Top 7 misconceptions about what nurses do

1. MEDICINE DISTRIBUTION- It isn’t just handing pills to patients. It is also knowing the correct doses, and knowing when to question orders for the best interest of the patient. Remember when a nurse takes a few extra minutes to give medication, it is because they are triple checking it for their patients safety.

 

2. NURSES ONLY DO WHAT A DOCTOR TELLS THEM- Nurses aren’t actually subservient to a doctor. As an advocate for their patients a Nurses job is to care for the safety of a patient and sometimes that includes questioning a doctors orders. Nurses have to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of care they provide and be knowledgeable enough to alert doctors when a patient’s condition changes. Nurses are accountable for every action they perform on the job.

 

3. ANYONE CAN BE A NURSE- Not everyone is capable of becoming a Nurse. The requirements for education are strict, and there are extensive background checks for licensing. Not everyone in a hospital who provided care is a nurse either. CNA’s for example are not nurses, but rather assistants. A lot of patients do not understand the difference.

 

4. NURSES HELP PATIENTS ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASES- Many patients do not realize how many people a nurse may be in charge of, nor do they realize that the most critical priority gets addressed first. It isn’t who asks first, it is most serious first. Nurses rarely have time to sit and wait for problems to find them, they are generally busy, busy people.

 

5. EVERYTHING IS THE NURSES JOB- Some patients aren’t aware that CNA’s can help them with some things like emptying their urinal, or assisting them to a bathroom. If the room is not cleaned that job is actually a Housekeeping issue. If a phone, TV, or heater isn’t working, that should be directed to engineering. If your breakfast isn’t good, it is a dietary issue. However, nurses are first to hear every complaint.

6. NURSING ISN’T STRESSFUL-After all sitcoms show romance, and fun most of the time… Media really gives the impression that Nursing is an easy job. Not fast paced, stressful, and carrying the weight of a lot of liability.

7. PUTTING UP WITH ABUSE IS NOT TO BE TOLERATED- While this may be true in other professions, nursing is a little different. Of course, abuse from other staff is not acceptable. However, patients may dish it out and nurses have to put up with it at times. An example would be when dealing with dementia, or other illnesses that may alter behavior of a patient.

BEST general conversion chart…

to see the chart go HERE… It was throwing off my formatting so I moved it to a separate page.  But it is great for general chemistry, volume/mass conversions, and basic math conversions.  You can copy and past it as an image to a word document, print it and take it with you.  Just right click the chart, hit the control key and the c key, and then open a document hit control and v. 

 

Good luck!!

Microbiology and Immunology

For those of you that are struggling with microbiology here is a great online tool for you. The university of Southern Carolina’s Medical school posted it’s full Microbiology and Immunology text book online in an e-book format. So if you are struggling in class or with your text, you may want to try a different explanation. This site also has more than 80 audio lectures streaming or down loadable, covering the major points of this class. I am also amazed it has everything in English, Spanish, Albanian and Portuguese.

Check it out here

Why Nursing is One of the Strongest Areas of the US Economy

Nursing is often considered the recession proof career. While it is possible to cut back in many areas of life when the economy goes south, medical care is not one of those areas. Whether you have plenty of money or very little, you still get sick, or you may get injured. This makes visiting a hospital or doctor a necessity. Very few people stop to think about medical bills before visiting the hospital in the case of an emergency.

Medical careers in general, and nurses in particular, are growing at a rate that is quicker than most other careers. The need for healthcare workers is across the board, with a growing demand in hospitals, long term care facilities, home health care agencies and physicians offices. Nurses are also employed in other settings, such as community health departments, schools and as telephone consultants for managed care providers.

Growing needs for healthcare

One of the factors in the need for more nurses is the aging population of the US. The baby boomer population, the largest in our country’s history, is getting older, and in growing need of medical care. Older patients have different needs than younger ones. This will lead to a growing demand for nurses that are willing to work in the long term care setting as well as nurses that work in home healthcare.

Another consideration in the aging population is skyrocketing medical costs. While advancements in medical care mean that many conditions can be treated more successfully than in past years, technology comes at a price. Patients are spending less time than ever in the hospital. Once their condition is managed, they are released to a nursing facility or their home. In the past, many home health agencies employed LPNs or nurse’s aides to visit their in home patients. With the increased medical demands and need for training, registered nurses are becoming a sought after addition to many home health agencies rosters

For the rest of this great article click here:http://nursingarticles1.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/why-nursing-is-one-of-the-strongest-areas-of-the-us-economy/

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Top 10 differences Joke from Dave…

1. You wouldn’t tell a friend to go to nursing school.

2. You know there are hot women/men in Hell.

3. You only have to sell your soul to get into Hell.

4. People smile in Hell.

5. Hell is forever. Nursing school just seems like it.

6. At least you can sleep in Hell.

7. You can’t flunk out of Hell.

8. It is more fun getting into Hell.

9. Everyone has heard of Hell.

10. It doesn’t rain in Hell.

*This was a joke sent to me via comment from DAvidBr… I thought it was funny and wanted to share this.  thanks Dave!

