the Thunderbox Papers: Parkinson’s Disease.
Our first guest presenter for the Thunderbox Papers!
Many thanks to a nurse consultant colleague (Twitter: @Jin-shei) of mine for submitting this paper (and anyone else who would like to make a thunderbox would be most welcomed!).
The Thunderbox Papers are a set of short pithy one page information sheets.
The idea is that you stick one on your toilet door for one week and commit to learning the information during each visit.
A Thunderbox refers to an old Australian ‘out-house’ or outside toilet. These toilets were often nothing more than a small drafty wooden shed containing a seat over a deep hole in the groun...
Source: impactEDnurse - July 19, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
Poll: nurse fatigue levels over the last 48 hrs.
An interesting document from Canada laying out some best practice strategies for minimising fatigue in the nursing workforce that is worth skimming through for some good information.
Preventing and mitigating Nurse fatigue in Health Care.
Nursing work that involves extreme physical, cognitive and emotional demands (e.g. nursing in medical-surgical, critical care, and peri-operative areas) has been shown to increase the likelihood of inadequate or poor sleep, anxiety, depression and absenteeism. Work-related fatigue has also been associated with higher rates of injury, divorce, domestic abuse and chemical impairment. Sleep ...
Source: impactEDnurse - July 19, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
quality care for the aged. do we deliver?
A recent Australian news report has raised concerns over the quality of care being delivered in our aged care facilities.
Traumatised relatives have raised shocking claims that their loved ones were left to die unnecessarily or in great pain because of a critical lack of staff and training in nursing homes….
…Their complaints include relatives being left in faeces and urine, rough treatment, poor nutrition, inadequate pain relief, verbal abuse, and untreated broken bones and infections.
You can read the complete report here: Mistreated nursing home residents ‘better off in a concentration camp’
:: ABC News ::
What ...
Source: impactEDnurse - July 16, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
nursing exam paper from 1961
Here are the original nurses registration exam papers that my Mum sat way back in 1961!
Some tough questions here…..and multiple choice not.
(Source: impactEDnurse)
Source: impactEDnurse - July 15, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
should we wash our hands before we put on non-sterile gloves?
What do you think….
Should you be washing your hands BEFORE you try to pull out a pair of sterile gloves from those stupid wall boxes?
In a study that examined the potential for disposable gloves to act as a vector for pathogen transmission, disposable gloves from an orthopaedic ward were examined both on opening and at regular periods thereafter.
Turns out, they grew quite a few bugs:
Environmental bacteria, particularly Bacillus species, were present on 31/38 (81.6%) of samples. Half (19/38) the samples were contaminated with skin commensals; coagulase negative staphylococci were predominant. Enterococcus faecalis, Kle...
Source: impactEDnurse - July 13, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
when your patient arrests….CRAP yourself
For those nurses working on the wards or in non critical care areas, here is a short memory aid that I hope might be useful getting the wheels spinning until your Medical Emergency Team arrives.
The important things are to
Get help (I have put this second, but obviously ward alarms or a loud call for help should happen ASAP).
Good quality chest compressions. Get this right and your patient has a better chance of survival. SO important. That is why I put it first.
Often you see sloppy CPR being performed whilst the person performing them is trying to get themselves organised or organise others.
Quality chest compressions!
...
Source: impactEDnurse - July 12, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: clinical skills Source Type: blogs
when your patient says thanks….
The other morning I was approached by a patient in the hospital foyer. She just wanted to say thanks for the care I had given her.
Then out of left field she said, “and I love following your blog and Facebook page….but I must say I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t write anything about me.
…..wasn’t I interesting enough?”
Strangely enough, I have had this happen 3 times over the last month.
Patients who recognised me from this blog or my Facebook page, which I do not deny feels sorta nice & elicits mucho self ego-stroking (which is not so nice, just ask my partner)….but it also underlines the care I must ...
Source: impactEDnurse - July 11, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: reflective practice. Source Type: blogs
nurse log: June 2013
Hello my friends!
I have been a little quiet around here of late and a few people have emailed me to ask if I have dropped off the edge of the earth.
Thanks for your concerns…and all is well. I am well and truly right side up.
Here is a quick post to let you know what I am up to.
The Nurse:
I am getting well stuck into writing my fist book. And, for me at least, it is a slow but eminently enjoyable process.
