I am so excited. We received the official okay for Seaton Medical Center in Austin, TX. Yeah, more nurses can get there clinicals in and return to competent practice.
Kudos to Seaton!

Is pain scale an objective tool to measure pain level. I’ve never thought so. How often it happens when a nurse asks a patient:

Do you have pain?

A little bit.

How would you rate your pain level on scale from 0 to 10?

Eight or nine.

In this case the majority of nurses do exactly as we are brainwashed to do: document 9 and offer pain medication. The majority of patients do not refuse a pain shot even though they would not ...

I was on my way to a meeting of Maryland nurse executives when I learned of the shooting at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. Just a few weeks earlier a Franklin Hospital nurse suffered facial injuries when she was beaten by a patient. In August, a nurse was punched, kicked and choked by a psychiatric patient at the Erie County Medical Center. We expect to feel safe in our workplace but it seems as though violence is erupting around us. Given the increased stress people are experiencing, ...

The Texas Register has published new rules that have pending effective dates. All nurse refreshers at some point soon will have to take a Nursing Jurisprudence open book online exam through the Texas BON. Our nursing jurisprudence class will prepare you so, don't worry. Just another hoop to jump through. The new grads and endorsing nurses already do it.

1. Read policies and follow them. Especially, ones related to Documentation, Assessment, and Medication Administration.
2.Clarify orders. Don't worry about who gets mad. Just Do it!
3. Read the chart.
4. Make rounds, if possible before report too.Write what fluids are running, any drains,02, tubes, etc.
5. Ask questions, call for help when something doesn't seem right. Use your Rapid Response Teams and Evidence Based Practice Resources.

At NurseWeek’s Career Fair in Houston, Texas, Susan Baimbridge, RN, CCRN-CSC, ADCNS-BD, from St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, spoke about blood conservation during cardiac surgery. Here are some interesting facts she noted during her presentation.

1. Blood transfusions date back to the 17th century when they were used to change the humor of patients.
2. It was not until the Civil War that hemorrhage was recognized as a cause of death.
3. Transfusion medicine began during World War II.

...

I started my day writing my first ever resignation letter as an RN. Where do you start? Quite ironic since this week should have been my first week out of orientation when I would have been "set-free" from my perceptor's eagle eyes and the constant scrutiny of being "the new kid on the block" from the rest of the staff. I am a new grad. what seemed like a "quickie" two year journey to finish an ADN actually took forever to finish. This was supposed to be a second ...

I recently had the privilege of spending a day with a group of nurses at Kennedy Krieger
Institute in Baltimore, MD. Known for its groundbreaking work in treating children and adolescents with brain disorders, these nurses shared some amazing success stories. One particular story involved a young girl who had sustained life threatening injuries resulting from a traumatic fall. She arrived at Kennedy Krieger in a coma. Six months later the young patient had recovered to the point where she ...

A colleague gave me a copy of Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto for my birthday. While I had heard about the book, little did I know what I was in for when I opened the cover.

The book grabbed me from the start. Gawande quickly makes the case that knowledge is both a blessing and a curse. However, he advocates that in order to create safer healthcare environments and reduce medical errors, we must develop strategies that build on the knowledge we have.

Throughout ...

As I leave Istanbul and reflect over these past few days of following in Florence Nightingale's footsteps, several thoughts are shirling through my head. Not the least of these is the significant extent to which Miss Nightingale's early life growing up in a well-to-do family with a father who spent a great deal of time directing and participating in her education, had on her throughout her life. It was certainly unusual in the early to mid 1800's for a young woman to possess the education that ...

I am in Augusta visiting my youngest son and going to Atlanta to see my sister in law who broke her hip and is in Rehab there. Son is graduating from AIT and then going to Airborne Training at Fort Bragg next. I wish he would not do that but, we have to respect their decisions. I do not understand why they give them so little info and such short notice with everything. Is it to see how they will react or do they really not know what is going on? Do as you are told, ask no questions??? I support ...

Nightingale Tour July 18

It took Florence Nightingale a little more than two weeks to travel from England to Constantinople (Istanbul) when she made her voyage to care for soldiers from the war in the Crimea in 1854. It took me just 3 & 1/2 hours by air to arrive in the same place - though what a difference in the place where she and I landed. When she arrived, there was little on the Asian side of the Bosphorous River other than the barracks, which had been turned into a hospital ...

Nightingale Tour July 16

I remain in awe of Florence Nightingale and all she was able to accomplish under some very challenging conditions. As a victorian woman of means, she was expected to make a "good marriage" in order to secure her future, but of course, we know that Miss Nightingale had other ideas. It was highly unusual for a woman to go to work, yet that is exactly what Florence Nightingale did, and in so doing she may very well have created options for other women ...

Nightingale Tour, July 15

As I sit here at Embley Park on the fifth day of my amazing journey in the Footsteps of Florence Nightingale, I've taken a moment to reflect on how I arrived at this remarkable place. It all started with a conversation with a colleague in Michigan at the Michigan Center for Nursing, Carol Stacy, RN, MS, who was coordinating a trip to England to commemorate the centenary of Florence Nightingale's passing. She had been in discussions with Dr. Louise Selanders, ...

I am helping my mother prepare for an elective surgical procedure and as I look at the experience through her eyes, I am reminded that hospitals can be intimidating places.

We realize that the more consumers know about what to expect during a hospital stay, the more effectively they will be able to participate in their care. But in this age of information, where advice is easily accessible, what resources really help prepare patients for what to expect during hospitalization? Here ...