The Thunderbox Papers: recognising VT.
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 - March 25, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
nurses f. cancer.
I’m sure your have seen the powerful slogan: F. Cancer.
Well, I am going to tell you that our profession has the power to not only f. cancer, but to f. cardiovascular disease, f. chronic respiratory diseases and f. diabetes.
Between them these four diseases are responsible for 60% of deaths worldwide.
In low and middle-income countries they will kill 90% of their victims before the age of 60, and will inflict an added economic burden on those countries surpassing 7 Trillion dollars by 2025.
Go back and read that again and think about it a little.
As nurses we are immersed in the complex technological, physical, profe...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 24, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: reflective practice. Source Type: blogs
4th Australian Emergency Nurse Practitioner Conference.
For the diary of any Emergency Department Nurse Practitioners: The 4th Australian Emergency Nurse Practitioner Conference.
Thursday 9th May (also Note to Nurse Day) and Friday 10th May 2013 in Melbourne.
NursePrac ED has evolved to become a premier conference for ED NP’s, and Extended Care Paramedics with its strong clinical focus.
This years program includes:
A paediatric management stream.
Workshops on Ultrasound, Physiotherapy, Suturing and Splinting
Orthopaedics
Toxicology
Burns
Haematology
Infectious Diseases.
There will also be free papers showcasing Nurse Practitioner research and case studies.
More information ...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 23, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
Tips: Blood Culture collection.
The early detection and aggressive management of sepsis is vital in reducing morbidity and mortality, and the gold standard in detecting bacteraemia in our patients is the blood culture.
Contamination of blood culture specimens or poor technique may lead to delay in optimum clinical decisions and management with inappropriate or unnecessary antibiotics. Not to mention wasted expenses.
Blood culture bottles contain a soup of nutrients that feed a wide range of bacteria/fungi. Some bottles (including the BD BACTEC Plus media) also contain a resin to neutralise any antibiotics present in the patient’s blood in order to prom...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 19, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: tips and tricks Source Type: blogs
Schizophrenia, a tale from the inside.
So, what is it like to have a psychotic episode?
Elyn Saks is a she is a professor of law, psychology and psychiatry who speaks for the rights of mentally ill people, arguing for more autonomy and a restoration of basic human dignity in their care.
In this TED talk, Elyn recounts her first episode of schizophrenia resulting in 5 months involuntary stay in a mental health ward. Reflections on her experience with physical restraints, her initial resistance to medication resulting in recurrent dips into psychosis, and finally her stabilisation, which she credits to three things:
regular psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and good ...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 1, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
Securing the Endo-tracheal Tube. One method.
There is more than one way to secure an Endo-tracheal Tube (ETT).
These days the safest way will probably involve a commercially available device of which there are quite a few and most intensive care units are probably using one.
But what if your units budget does not stretch to such luxuries? Or what if you just need a temporary way to secure the tube?
Again there are many ways to do this, and everyone has their own particularity from white tape and a simple bow, to brown tape cut into ‘trouser-legs’ and secured around the lips (the brown tape camp will know exactly what I am talking about here).
This systematic revi...
Source: impactEDnurse - March 1, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: tips and tricks Source Type: blogs
Is it OK to call your patient “Honey”?
Well this is what I think.
Your patients name might be John or Judy,
it might be Carl or Candy,
it might even be Mrs Smith-Campbell Hewitt III or Mr Vidovich.
But your patients name is not Sweetie,
nor Honey,
or Hon,
and it is especially not Darl.
These names should be reserved for partners and lovers and desert descriptions.
If you cannot remember your patients name then Sir or Ma’am will substitute until you do. Or if you find that too formal, just don’t call them anything.
Remember: the patients name is perhaps the most important word they will hear during their entire hospital stay.
At least that is what I thin...
Source: impactEDnurse - February 27, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: reflective practice. Source Type: blogs
The Thunderbox Papers: 4H’s & 4T’s.
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 - February 25, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the nurses desk: Source Type: blogs
Is it Triage? Or is it Bricolage?
Australian Emergency Departments all use the Australasian Triage Scale (ATS) to triage every patient presenting through its doors.
Triage can be defined as:
A process of assessment of a patient on arrival to the ED to determine the priority for medical care based on the clinical urgency of the patient’s presenting condition. Triage enables allocation of limited resources to obtain the maximum clinical utility for all patients presenting to the emergency department.’
The triage nurse applies an ATS category in response to the question: “This patient should wait for medical assessment and treatment no longer than….
A...
Source: impactEDnurse - February 22, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: reflective practice. Source Type: blogs
Interlude I: first light.
Every rare once in a way too long while,
fist light is not so bad.
And we can clean, and take stock and prepare our work.
Prepare.
Every once in a while, first light is light.
And quiet is not a dirty word.
It doesn’t happen very often. But when it does,
This is what I see.
On a good day.
first light from Ian Miller on Vimeo.
If you cannot see the player above here is the link to the video. (Source: impactEDnurse)
Source: impactEDnurse - February 20, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
The Thunderbox Papers: Adult Cardio-Resp Arrest Algorithm.
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 - February 17, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: reflective practice. Source Type: blogs
Nurse Fuel.
Do you skip breakfast before a morning shift, or grab a slice of plain toast as it flies out of the toaster to munch on the drive in?
Me, too.
This often results in the mid-morning DONK when your energy falls to zero and you get the fine-motor colly-wobbles.
Well, you know how to fix that don’t you.
Here is my own favourite recipe for Bircher Muesli. A filling and nutritious Nurse Fuel that you can have hot in winter and cold in summer and only takes a few extra minutes to transfer to your tank.
Bircher Muesli was first introduced in hospitals in the 1900’s by a Swiss physician Maximilian Bircher-Benner.
It was based o...
Source: impactEDnurse - February 15, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
AMA report on the state of our public hospitals.
Today we have the release of a report card on the state of the Australian Public Hospital system released by the Australian Medical Association (AMA).
The clear message of this report is that there is no evidence of substantial progress towards achievement of any of the national targets that have been agreed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) as part of health reform.
The report highlights that there has been far too much political focus on “backroom issues” such as fighting over funding responsibilities and pricing hospital services and little focus on the systems overall capacity to deliver a quality ser...
Source: impactEDnurse - February 15, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: piss and vinegar Source Type: blogs
The room out back.
Last weekend on a trip up the coast, we stopped for coffee in the township of Braidwood.
Thomas Braidwood Wilson was a surgeon who worked aboard convict ships journeying from England to New South Wales and Tasmania in the early 1800’s. During one of the voyages he managed to transport a hive, thereby introducing the first english honeybees to Australia.
Braidwood is a small town pressed firmly down like a tack into the billowing roll of surrounding hills pretty much at half-way point between where I live and the ocean. As the car drives.
Some 1100 residents currently live here. Originally it supported the local sheep and...
Source: impactEDnurse - February 14, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: ectopics Source Type: blogs
Compassion Fatigue?
Compassion fatigue ….is a condition characterised by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. …. It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s. Sufferers can exhibit several symptoms including hopelessness, a decrease in experiences of pleasure, constant stress and anxiety, and a pervasive negative attitude. This can have detrimental effects on individuals, both professionally and personally, including a decrease in productivity, the inability to focus, and the development of new feelings of incompetency and self doubt.
– Wikipedia. (Source: impactEDnurse)
Source: impactEDnurse - February 13, 2013 Category: Nurses Authors: impactEDnurse Tags: the funnybone. Source Type: blogs