The working title is ‘The Nurse‘, and the time I am spending writing it is the reason why the posts here have become a little sparse (a temporary pause I promise).
I’m not going to ...
Source: impactEDnurse - June 26, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
yes. I am going to write a book.
Chapter 1.
So here is the thing. I am going to write a book.
For ages people have told me that I should. And for ages I have thanked them for their kind words and thought…yeah, right. Like there aren’t 500,000 other people scrimmaging to get their manuscripts published.
For various reasons which I will not bore you with here, I have been trying to figure out lately ways to re-inject a little passion into my own life as a nurse. I have been feeling this bitter creep of becoming the very kind of nurse I most decry. And I do not like it. Not one bit.
With a little strange serendipity, at the very time I have been searchin...
Source: impactEDnurse - April 13, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
trapped. Mentally ill patients in one US prison.
This very confrontational video by Jenn Ackerman portrays the reality of those who live with mental illness at the Kentucky State Reformatory in the US.
Perhaps you might share your own feelings or experiences around the way we treat people with mental illness in our correctional facilities?
Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons http://www.jennackerman.com/trapped from Jenn Ackerman on Vimeo.
My intention was to make that made the viewer feel what I felt when I was inside the prison. I took a more personal and emotional approach to this project than I ever have. I listened to the inmates and the doctors and set o...
Source: impactEDnurse - April 2, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
the thunderbox papers: Veins of the Arm.
The Thunderbox Papers are a set of short pithy one page information sheets.
The idea is that you stick one on your toilet door for one week and commit to learning the information during each visit.
A Thunderbox refers to an old Australian ‘out-house’ or outside toilet. These toilets were often nothing more than a small drafty wooden shed containing a seat over a deep hole in the ground.
Toilet paper consisted of old pages from newspapers or magazines threaded together with string and hung on a hook.
I will post a Thunderbox Paper here every week or so. Stick it in your toilet at work (or home) and use your busi...
Source: impactEDnurse - April 1, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
killing the cardiac arrest mind donk.
OK, you have completed your Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) education.
Perhaps it was a few months back. Or perhaps you are due for a refresher.
And then your patient arrests. When you least are expecting it.
You immediately experience the arrest response mind donk.
Your brain is total beige…. and all your knowledge of the ALS algorithm seems to be folded up into an origami flapping bird that is migrating south to your sphincter.
I am going to give you a rough thought-script to simplify the whole thing and get you over any mental donk by moving you to move your nursing team through the thin...
Source: impactEDnurse - April 1, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: clinical skills Source Type: blogs
nurses of the noosphere.
**noosphere:** (NOH-uh-sfeer) The sum of human knowledge, thought, and culture. From the Greek noos (mind) + sphere.
This will be a quasi-weekly summary of contributions to the nursing noosphere that have caught my eye recently. Entertaining, educational, controversial or just worthy of a read. I will point to all these things.
If you have your own post or a suggestion for a worthwhile visit, please email the link to: ian@impactednurse.com.
Injectable Orange:
Fundamentals of Nursing (don’t call it basic): Jessie links to 41 videos covering fundamental (or as I like to call them essential) nursing skills.
Francis report:...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 31, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
Note to Nurse Day: but I dont need to write a silly note.
Note to Nurse Day. May 9th 2013.
Why bother sending a note to a nurse?
I mean, come on, that’s all a bit soft around the edges isn’t it?
After all, I show my appreciation every day to my colleagues…. and the nurses that I really think make a difference already know as much…..
Besides, if I sent a note to one or two nurses, some of the other nurses are bound to get their noses put out of joint no?
And besides the first besides, writing little warm fuzzy notes to people isn’t…..well it just isn’t me.
OK then.
John Kralik is a Superior Court judge, who after a particularly bad year ...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 30, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
Aged care activity box for emergency departments.
At a recent meeting one of my colleagues proposed we start a dementia activity box for our department.
This, I thought, sounds like a particularly good idea, and might even be extended to include some resources for the aged without dementia.
As a department, we are very good at providing play equipment and distraction activities for our paediatric patients, but the elderly spend far longer in our care and are oftentimes left staring at the ceiling. For ever.
It got me thinking as to what sort of kit we would include in such an activity box. Here are some ideas I came up with for patients with and without dementia (comments...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 27, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
