I found Rona Johnson’s commentary on the woes of modern nursing (Mail, August 28) disturbingly one dimensional. Does anyone really believe that a ward nursing witch hunt and fuzzy memories of training in the good old days is really going to address the epidemic of crass nursing within the NHS? What might help is a more robust yet also historically based assessment of where it all went wrong.
Nurse training was changed in the nineties for a good reason – the previous system produced nurses who knew how to do things but not why: it did not encourage critical thought and therefore did not produce genuinely skilled nurses. Sadly the university based training also failed to solve these problems and additionally crippled nurses’ practical skills and breadth of experience. What should have happened of course is that the academic level of the traditional training could and should have been simply improved and upgraded. That’s all that was necessary.
Additionally in the nineties an entire massive sector of the NHS, the convalescent/rehabilitation/cottage hospital sector was quietly obliterated. These people were not absorbed by the private sector as was supposed to happen – they became the ‘bed-blockers’ of tabloid newspaper fame and caused a massive pressure on nursing services as patients were admitted to acute wards simply to be warehoused, not because of bad nurses or nursing but because of genuinely unsuitable facilities. This completely changed acute hospital nursing and destroys any attempt at comparison between pre 1990 and post 1990 nursing.
The final disaster was the destruction of the role of the ward sister. Time was when the ward sister ran her ward as she thought fit – it really was like that! Now promotion in nursing at all levels is often based on a nurse’s ability to suck up to her seniors and blindly follow the latest diktat from central government. Talent, ability and even compassion are not required.
Individual nurses therefore are inevitably going to be destroyed over time by having to work every day under the fallout of the above and more disasters which have befallen modern nursing. They’re going to switch off as a simple human defence mechanism – someday, sometime they’re going to let their patients down. Yet I believe all these problems are solvable, they were created by government actions and can be fixed by government actions. Bring nurse training back under the control of hospital trusts, create meaningful provision for non acute patients, give the sisters their wards back. Otherwise we’ll all be listening to NHS horror stories forever and no amount of harking back to the days of matron will ever fix it.
Authors: Jenkins, Peggy
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-159283-3
ISBN-10: 0071592830
©2010 | 1st Edition | 400 pages , Softcover with access card
Status: September 2009
Price: US$ 29.95
A compact, easy to use, quick reference specially created to help nurses and other practitioners understand and perform ECG interpretation at the bedside.
Authors: Barberio, Judith
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-162743-6
ISBN-10: 007162743X
©2010 | 6th Edition | 409 pages , Softcover
Status: September 2009
Price: US$ 12.95
Everything nurses need to know about 1000 common medications — in one pocket-sized guide!
Specifically geared towards patient care and safety, this instant-access pocket guide provides registered nurses with essential, up-to-the-minute information on the selection and administration of 1000 commonly used medications.This nursing classic is revised annually to reflect approval of new drugs, changes in usage of current drugs, and withdrawal of older ones.
Features:
Comprehensive Wound Management
Author: Gleen Irion
ISBN-13: 978-155642-833-3
ISBN-10: 1-55642-833-2
©2009 | 2nd Edition | 384 pages , Hardcover
Status: October 2009
Price: US$ 74.95
Take your wound management and treatment skills to the next level with Comprehensive Wound Management, Second Edition. Both physical therapy students and practicing clinicians of varying wound experience will be well prepared to identify and treat a variety of wounds beyond those covered in traditional textbooks such as pressure, neuropathic, venous, and arterial ulcers.
Comprehensive Wound Management, Second Edition by Dr. Glenn Irion is a unique text that covers the spectrum of acute and chronic wounds. This encompassing text includes full color images, as well as chapter discussions on each type of intervention, prevention strategies and administrative concerns that impact the delivery of wound management services.
Features:
Along with providing key information on all aspects of wound management, this updated second edition, references the need to not only examine the wound but the patient as well, so that successful clinical judgments and developing effective treatment plans can be made.
Everything you wanted to know about wound management:
Comprehensive Wound Management, Second Edition is an invaluable text that should be in the hands of all physical therapy students and clinicians, certified wound specialists, rehabilitation professionals, and any health care provider who is managing the treatment of wounds.
Here’s an interesting blog article that talks about Vitamin D deficiency and its relationship to some cancer. Please feel free to visit her blog and read the article in full, maybe even leave her a comment to tell her you visited and where you heard about her blog. Also, please check out the resources she lists for more up-to-date information as it relates to Vitamin D research and the problems of deficiency.
According to Garland, other scientists have found that the cells adhere to one another in tissue with adequate vitamin D, acting as mature epithelial cells. Without enough vitamin D, they may lose this stickiness along with their identity as differentiated cells, and revert to a stem cell-like state.
So here’s a few references:
Model of how Vitamin D works in cancer. (from which the above quote is taken)
Science Daily article has the following key points: “[P]revious research has shown that higher levels of vitamin D reduce the risk of developing colon and rectal cancer by about 50 percent….
“For those who already have colon cancer: The results showed that individuals with the vitamin D levels in the highest quartile were 48 percent less likely to die (from any cause, including colon cancer) than those with the lowest vitamin D measurements. The odds of dying from colon cancer specifically were 39 percent lower, the scientists found.
Another place to get some current information on Vitamin D deficiency and its effects on our children is on my squidoo lense “Children’s Vitamin D deficiency”.
Taken down for editing
With each of our children, sometime around or shortly after 6 months, they began grabbing food and sticking it in their mouth. We never gave them baby cereal – the nutritional equivalent of ground up cardboard or spooned liquid goop into their little mouths. As with everything else in life, we watched as they followed their own needs and cues. This is usually referred to as . I highly recommend reading the article. I think it is a good overview for those just starting out or researching ahead of time.
This is quite different than the average American baby’s experience, as I’ve come to see second hand with my brother’s child. At 4 months (please note that that is a really old recommendation – any M.D. worth anything won’t suggest beginning solids at that age anymore), they began forcing the dreaded baby cereal down her throat. Gagging? She’ll get used to it! Then they proceeded through the “stages” of baby food. Historically speaking, “baby food” was developed to give parents an easy way to give food to their children when travelling. Today’s average American parent seems to think that baby food is a necessity. Certain manufacturers are making a killing off of it.
And then, despite knowledge of the importance of breastmilk and nursing and recommendations of the AAP and WHO, my niece was weaned by age 6 months. My SIL cited the fact that pumping at work (which she had gone back to only a couple of months prior), was such a drag. I understand about pumping. Due to low supply issues and a daughter who had latch and suck issues until she finally got the entire nursing thing figured out, I’ve put in a couple of years of pumping – round the clock – in addition to nursing my children. No, pumping isn’t fun. Sometimes it’s important to put your child’s needs over your wants.
The best (worst?) was that my SIL wrote that she was glad she had nursed for as long as possible. Really? This is what you want to say when you know your SIL is a low supply mom who has worked her butt off and done everything possible to give her children as much breastmilk as she can possibly make for as long as they choose to nurse? Choosing to switch to bottles and formula when you are fully capable of nursing is not nursing “as long as possible.” Really, I should have expected it, though, when my brother was writing comments about lactation consultants being nursing “Nazis” and saying he wanted to go out and buy formula so he didn’t have to watch his wife upset while they got the hang of nursing during that first week after my niece was born. If you equate someone who is trying to help another person establish nursing with a group who killed large numbers of people due to prejudice, you have your own issues.
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |
 | ||||
| By N2H | ||||
