My Strong Medicine

• Did you know I had formal schooling, including college course education?
• Did you know I took a National Certification Exam?
• Did you know I am a licensed professional?
• Did you know some of us are men?
• Did you know some of us are younger? Some of us are older?
• Did you know the only place you’ll find a ‘naughty nurse’ is either in your dreams or on the internet?
• Did you know we don’t just work in the hospital or physician’s office?
• Did you know the all white outfit is not the standard uniform anymore?
• Did you know we don’t wear the nursing caps anymore?
• Did you know I am not just the physician’s hand maiden or subordinate?
• Did you know I am an independent healthcare professional that is the physician’s colleague?
• Did you know I have to possess a working knowledge of Pharmacology and how it impacts your care?
• Did you know it’s my job and responsibility to critically evaluate every aspect of your care?
• Did you know I am required to have a sound understanding of Human Anatomy and Physiology?
• Did you know I have to be well versed in Microbiology and how it affects the human body?
• Did you know I have to be cognizant and well studied on a plethora of human disease processes?
• Did you know it’s my job to assess, monitor and treat not just your illness, but you as a person?
• Did you know I can and do possess specialty certifications that require thousands of worked hours just to qualify for consideration?
• Did you know I command and perform critical thinking skills that require me to make life-saving decisions in a blink of an eye?
• Did you know I am a highly trained professional with skills that demand sharp attention, a keen sense of prediction and a caring attitude?
• Did you know I am in charge of equipment that monitor your health from inside your beating heart?
• Did you know I am in charge of equipment that assist in your recovery treatment from inside your brain?
• Did you know I am responsible for titrating and administering medication you receive that can induce and resist almost all your normal physiological actions and reactions? And that these medications are life-saving and life-sustaining?
• Did you know I am also a professional stress-juggler, and all the care you are receiving I am also providing to all my other patients?
• Did you know it’s my responsibility to coordinate your care between all the services contributing to your treatment process?
• Did you know I am educated on the grieving process and that I am here to help you?
• Did you know I am an educational resource for any and all information related to your better health?
• Did you know I care?
• Did you know?

Carpe Diem

There are a handful of new nurses out there (at least that I’m aware of) from my blogosphere. I thought I’d touch on a subject that will be in the forefront of most of your minds.

Your orientation with you preceptor(s).

Yep. I went through it. Yep, your preceptor went through it. All nurses have gone through it, in one form or another. Some of us had a longer bout than others. Some of us had more on our plate than others, but we all have that dreaded ‘orientation’ under our belts.

Your FIRST orientation is the worst. You have to pull double duty. You not only have to learn the layout of the land, how things work, and how things are done in your particular area of employment, you still have to learn the basics to being a new nurse. Yes nursing school taught you what they considered the basics, even may have given you a ‘taste’ of what the real stuff is like. But believe-you-me nursing school is NOT the same as the ‘real world’ of nursing (I hope that didn’t sound offensive).

Like most of us, you want to excel. You want to learn, be that proverbial sponge for information, experiences, and how-to’s. You want to exceed not only your preceptor’s, but your own expectations of how you should perform. And most of all, you want to shake off the ‘orientation’ label as soon as possible!

So when given the ‘go’ word, you want off of that dang-blasted orientation. You want that rush of being on your own. You want the respect of being the independent, self-motivated, critical thinker that you know you are!

STOP

Whatever you do, don’t rush.

Whatever you do, take your time.

WHATEVER your do, don’t let them coerce you into LESS time on orientation!

I’m here to encourage you to exercise some patience. We all know how it feels. We all wanted it as bad as you do. But we all learned the hard way that orientation is THE IDEAL place for learning the ropes, honing your basic skills, and progressing into that bad-ass nurse we all know you can be.

Rushing off of orientation only accomplishes one thing. It creates another staff position. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It does not benefit you, nor your nursing skills or experience. It in fact robs you of some much needed learning.

Remember, orientation is the time where you have that proactive direct learning environment. Where you learn all the tips and tricks to make your day a lil’ less hectic. Where you assimilate and consume more than you produce.

If anything, it’s the only place where you can almost feel ‘comfortable’ to make a mistake. (Yeah, I know there IS no such thing) When you make a mistake on orientation (you noticed I say WHEN and not IF), it is met with much less stress and anxiety because the mistakes are an expected portion of the process. And your preceptor will be by your side to help you through that extremely uncomfortable time.

As a new nurse, mistakes WILL be made.

As a new nurse, task performance will take 3 times longer than your veteran colleagues.

When you ‘water-skip’ through orientation, instead of it happening during orientation, it will happen when you’re the decision maker.

Take the time to learn now. You as well as your co-workers will benefit from it later.

Welcome to this wonderful world of nursing. I do hope you enjoy the ride as much as I have and still do!

Best of luck!

Carpe Diem

Image Source: PBase.com

With compliments from The Happy Hospitalist.

Self Intubation

via The Happy Hospitalist by The Happy Hospitalist on 1/5/09

That’s Wild.

