts) believe the current H1N1 vaccine is as safe as any of the seasonal flu vaccines that are produced using the same process. Many nurses remain reluctant to get the vaccine, as are many patients. Some we’ve heard from have changed their minds as they’ve seen the sudden and devastating effects of this virus on patients in their hospitals. We hope this letter will provide some context for…
 
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    Nurse Story

  • Blogs as a Method of Undergraduate Health Care Education: Benefits to everyone (Examples of Student Webliographies)

    Terri Schmitt
    13 Nov 2009 | 10:19 am
    Many undergraduate educators struggle with conveying two key concepts to their students: How to effectively communicate through written format and relevance of writing assignments. Likewise, many people who would benefit from access to students’ work cannot because access is restricted to the relationship between student and professor. Much of the hard work spent on undergraduate literature reviews, concept and theory overviews, evaluation of systems, case studies, community work, etc. is simply lost to the current formative and summative evaluation systems that higher learning has…

  • 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…
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    Nursing

  • Celebrate National Nurse Practitioner Week

    Rebecca Wasley
    11 Nov 2009 | 4:24 pm
    National Nurse Practitioner Week is from November 8th  – November 14th and is sponsored by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.  The theme for 2009 is "125,000 Solutions to the Primary Care Shortage."  The shortage of primary care providers is a hot topic in the healthcare reform debate. NPWeek is a good opportunity to showcase the many ways that NPs are the primary careproviders of choice for many patients and to let others in your community know about thevalue of NP-delivered primary care. Nurse Practitioners are are registered nurses with advanced education and…

  • 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…
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    Nurse In Australia

  • 7 Tips to Survive a Late Night Hospital Shift

    Ross
    11 Nov 2009 | 4:41 pm
    credit: the half-blood prince Guest post by Mary Ward Perhaps you are new to working at a hospital or just feeling out of sorts and just plain lousy. Working the late night shift at the hospital is incredibly challenging to many people in the medical profession. All adult human beings require seven to eight hours of quality sleep each night. Sleeping during the day is not as restorative as night sleep. Medical professionals that work the late night shift rarely get the seven to eight hours of sleep that they need. Not getting enough sleep can cause problems with mood, concentration and…

  • 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…
 
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    The Nursing Site Blog

  • ONN Update

    19 Nov 2009 | 3:09 pm
    The Office of the National Nurse has an ad included in new literature about health care reform just sent to the House of Representatives. Click here to download the .pdf file.©2009 Kathy Quan RN... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Nursing Novellas Offer Unique Teaching Tool

    18 Nov 2009 | 5:38 pm
    Two issues that are major players in the nursing world are loss and grief and lateral violence (aka nurses eat their young). For new nurses, these can be problems that make or break a career. For... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • Nurses Willing to Teach Can Earn Grants

    16 Nov 2009 | 5:33 pm
    The nursing shortage continues to grow despite the economic crisis causing many nurses to delay retirement or return to work. Many pundits fear that when the economy recovers, the nursing shortage... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • A Salute to Our Vets!

    13 Nov 2009 | 11:10 am
    Yikes, I see my Happy Veteran's Day post is lost somewhere in cyberspace. Well then I just have to adhere to the idea that we should say THANK YOU to our Veterans EVERYDAY for the many sacrifices... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

  • 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! ]]
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