NurseZone Blog: RN Talk

Wanted: Ideas for Increasing Compliance Among Patients With Diabetes

2010-03-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

All nurses know that diabetes is a huge problem in this country. At least 24 million people suffer from the disease – close to 8 percent of the population or nearly one in 12 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vast majority of diabetics are of the type-2 variety and we know the tremendous costs associated with that. So if we’re looking for ways to cut health

New Toothbrush: A Metaphor for a Healthy Life

2010-03-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

For some reason, teeth are always left out of any discussion about health. We all know how important good dental health is to overall health, but I’ll bet most of us in primary care forget to mention it when we’re encouraging patients to make lifestyle changes. Dental health affects nutrition, pregnancy, cardiovascular health and overall well being. People with rotten teeth don’t feel good or

Tanning Salons: Nurses Weigh In

2010-03-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

Years ago when I lived in the Midwest in a state that had real winter, we used to rush outdoors at the first sign of sunshine and being baking. A golden brown physique was highly desirable, and as prom neared, girls spent increasing time on their tanning mission to assure they’d look dazzling on The Big Night. And then the sunlamp became available at local pharmacies and every high school girl

The Health Insurance Debate: It Affects Real People

2010-03-01T16:34:00.001-08:00

The Health Insurance Debate: It Affects Real PeopleThe nurses who take care of my dear friend, Lynn, now have a real example of the shortcomings of our health care system – or lack thereof.Lynn, who lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, has worked for 30 years as a journalist, some of that time as a health care specialist. She is not a nurse, but because of her work, she knows more about medicine

Woman Seeking Advice: Why Should I Be A Nurse?

2010-02-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

The email came a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.A woman who reads this blog -- Kate from the Philadelphia area – asked my advice about becoming a nurse. She is currently taking prerequisites to get into nursing school and has been accepted to an accelerated program because she already has a bachelor’s degree in music therapy.“Nursing will be a second career for me,

Message from the Nurses in Haiti: Don’t Forget!

2010-02-17T17:33:00.001-08:00

It’s been about five weeks since Haiti’s capital, Port au Prince, was leveled by a 7.0 earthquake. News of the city, its survivors and those who went to help has predictably faded from front-page headlines. In my local paper today, there were a couple of items in the News Briefs section, despite the fact that even more misery is likely to come.The weather is quickly moving into the rainy season

Nurse Advocates: Can They Go to Jail for Doing the Right Thing?

2010-02-12T16:23:00.001-08:00

If nurses had a water cooler and they had time to stand around it, they’d be talking about this story.Anne Mitchell, RN, of Kermit, Texas, a town of 5,200 just south of the New Mexico border, reported Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., MD, to the Texas Medical Board because she believed that he was practicing bad medicine. Now Mitchell will stand trial for doing so.Mitchell’s complaint said that Arafiles

An Answer to a Tough Question: How to Explain Death to Young Children

2010-02-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

Nikki Aksamit is not a nurse, but she’s created something that many nurses may find useful: a book explaining death to young children. If you work in hospice or palliative care, or are looking for explanations for why people and pets die, you may find some help in the book “Mommy, What Is Dead?” I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be asked about the birds ‘n’ the bees than about the what and

Body Scans: Preventive Medicine or a Precursor to Problems?

2010-02-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Maybe you’ve seen the fliers floating around your neighborhood, delivered with your newspaper, distributed at your church or dispensed at the local senior center. The headline on some iridescent colored paper, in bold black letters, might read something like “How do you know you don’t have a ‘silent’ tumor unless you look?”These typical scare tactics are used to hawk total body scans using

Health Care Reform: Where Have All the Nurses Gone?

2010-01-26T13:19:00.001-08:00

When it comes to health care reform, we hear a lot from the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the American Medical Association and all the other stakeholders that could be affected by changes that Congress will or won’t make. But where are the nurses?I’m not the only one who is wondering.Health care experts at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently asked that question and

Workin' On the Night Shift: Can You Stay Connected?

2010-01-25T13:59:00.001-08:00

I confess: I absolutely hated working nights during the years I was employed by large teaching hospitals in the Midwest and Southern California.Back then, almost all staff nurses were expected to work all shifts on a rotating basis. There were a few nurses who worked nights permanently because they preferred that shift. The rest of us had to fill in the gaps, so about 20 percent of our shifts

Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Maybe Both is Best

2010-01-21T15:28:00.000-08:00

In one of the many press releases I regularly receive, there was recently news of a study conducted by researchers at UC San Diego and UCLA on the attitudes and beliefs of medical students nationwide about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).The treatments mentioned in the study include massage, yoga, herbal medicine and acupuncture, among others, and the findings appear in the online

Web-Based Medical Records: Dream or Nightmare?