(video below) via Bad Medicine, Good Solutions

In medical school we had to place nasogastric tubes in each other.  That’s the tube that goes from your nose to your stomach.  It wasn’t that bad.

A year or two before I got into medical school, students were still doing rectal exams on each other.   That’s the era when we really could confirm that some doctors are just big assholes.  Since then, we have been unable to confirm directly.  Instead, now we have  alternative means to make that determination.  Such as when they open their mouth and speak.

Posted via email from My Strong Medicine

Happy New Year to one and all. Thanks for stopping by my place on the internet. My new year had quite the ‘different’ ring to it this year. I entered 2009 computer-less , unplugged and disconnected from my much needed and much loved blogosphere-land called the World Wide Web.

I have a habit routine (who doesn’t). I come home from my day and ‘catch-up’ on my connected world. I came home from work last week and was denied the one thing that I guess you would call my hobby.

I turned my computer on and went about my business. Changed, chatted with my beautiful wife, took out my contacts, blah, blah, blah. When I returned to the ‘office’, my computer screen was asking me to proceed in ’safe mode’. (uh-oh~ not good)

Now I’ve visited ’safe-mode’ land more times than I’d like to confess admit. Just like the rest of the world, I’ve had my ups and downs, my trials and tribulations with personal computers. Everything from accidentally re-formatting my hard drive, to inserting the wrong disc at the wrong time during re-boot. (Yes, that’s a true story) So my ’spidey-sense’ was activated, but I wasn’t sweating just yet. I mean for all I know, the start-up program could have just had an attitude adjustment… right? RIGHT?!

I won’t go into the horribly painful details, but it involved a maniacal cycle of reboot - safe mode - restart- no memory - no hard drive- no operating system- WTF?! It entailed a trip to the local electronics store to purchase new hardware. It involved reformatting and re-installing software (including a new operating system). The process lasted 2 1/2 days, and ended with my ‘borrowing’ a relatives boot disc and operating system that FAILED miserably. It was not pretty. Lets just say the language that emanated from my lips… was … errr… ummm.. colorful (and that’s putting it mildly)

I can proudly say I didn’t break anything within arms reach nor did I destroy any innocent by-standing furniture.

Side note: Thankfully my wife’s computer was operational, and I could get a quick look-see at my email during this debacle.

New Year’s day came.

I spent the better part of the day swimming, surfing, and drowning on the internet exploring my options. More grunting, groaning, clicking, backwards, forwards, WTF?!

I SCOURED the internet for viable options. I didn’t want to have to buy a new computer. Granted, ole Bessie was over 4 yrs old. I had abused her something fierce. I added, updated, revamped, and upgraded just about every piece of hardware and software she could take. (including 2 separate disc drives, and an external hard drive)

But dammit, I didn’t want to fork-over the mullah needed for a new toy.

If you’ve visited my blog over the past couple days, I did surrender. I purchased a new toy.

I can confess and at least rationalize that I explored all viable options (for me personally). I am not a guru that can build his own computer from scratch. I do need some help from time to time with the detailed specifics of my operating system. There ARE things I cannot fix on my own when it comes to a computer. So my purchase was based on what I needed now, what needs I forecasted for the next couple years, and of course what I was capable of handling.

Outside the amount of money we (yes I must include my wife) dumped into the new tower, it’s a dream machine. It perform above my expectations and I’m very happy with my decision.

I just HATE how it all PAYED played out.

So my next major obstacle is creating a solid back-up plan for my cherished computer and all it’s contents. One that I’ll follow and use! Any suggestions?

Although my pocket book doesn’t feel very happy, it has been a happy new year for me and my wife.

Look out 09!

Carpe Diem

Serendipity can be funny. It rears it’s beautiful face at the most surprising of times.

I was on Twitter today (big surprise). One of my Tweets I follow, Robert Fraser (@rdfraser) is a fellow nurse who is making every attempt to change the face of nursing in the most positive manner (and so far he’s doing a damn fine job).

Today he shared a video through one of his tweets on Twitter that touched on my FAVORITE subject : Nursing Stereotypes!

It’s a tad bit long (over 10minutes), but worth watching. I have touched on this subject many times in my blogging. How ironic that the today my guest post on nursing stereotypes was published as well.

Today was a good day for my world of nursing.

Please, if you have the time, watch the short video clip on how we are never ‘just a nurse’.

Thanks again Robert!

Carpe Diem

Mark Salinas is a fitness blogger I met at the beginning of my blogging journey last year. Mark has stuck with me through my many changes as a blogger (including my numerous face lifts and domain changes).

Mark’s website and blog chronicles his personal fitness journey.  Everything from fitness, health, and wellness is discussed and all done from the perspective of one’s own home. He has a no fluff, no excuses attitude for making one’s health better.

This weekend I had the pleasure of guest posting on Mark’s blog. Mark gave me the opportunity to share my thoughts and travels on being a nurse in a very mis-educated society.

Please take the time and read my guest post over at Mark Salinas, MN.

Carpe Diem