This Chelsea restaurant has gone from brasserie to brassiere.

Chef Daniel Angerer is letting diners at Klee Brasserie munch on cheese made from his wife’s breast milk.

“It tastes like cow’s-milk cheese, kind of sweet,” he told The Post.

The flavor depends on what the cheese is served with — Angerer recommends a Riesling — and “what the mother eats,” said Angerer, who once bested Bobby Flay on TV’s “Iron Chef.”

Breast milk doesn’t curdle well due to its low protein content, so a little moo juice has to be added to round out the texture, Angerer said.

After blogging about his efforts with the human cheese, customers started demanding a sample, he said.

“The phone was ringing off the hook,” the chef said. “So I prepared a little canapé of breast-milk cheese with figs and Hungarian pepper.”

The response has been generally positive from those who’ve tried the cheese, although many customers are too squeamish to attempt it.

“I think a lot of the criticism has to do with the combination of sex and cheese, but . . . the breast is there to make food,” said Lori Mason, the chef’s wife.

Since the restaurant began offering customers a taste, Mason has been inundated with creepy queries, she said.

“Some people who clearly have issues have . . . e-mailed me saying, ‘I wasn’t breast-fed as a child, so can I taste your breast milk?’ ” she said.

Mason politely declines the offer.

“I’m not here to walk people through their psychological problems,” she said.

That said, Mason is now prodding her husband to make gelato.

After inquiries from The Post, health bigs said yesterday that even though department codes do not explicitly forbid the practice, they have advised Angerer to refrain from sharing his wife’s milk with the world.

“The restaurant knows that cheese made from breast milk is not for public consumption, whether sold or given away,” a spokeswoman for the city Department of Health said.

Would you try breast milk cheese? Will this be the next trend for foodies? Let me know what you think…

I am always astounded when someone says, “I wanted to be an xyz since I was a child.”  I’ve never had such a singular focus, and I admire those who do have one.  But I can definitely say there were experiences in my childhood that made me interested in a health care career.

One cherished memory is of my sister and I playing in my room.  Suddenly she screams in pain; a pin has lodged in the sole of her bare foot.  I remember feeling an absolute calm as I had her sit on my bed and swiftly removed the pin.  Soon she was playing, the incident forgotten.  But it always meant a lot to me–that feeling of being able to reassure her, to be utterly competent and do what needed to be done.  It’s what I’ve felt the best nurses always do.

I also spent a lot of time visiting my mother, who worked as a medical technologist in a city hospital.  It was an environment I enjoyed learning about, and always felt comfortable in.  I remember the posters of microbes and looking through the microscopes at the lab.  My mother also ordered a subscription to a magazine called “Medical Detective” which was full of great science stories written at an elementary level.  One of these days I’d like to score some copies on Ebay.

Here’s an article I found that is an opinion of Dennis Kosuth.   Although I am usually not rabid in my push for improved nurse staffing, I do find myself looking around and thinking, “There has to be a better way to do this.”

I search out and find numerous articles about staffing ratios, staffing laws, etc.  I read them all.  What stands out in my mind is the fact that hospitals are a business and will continue to act just like every other business in the world.  The bottom line is God.  Hospitals, so far, have escaped the notice of the public–who still view hospitals as a haven of safety and help.  When will the public realize that patients and patient care are not that important to the hospitals except in the way they affect the bottom line?

Please read this article and then come back and let’s talk.  I sometimes feel that I am out her alone, but I know that can’t be right, can it?

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Dennis Kosuth, an ER nurse in Chicago and member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, makes the case for laws mandating nurse-to-patient ratios.

March 8, 2010

AMONG NURSES who work in the emergency room, there’s an understandable fear that when you go to check on one of your patients, they may have stopped breathing. Because many people come in with undiagnosed conditions, it’s sometimes impossible to predict the direction they’re headed before it is too late.

In a public hospital, this concern is compounded by a waiting room bursting at the seams, where sick patients with nowhere else to turn sometimes sit for 18 hours before being seen by a doctor. While waiting for tests or a bed upstairs, patients are routinely wheeled into the hallway to make room for the next one, so the pressure building out front can be relieved.