2010-01-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

Universally available electronic medical records is probably a pipe dream – at least for some time to come.By “universally available” I mean medical records that are obtainable by anyone from anywhere, provided of course, that the person who wants access has the magic password and permission of the patient.My understanding is that the only way to do this is with a Web-based system. A few

The Nursing Profession: Full Employment Anytime, Anywhere?

2010-01-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

I’m amazed at how many times I hear news stories or read articles about nursing.Just the other morning, I heard a piece on NPR about how nursing is one field of employment that is expanding. The story also stated that the average annual salary for nurses working full time is about $62,000. That seemed a bit high, taking into account the different type of nursing jobs and standards of living in

Year of the Nurse: A Time for Global and Local Service

2009-12-30T18:29:00.000-08:00

2010 has been declared Year of the Nurse by the Nightingale Foundation for Global Health, which is based in Great Britain. The idea for celebrating and honoring nurses grew after four years of discussions, planning and conferences with nurses around the world. The purpose is not only to recognize all that nurses do; it’s not just about patting them on the back for jobs well done. This initiative

Rapid Response Nurses: A Resource for Nurses, Families and Patients

2009-12-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

An interesting story about nurses appeared in our local newspaper this morning.It explained to readers about “rapid response” nurses and teams, whose goal it is to stop big trouble like Code Blues before they happen.The teams give permission to floor and unit nurses to call for a second opinion when they feel there have been critical changes in patients that could lead to worse things, even

Think About Changing Just One Patient At a Time

2009-12-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

It looks like obesity is the new smoking.According to a new study published in the Dec. 3 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the gains in the overall health status of Americans achieved from kicking the tobacco habit could be wiped out because of the growing numbers of overweight and obese people in this country."If smoking continues to decline at past rates and obesity continues to

Nurses Rise to the Occasion in Texas

2009-12-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

Nurses don’t wish ill of anyone, but when the worst happens, we want to be there.At least some of us do – like the nurses who were on duty Nov. 5 at Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas, where 10 of the victims of the Fort Hood shootings were brought as soon as they could be transported.I’m sure that for these nurses, the Food Hood incident will be one of those defining moments of their

For ER Nurses: Survey Shows Violence Is Pervasive in the Workplace

2009-11-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve always known being an ER nurse can be a dangerous gig.I’ve heard stories and seen it firsthand. Once, when reporting on area emergency rooms for our local newspaper, I witnessed two incidences of violence. I spent several hours in the ER waiting room to get a sense of what it was like for both patients and nurses. During that time, I saw the triage nurse assaulted by what looked to be a

A Salute to Combat Nurses: You Go, Girls and Guys

2009-11-19T07:15:00.000-08:00

We all remember Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan from the popular television series M.A.S.H.Sometimes ditzy in the social arena, she was a highly skilled and knowledgeable nurse when it came to performing in the battlefield OR during the Korean War. She and the surgeons sometimes had to operate under perilous conditions, and while the show was a sit com, it made some strong points about the morality

Kicking the Habit: Let Them Know Nurses Care

2009-11-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

The Great American Smokeout is just around the corner. This year the event happens on Nov. 19. The Great American Smokeout has been coming around annually on the third Thursday of November since 1976, but its origins date to 1971. That’s when a man in Massachusetts asked people to give up smoking for one day and donate the savings to a local high school. I’m not sure whether he was thinking more

H1N1: Creating Dilemma On All Sides

2009-10-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

The swine flu and vaccine are presenting some problems for nurses. In New York state, nurses are threatened with job termination if they don’t get vaccinated against H1N1. The state health department is telling all people who work directly with patients and those with whom they come in contact that they must be vaccinated for both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus.At least one nurse doesn’t

Cancer Screenings: What Should Nurses Say?

2009-10-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

I know that, because I’m a nurse, I’m going to be asked by more than one person what I think of the American Cancer Society’s new stand on the benefits and problems of screening for some cancers.According to a story by the New York Times, the society is “quietly” preparing a statement that will say that the benefits of screening for prostate and breast cancers may have been overrated. I suppose

Multi-State Licensure Compact - Is It Time?

2009-10-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

When I graduated from nursing school oh-so-many years ago, there was no National Council Licensing Exam.Every state devised its own nursing boards, and states differed on what were passing grades. I sat for my boards in Missouri – a multiple choice test for which we used a pencil to fill in those little bubbles. The exam was a five-parter, taken over two days, and students had to travel to the

Survey Shows the Changing Face of Nursing

2009-10-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

California is often called a bellwether state because trends are likely to begin here and that’s important because it has more than 10 percent of the country’s population. So it was with great interest that I read the results of the recently published California Board of Registered Nursing 2008 Survey of Registered Nurses.There’s a lot of interesting information in this 218-page report, which