The Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney TD, today, 30th November, 2007 congratulated the first group of nurses and midwives to successfully complete the Certificate in Nursing (Nurse/Midwife Prescribing) Programme at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. "Improving patient care is at the heart of the nurse and midwife prescribing initiative and I believe that patients will receive earlier interventions and therefore a better service" the Minister said. [click link for full article]
The Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney, T.D. today, Friday 30 November 2007, announce a public consultation on proposed new legislation for the regulation of nurses and midwives. The Minister wishes to obtain the views of the public and key stakeholders on the draft new legislation. The views expressed in this consultation process will be taken on board when finalising the legislation. [click link for full article]
Everyday, guaranteed, I recieve bleeps from wards to review patient I don't look after.
Why?
It's because these wards don't know who their buddy is!
Let me start from the beginning.
For a long time in my hospital, and also other hospitals, medical outliers on surgical wards have a habit of being missed for several days or longer. So they've started something called a buddy system, which is where assigned medical wards look after medical outliers on surgical wards. Is the system working- is it fuck!
The main problem is, only the consultants have been emailed about the new buddy system and not any of the ward managers or staff nurses. Who came up with that brainstorm? So everyday, I get bleeped from a ward I don't cover and have to fob the nurse off.
We interrupt the usual narcissistic musings to send a message to all my colleagues working in the ED/ER.
When you call the NICU to come help start an IV on a "baby"
*baby usually means a chubby munchkin somewhere between the ages of 9 months to 2 years of age*
please, please, please give us a HUGE heads up if you have or intend to work the munchkin up for BEFORE we go in their cubicle and find ourselves slimed by the poor, sweet "baby" while starting the IV for you and drawing the ordered bloodwork for you. I could ask that you hang around and help hold the little darling but I will keep it simple and ask that you help us .
My friend called me this morning and gave me the full details of yesterdays second ‘Miracle’ at the hospital.
Miracle # 1 - for those who don’t know the story ... his wife was admitted to hospital last week with severe pain caused by what the doctors saw to be Gall stones. The Church went into prayer! The doctors scheduled an operation for this Monday which was subsequently cancelled - as they couldn’t find them anymore ... !!!
Miracle # 2 - in the early hours of yesterday morning a 97 year old gentleman was wheeled into the Ward by the ‘crash team’ which were all desperately trying to revive him. His wife remembers them shouting his name (changed here) “John, John, can you hear us?
His wife went on to say that as this was going on she distinctly heard the Lord ask her to go and tell this gentleman about Him! She went on to say that she felt scared but she just asked the Lord to make a way ... After a short time the crash team stopped working on (changed here) 'Mr Doe' and all of them, save a nurse walked off the ward.
His wife then walked up to the Nurse, informed her that she was a Christian and asked if she could pray for him. The Nurse gave her permission and she bend down, stroked the man's hair and whispered into his ear “Mr Doe, Jesus loves you" and the man opened his eyes. She went on and said "it says in the Bible that all who call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved. If you would like to follow Jesus please raise a hand?” At that point, slowly but surely Mr Doe lifted his hand ! She carried on telling Mr Doe about Jesus, how He loved him and how He had always known him. Mr Doe was smiling and curled up on the bed contentedly. After a while his wife went back to her bed. Shortly after that the Crash Team returned and tried to again revive 'John Doe'. A few minutes later they pronounced him dead.
Not long after his wife went on to say that she distinctly felt an evil presence in the room and ‘heard’ an angry voice hissing “somebody has to pay for this”!
She simply replied, “somebody already has - Jesus!” ... the evil left :-)
Well get yourself over to . When I started blogging just over 2 years ago there weren't that many nurse bloggers. and myself started around the same time and of course hers is now one of the top nursing blogs in the blogsphere. One of the best ways to get a view of the range of what is being written by nurses and about nurses can be found in the fortnightly blog carnival hosted by Kim. One of the great things for me is to find out about nursing in different specialties but also in different parts of the world. As in pretty much all areas of life, the English spoken in different places has different meanings and interpretations and that is true within nursing. I often need a dictionary of both words and acronyms to read some of the US nursing blogs, but one thing is for sure, a patient is a patient wherever they are and nurses across the world are there doing their best for their patients. For me that is what comes through loud and clear and that is what is important. Thanks to Dr Anonymous who is hosting this week's Change of Shift and has done a great job, not least because I actually managed to write something about nursing and health care this week and have had it included. I am off there now for a good read!
Have the privilege to “Be your own Boss” and be successful in Running a nursing related businesses such as “Starting a Nursing Agency” or “Healthcare/Medical Recruiting Firm”. Now, if you are one of those newbie entrepreneurs or experienced nurses who look forward to venture into entrepreneurship, just look closely into the “Nursing Shortage Crisis” and its great opportunity and you will soon see opportunities that you can attack so as to become a successful entrepreneur “for the Nursing Shortage Crisis promises to grow at very alarming proportion” - Too many nurses today are retiring, and very few are entering the profession.