Depending on the day, this can result in one nurse having seven or eight patients, and when their covering nurse goes on lunch, the number doubles. All this endangers the patients that nurses are responsible for–not to mention straining nurses to their physical limits.

Every day, in hospitals across the country, this ticking time bomb is wound up, and everyone crosses their fingers, hoping that nothing bad happens to themselves or their loved ones. According to an investigative feature in the San Francisco Chronicle, “[A]ll of the available research indicates that the death toll from preventable medical injuries approaches 200,000 per year in the United States.”

The profit-driven health care system has no interest in getting to the bottom of these numbers, mainly because it would involve investigating itself. It simply stands to reason that an overworked nurse with too many patients is not an accident waiting to happen, but a guarantee that accidents will happen.

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ON A Friday evening in February in Chicago, almost 50 registered nurses gathered at a forum sponsored by the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) to discuss the need for safe nurse-to-patient ratios in the state of Illinois.

Bills (known as SB0224 and HB5033) have been introduced in each chamber of the Illinois legislature to establish a maximum number of patients per nurse, depending on the level of care. In the ER, for example, the legislation would mandate a maximum of four patients per registered nurse (RN), and this ratio would have to be maintained during breaks as well.

The Illinois bills are modeled after California, the only state to have such regulations. In 1999, Governor Gov. Davis signed the legislation, which mandated compliance by 2004. It was twelve years between the legislation first being introduced to a law going into effect.

Throughout the process, significant resistance was organized by the hospital industry, aided by their friends in state government. Even after the bill was signed into law, Davis’ successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was particularly obstructive, helping to wage a legal battle against the new law. So the California Nurses Association (CNA) protested him wherever he went, inside the state and out.

The Illinois Hospital Association (IHA) is vehemently opposed to nurse-patient-ratio legislation. One complaint is that in California, the new law raised health care costs by more than $1 million per hospital, “with 23 percent attributable to increase in nurse wages,” the IHA claimed in a statement.

But the hospital owners don’t say is that having more nurses will actually save medical costs by reducing errors and recovery time–not to mention other insignificant questions like saving some of the 200,000 lives lost to medical error every year. The focus on profits blinds the IHA to measures that would actually improve patient care.

Another excuse for opposing the new legislation is that Illinois already has the “Nurse Staffing by Patient Acuity Act,” which took effect in January 2008 and was supported by the IHA, as well as the Illinois Nurses Association (INA), a professional organization that also represents some Illinois nurses through collective bargaining agreements.

But this existing law only requires hospitals to have a written plan for nurse-to-patient ratios, which is designed by a committee made up of at least 50 percent nurses. There is nothing about monitoring, regulation or enforcement of the wishes of bedside nurses. This is a toothless bill that leaves ratios in the hands of management.

There are currently 136,000 RNs in the state of Illinois, making for a definite nursing shortage. This leads to another IHA claim–that mandating nurse-to-patient ratios would further exacerbate the shortage.

The fact is, however, that many nurses don’t stay in the field because working conditions are so stressful.

According to one study in 2007, for example, the average voluntary turnover rate for first-year nurses was 27.1 percent. The federal government’s quadrennial survey found that only 83 percent of people with a license to work as an RN chose to do so in 2004. With the total number of RNs at 2.9 million, that means there were almost 490,000 nurses nationwide who didn’t work in the field.

Ratio laws can actually turn these trends around. In the short time since ratios went into effect in California, the state has seen an increase in the number of nurses being retained, an influx of nurses to California and a greater interest in nursing as a job. Once conditions were improved, nurses went back to work at the bedside, started moving to California from out of state, and more people have enrolled in nursing school.

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THE REAL reason the hospital industry opposes the Illinois ratio proposals and similar national legislation is profit, flexibility and speedups. A recent article in Becker’s Hospital Review listing “10 Best Practices for Increasing Hospital Profitability” starts with “reducing staffing costs” through flexible scheduling and reducing benefits for full-time employees.