Free tutoring-that’s right I said free.

If you are taking any summer classes chances are your college doesn’t have any free tutors on staff.  I found this out this week while trying to answer some of my own chemistry questions.  I did a search and found http://www.tutor.com, They offer the first 25 minutes for free.  You don’t need a credit card to use the free session. The site provides online tutoring using a chat and white board format.  You can write out a mathematical or chemical equation and they can visually and verbally walk you though it step by step.

FREE PDA software for Nurses!!!

Many nursing students and med students these days are using PDA’s to help organize the tons of information that comes there way.  It is a great tool and there are lots of programs available for the medical field.  Unfortunately many are fairly expensive.  So students may mot be able to afford all of the latest programs.  So I have put together a few links to FREE PDA programs for the medical field.  I hope you like them.  Let me know if you would like to see any other programs listed via comments.  I will add them to my post!

Here is a link to a page that has 41 free Palm OS and Pocket PC programs for your PDA.  It is geared soward nursing and med students.

http://www.fppda.com/free.html#free

This next sit, Clinical Skills Online, provides online videos demontrating the core clinical skills  was created for students in necessary for most Nursing, medical, dentist and veterinary medicine courses.  You can download them to a PDA or just watch with your laptop.

http://www.elu.sgul.ac.uk/cso/

Websites that explain Dimensional Analysis

This is the last in a series to help students with math skills. 

Dimensional Analysis tutorials [keep in mind that dimensional analysis is usually done in chemistry and physics and nursing has only adapted it for use in medication calculation problems]:

• http://www.chem.tamu.edu/class/fyp/mathrev/mr-da.html

• http://chemistry.alanearhart.org/Tutorials/DimAnal/

• http://www.ncusd203.org/north/depts/…eviewSheet.pdf

 

*Special thanks to allnurses.com  I found all of these websites after reading helpful posts about math and nursing calculations.

Websites with conversion charts (Nursing and Chemistry)

This is the fourth post in a series to help nursing students with math in nursing school and for the NCLEX.

Conversion charts:

• http://www.convert-me.com/en/ – Convert Me.com

• http://www.tostepharmd.net/pharm/clinical/measurement.html

• http://www.nurse-center.com/studentnurse/nur11.html – Nursing Formulas and Conversions. Includes a formula on how to do IV calculations

• http://www.accd.edu/sac/nursing/math/mathindex2.html – scroll to the bottom of this home page of this med calc tutorial. See the menu item that says “Common conversion factors/equivalencies”? Click the button next to it that says “GO READ” A conversion chart comes up for you

• http://www.apples4theteacher.com/temperature-conversion.html – Celcius, Farenheti, Kelvin Temperature conversion tables

• http://www.halls.md/body-surface-area/refs.htm – body surface area formulas

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Websites to help with NURSING MATH

This is the third post in a series designed to help students especially nursing students learn and refresh math skills to get great grades in Nursing school and pass the NCLEX. These sites primarily focus on math for nurses. If you would like to see general math or algebra web sites please check out my previous two posts.

Medication Calculation Help and practice problems you can work:

• http://www.m2hnursing.com/MedCal/index.php - Medication Calculation Tutorial – you do NOT have to register to go through the tutorial

• http://www.m2hnursing.com/MedCal/index.php – you do not need to login to go through the tutorial

• http://www.accd.edu/sac/nursing/math/default.html

• http://www.dosagehelp.com/

• http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_olsen_medicaldosage_9/ – companion website for Medical Dosage Calculations, 9th edition, by June Looby Olsen, Anthony P. Giangrasso, Dolores M. Shrimpton, and Patricia Dillon.

• http://www.alysion.org/dimensional/analysis.htm

• http://academic.cuesta.edu/nursing/math.htm

• http://webpages.chhs.niu.edu/kuczek/…alulations.htm

• http://www.delta.edu/tlc/TLCStudySup…rsingmath.html

• http://www.crnasomeday.com/medmath1.htm

• http://go.dbcc.edu/hhps/nursing/medi…culations.html

• http://www-isu.indstate.edu/mary/tutorial.htm

• http://home.sc.rr.com/nurdosagecal/

• http://www.testandcalc.com/quiz/index.asp

• http://www.oaklandcc.edu/Nursing/Doc…l2PRACTICE.pdf

• Pediatrics

◦ http://www.lww.com/promos1/karch/images/05-Karch.pdf – tutorial

◦ http://www.pharmacyexam.com/news/calculation.pdf – conversion chart

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