As a result, thousands and thousands of qualified men and women who want to enter the field are being turned away by the nation's schools of nursing. “How to Start a Nursing Agency” or “How to Start a Healthcare/Medical Recruiting Firm” Business Startup Guides will greatly help solve the Nursing Shortage and generate income for you.
You must think positively as the world of nursing is filled with much lessons which you can always take the benefit of it. Your must also understand the needs of the community as well the growth of this business that you want to venture into and that you can grow with and possibly your business for the longest time.
I like the new look of my blog now. The picture featured at the top is the view from the top of Mount Nebo (the one in Arkansas, not the Bible ;-) ). I will probably change it regularly.
Just as an update to my previous post, I'm not feeling as discouraged today. I had clinicals at Children's Hospital and I sort of realized just how blessed I am. I've always known, but it really hit home that I have it pretty good. I'm not in the hospital. I don't have a baby who has spent their entire life in a hospital. Some of the kids there have such sad stories, but you would never know it. Most of them just smile and love the time you spend with them. Those children are so precious, I wish I could stay up there with them all the time. I fell in love with my little patient today. He was an absolute doll, and all he wanted was a little attention. Well, I GAVE it to him! I hope he does well. Children's is an amazing place. I wouldn't mind working there. I am starting to think Pediatrics may not be my field though. I always thought it would be, but now I'm not so sure.
People ask me "Do you like pediatrics?" I say "yes." "Do you like med/surg?" I say "It's ok." "Do you like Community?" I say "I could do that." But when they ask "Do you like surgery?" I get excited. Nothing grabs my attention and excites me more than surgery. God made the human body so amazing! It's so interesting to see how it works and see all the things that can be done to fix it. I had the priveledge of watching a surgery performed in the neonatal intensive care unit last week on a 2 lb. baby. It was sad, but incredible at the same time. Yes, I'm beginning to think I may end up being a surgical nurse after all is said and done. Time will tell...
To reference my title, I can't believe the semester is almost over. Today was our last day in the hospital. Next week clinicals are meetings and on campus. Next week is our last week of classes. I have finals the following Monday and Wednesday, then I am FINISHED! One more semester to go and I'll be graduating! We're ordering our pins and invitations Monday. Soon after we'll be getting our caps and gowns fitted. It's all happening! I never thought I'd FINALLY graduate! In a little over 5 months I'll have my BSN. I can't wait.
I don't know who wrote it, but if you do, please let me know!
"Cleaning and cooking can wait for tomorrow,
For babies grow up, I've learned, to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs, dust, go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep."
Yay, Ikey is 6 whole months old. I can't believe it, time is flying by so quickly!! I find the first six months go the slowest so I'm not looking forward to the next 6 months going by too fast.
Ikey has just become such a BABY. He sits, he drools, he giggles, he chews and chews and chews and chews. He will reach for ANYTHING that he can. He's going to be a busy boy and into everything which will be quite the switch for me because Silas can be trusted in a room with a bunch of steaming hot cups of coffee and he wont spill it our pick it up. Just smells it.
We've FINALLY gotten the nursing thing down. It took this whole month to solidify in my mind that the worst is over. He only takes a few minutes to nurse and he's not crying and freaking and I'm also not letting down so much either. Praise God!!
I can't believe that at this age, Silas was only a few weeks away from crawling. Ikey is definitely not close to that yet. He can get up on his hands and knees but doesn't do it often. He doesn't roll about too often either. At this age I remember Silas was rolling alllll over the place. He'd just roll and roll. When he only knew how to roll one direction we'd have to go turn him around when he got stuck up against the wall. It's so neato how the kids are soooo different. They're just so perfect the way they are.
I can't believe Ikey is half way done being a baby. It's so silly how short the whole thing is and for a quarter of that time they're not even fun (0-4 months is lame-o ha ha). I wish it were just a few months longer. I'm slightly dreading the toddler stage with him. I hope he's not a screamer like Silas.
Goodness I've about lost my mind these past few days with this awful ear infection. Silas has had many many time outs which he is going to fairly well. He sits on his step better every day. I'm glad I started time outs in his crib because he understands what they are and that he has to stay put. The transition to doing it in a different place has gone very well. He's so cute when he backs up to plop his bum down.
Anyway, enough blah blah blahing, time for some photos of my adorable baby boy. Mark, my step-dad, bought Ikey a funny shirt so I put it on him last night and took a bunch of photos. He was so happy the whole time, it was so much fun. You can view all of them . But here's just a few for you as well. For those of you who have no idea why this shirt is funny....it's what the front of an ipod looks like but on this one it says "ipood" and then below it says "change me". Totally a nerdy thing Mark would buy.