While health care was one industry that created jobs during the recession, this hasn’t lessened the corporations appetite to improve their bottom lines. Profits returned at large community hospitals in the first quarter of 2009, partly due to an improved stock market, but also from a decrease in hospital labor costs. Many employers were able to gain significant concessions from workers by playing on their economic fears.

For example, Mount Sinai Medical Center, a large Chicago hospital that serves the poor, has not only gotten away with wage freezes for the past couple years, but has also been on a campaign to get employees to make donations to the hospital. This is the same “not-for-profit” institution that spent significant resources to successfully fight off a unionization drive by nurses three years ago.

On the federal level, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California recently introduced legislation to institute nurse-to-patient ratios nationally. This national bill and other state legislation could produce important improvements in patient care and working conditions.

But this isn’t the only path to ratios. Union nurses at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nev., recently won contract language that mandates the same nurse-to-patient ratios as exist in California.

The introduction of these bills is a good first step, but it’s only the beginning. If the mammoth resistance to even the tepid measures promoted by Barack Obama and the Democrats in their “reform” legislation is any indication, the health care industry will stop at nothing to fight mandating ratios.

As one public health nurse said at the Chicago forum last month, “I’ve been to Springfield, written letters and called my representatives. We need to start thinking about protest actions that are just on the other side of the law if we’re going to get the change we need.”

Ratios themselves won’t solve the ongoing health care crisis in this country, but organizing around this issue can bring nurses together with patients and others to address one of the more glaring aspects of it–and force the issue of the present nursing shortage higher on the agenda.

Here’s the link to the original article

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Over the past while iv had ALOT of thoughts about various things.

On Wednesday night i felt quite low and knew my friend was low so i surprised her with a bunch of flowers and a KFC. After feeling rather guilty about invading her space during the week i actually stayed until this morning – a whole 5 nights. Its like iv been on holiday. Im back in a place which i call my ‘House’. It’s not a home anymore. It has furniture in it. It has my dance shoes and my taekwondo sparring gear. A few photos of me, my nephew, my friends and really NOTHING else makes this place feel like a ‘home’ anymore. Its cold, Its quiet, Its not a happy nor sad place. Its not buzzing with people – just quiet. Do i move back with mum and dad? Really i dont think i could. Do i find a flat in the town? I dont think it will make much difference really. Do i just move away altogether? I really dont know what will give me my ‘home’ back. It may feel more homely when i get my puppy.

My puppy is 3 weeks old tomorrow and she is sooooo adorable. Shes really looking like a westie now and i have a pretty piece of ribbon around her neck, as my mum and dad thinks the collar i put on her is too big still. I hope she gives my house a bit of life.

Things in my life have been generally positive lately. I got a letter stating that my employment and support allowance has been increased as i passed my medical and i also had money backdated for january and february. With this money my friend and i had a good weekend as we both had money. We had some drink and some take-aways. We went a few lovely drives in the car and had a bar lunch in a small Inn in the middle of nowhere. I also managed to get alot of my car fixed. I got a new centre section for my exhaust as iv sounded like a boy racer for the past 2/3 months. I also got a new nearside front tyre which has been bald for a good 6 months or so. The garage done me a really good price of £119 for both which i couldnt say no to when the previous garage quoted me £310 for the same. That only leaves me with £75 to find for a new windscreen and the car will be running like a wee sweetie again.

I went to BTS this afternoon and we spoke about a range of things. Mainly about my guilt for not being able to stop my abuser. I described my abuse as in 2 sections. Section one being around the ages of 7-11 when i wasn’t aware of what was going on as a ‘bad’ thing and that it was ‘un natural’. The age of which i felt it was something that happened to everyone and that if i told anyone it was happening my brother that i ‘loved’ so much would be taken away from me. In this section i described as not really remembering details, actions and frequency of the abuse. I also felt like i was being taken for granted and in this section especially i am not guilty for the abuse in which i received. In section two, which i see from ages 11-13 is the section i am most guilty about and hate myself for. I feel like i was more responsible for myself during this time. I was able to notice that what was happening definately wasnt normal and was wrong. Why didn’t i stop it? Would he have stopped though if i had said “NO”? I remember him coming into my room on many occasions and ASKING for sex. yes thats right he was asking. When i said no he used to bribe me with money. At the young age where a few pounds goes a long way i grudgingly agreed grit my teeth and had to bare it. The question i ask was my brother ASKED for it. He didn’t tell me, he didnt force himself upon me he ASKED! WHY DID I LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!?!?! Why didnt i just say NO?

