When My Alcoholic Uncle Died As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Tumblr. I follow many nurses, physicians, EMT’s, nursing students, and other healthcare professionals. I am a fan of the short posts with great images and rarely sit down and read long posts. However, when I started reading this nurse’s […]
Patient Care
Patient care is complex and requires many skills including critical thinking, clinical judgment, technical nurse, emotional intelligence, and so much more. These articles focus on strategies to be effective as a bedside nurse working in direct patient care.
What Patient Advocacy Really Looks Like
This post has been sponsored by Campbellsville University Online. Please note: as many of you know, there was recently a rather controversial blog post about patient advocacy, written by a surgeon, which has since been deleted. Ironically enough, this sponsored post was written and scheduled before the post, response, and removal occurred. If nursing […]
Empathizing Through Someone’s Nightmare: A Nurse’s Story
As you’re getting bedside report in your busy intensive care unit, your stomach starts to drop. “54 year old female… full code… no allergies… here for septic shock from pneumonia… unresponsive… “ Your eyes fixate on the intubated patient, and you start to realize she looks like your mom. Your mom who is 700 miles […]
Understanding Alternative Medicine! Before Patients Ask to be Cupped like Michael Phelps
This is a guest post. This post contains affiliate links. For more information on my partnerships and affiliates, please see my disclaimers page (link in menu). What? Your hospital doesn’t have a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner for patients who need cupping, acupuncture, or herbs for dampness and wind? The closest that most hospitals get to […]
Clinical Tips for Nursing Students (from Experienced Nurses!)
I recently started a hashtag on Twitter asking experienced nurses for their input on clinical tips for nursing students. I thought the response was incredibly helpful and valuable and I wanted to to share these clinical tips with you! Experienced nurses – What other tips for nursing students just starting clinicals do you have? Current […]
How Nurses Can Transform Health Care
This post is sponsored by Capella University. Please see my disclaimer page for more information on our partnership. The theme for the 2016 Magnet Conference in Orlando, is Empowering Nurses to Transform Health Care. I was trying to think about what that means to me… how can nurses truly transform how health care is delivered […]
How to Deal with Verbally Abusive Patients
We’ve been there. The patient is incredibly rude, demeaning, or even saying sexually explicit things to you. Patient satisfaction has been preached to you constantly.. but what do you do when the patient crosses the line? I’ve had quite a few experiences of all of the above. I felt helpless until I figured out the […]
How Changing Demographics Affect Nursing Practice
I personally have noted that as a nurse you run into people from tons of different cultural and socioeconomincal background. And as a nurse caring for an adult population, I’ve noted that taking care of a 42 year-old patient is quite different than taking care of an 85 year-old patient and it’s important to be aware […]
When Your Patient Starts Crying
One of the first questions you may ask yourself in your nursing career is “How to comfort a crying patient.” Everyone has their own forte’, and for some, providing emotional support to people in crisis can be an OMG WHAT DO I DO moment. It can be uncomfortable. It can be weird. It can be […]
Guest Blog Post: A Mother’s Goodbye
Just like I’ve done one hundred times before, I recently held a young patient’s hand while we withdrew life support and they passed away. We have to stay in the rooms throughout the passing in order to administer the pain medication and anti-anxiety medication, and to ensure they are comfortable and calm in their final […]
Nurses: Thankful Every Shift
It’s that time of year where everyone starts to think of things they’re thankful for and talks about them on social media. Nurses however… we are a different bunch. Every time we go into work, we are thankful. It doesn’t take the month of November to inspire this. We are not thankful for our massive […]
Assisted Suicide: A Nurse’s Perspective
This is a guest blog post written by fellow nurse author, Susan Allison-Dean, MSN RN. This can be a pretty emotionally-charged topic and was interested to hear about her research during graduate school. Check out her post below and please comment with your thoughts and if you’ve personally done research on the ethics of this! […]
Saving Sight – the Toyota Effect
This post was created in partnership with Toyota. All opinions expressed in the post are my own and not those of Toyota. I recently was able to take part in reviewing a film created by Oscar-nominated director Kief Davidson. It documented the experience at a busy eye clinic at Harbor-UCLA hospital. Inefficiencies in their processes were leaving their […]
I’ll Never Forget Your Room Number or Your Pain
I don’t know what else to do. Here you are, lying in that hospital bed that you’ve been sitting in for five days now, totally aware of what is going on but unable to tell anyone what you’re thinking. You can’t move your right arm or leg. You can’t swallow so you cough on your […]
Medication Administration Basics for Nursing Students
One of the major things you learn in nursing school is how to give medications. I’d like to explain some nursing basic things because when I was in school, no one told me this stuff.. it was just assumed we knew all of this. So here are some basic, yet essential, things to know about […]
Noticing Subtle Neuro Changes for Nurses
Neuro changes are tough! It is really hard to know if someone is truly changing or if they’re just exhausted because we keep waking them up. Here are some of my neuro nurse tips.. Neuro nurse tips for newbies If your patient is in the intensive care unit, intubated and sedated on propofol, and you […]
Explaining MRSA to Your Patient
With every single shift that I work;, there is at least one patient that is on something called contact isolation precautions for MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). What is that and why is that necessary, you ask? Because antibiotics were overprescribed for years, organisms developed that are resistant to the antibiotics that used to work on them. […]
Nurses on the Front Lines: How Do You Handle Patients Addicted to Prescription Pain Killers?
Have you seen this video posted on KevinMD this month about drug seekers in the emergency department (ED)? Take a look at this 4:31 video made by an ED physician. Spoiler alert! If you love Taylor Swift, you will totes love this. Disclaimer: If you are someone who does not manipulate physicians and nurses to obtain […]
Why Are Nurses Always On the Computer?!
A nursing student recently emailed me and asked me, “why are nurses always on the computer?” It seemed like a silly question at first, but then I realized that unless you’re responsible for charting on multiple patients (or if you have students or preceptors, making sure it’s accurate), you don’t really understand all that is […]
Nursey Hospital Gift Baskets for Your Loved Ones
So, your BFF, uncle, cousin, grandma, etc. gets admitted to the hospital and you want to bring something when you visit. So what do you bring? I bet anything you would get one of these three things: balloons, some flowers, or an Edible Arrangement. If your friend/family is in the intensive care unit, typically they […]