The fear of what my parents may have thought drove me to hide it away. But deep inside i ached. I ached to tell someone andget help protect me from him but i didnt think id be believed. When i was between the ages of 14 and 16 i self harmed with a kitchen knife. Luckily kitchen knifes dont cut as deep as craft knifes but i used to break the skin and sit in classes with my hair clip and run the hairclip into the wounds to make them bleed. No-one could see i was hurting. I confided in a friend who told me to tell the school nurse at a check up that was coming up. When i told the nurse i asked her kindly not to tell my parents, She did! Loss of confidence in adults #1 My mum and dad accused me of attention seeking and they didnt believe me and also told me that if it was true id have to sit in a room full of loads of people and tell them how im feeling. It frightened me, so i forced myself to say i was lying and making it up. Loss of confidence in adults #2. The fact they didnt believe me over that made me realise they wouldnt believe me if i told them about the abuse my brother put me through, so i continued to self harm and i told no-one.

I can now move on slightly to other problems i have with confiding in my parents. In all the problems i had with abuse its no wonder my first relationship was with a female. She was a friend which i had met in nursery school but didnt go on to be in my class at primary as she moved to another school locally. She had ALOT of problems in her life. She like me was abused too. She got raped on the way home from Academy at 14 and had a gorgeous little girl when she turned 15. What made it worse was the guy was in the year above her at school. A dad to 4 children at the age of 16. 2 girls and 2 boys. My girlfriend/best friend named her little girl after me. I was priviledged. She stayed with her mum and her mums b/f and they used to go out and get drunk ALL the time and leave her with little money to feed herself so she moved to a local town with her dad. Her dad was well off and made sure she was alright. My g.f and her wee girl stayed in a kind of outhouse which her dad had built. It was a one bedroom with a bathroom and a livingroom/kitchen combined. It was all she needed. Things were ok and we were sort of a couple for 6.5 months. Her dad had a good job opportunity in Australia which meant my friend moved over there with him. Alot of other things happened in her life and i only hear from her once a month or so. I miss her. My parents know nothing of this, it was just 2 girls being friends in their eyes.

Recently from my blog posts you may see me talk about the feelings my friend and i have for each other. Things are natural and normal with her. I have no regrets about being around her, kissing her and so forth. I have kissed other girls before but it has never been like this. It was always a bit of fun and curiosity but this is a wee bit more. In a rage i told my parents i was bisexual to which my father replied “i know” which shocked me as i dont think he really knew, i think he just said it out of anger too.

A thing that has been on my mind recently is how difficult it is for same sex couples to be accepted in the community. If my friend and i are out and about and want to have those small intimate moments of holding each others hand or a kiss etc we know we cant. We find ourselves in supermarkets standing close to each other while looking on the shelves and just slyly gripping the other ones finger for like a millisecond. If shes dropping me off at the boat we cant really kiss goodbye in the car as people are walking about so its just a kiss on the cheek. What is it about same sex relationships that make everyone want to stop and stare? Especially if its 2 women. Guys go nuts over 2 women.

Iv been writing this post since 1.30pm it is now 6.30pm i keep picking it up and putting it back down again. I suppose it may seem a little jumbled but its a little bit of my thoughts over the past while.

xxx

Registered ER Nurse, Emily Hurst, who works for HEALTHCAREseeker.com, was named HEALTHCAREseeker.com’s February 2010 Traveler of the Month. She is currently employed at Progressive West Healthcare Center in Missouri where she’s earned rave reviews. Emily and has worked on numerous Travel assignments over the past year; including having spent some time in rural Alaska! This award is given to the Traveler who flawlessly exemplifies the type of Traveler that HEALTHCAREseeker.com looks for: highly skilled, easily adaptable, and a great resource to the hospital and patients they serve. Great job Emily!