After many weeks of being hospitalized, one gentleman was fairly tired of the numerous residents coming in every morning to see his incision. One morning on rounds, the chief resident asked if she could see his incision. The patient complied and pulled up his gown. (more…)
I was teaching a communications course about ten years ago. One of my
students missed class and a test and had not notified me prior to the test.
Prior notification was required in order not to receive a zero on the exam.
So she was in big trouble. (more…)
Dear Nurse Marge,
I’ve got a problem, and I’m hoping you can help me. After fifteen years in the publishing business, I decided I wanted a career where I could give back and help people, so I’ve started nursing school.
The problem is this: I’ve got an awful back. What type of nursing should I go into that will mean the least amount of wear and tear on my back? I don’t want to injure myself further.
Signed, Spineless in Spokane
Dear Spineless,
Oh, honey. If this was a simple question about simple lifting, it’d be easy. You don’t want to handle a lot of weight? Work the NICU or an eating disorders units. Your patients will be relatively light. Simple, right?
But that’s not really what you’re asking. Let me spell it out: You’re going to hurt yourself. That’s just going to happen. It’s part of nursing. I haven’t yet met a nurse who’s been on the job longer than two weeks who doesn’t have some kind of ‘war story’ to tell.
That being said, you can do what you can to minimize injury. All of that stuff they go on and on and on about in school about proper lifting technique? It’s important! Get help when you need help. Try to always keep your head about you — even if you’re responding to the patient who had a seizure and went out of their bed directly onto their face, you still need to lift them properly.
Specialties to avoid? I’d say you wouldn’t want to assist a sports medicine doctor who specializes in sumo wrestlers!
Good Luck
Nurse Marge
During nursing school, I have visions of being ‘the perfect nurse’. I would do all the procedures according to the book — no exceptions. I would be so well organized — everything would be done correctly, on time. Forget the 1/2 hour variance when giving meds. I wouldn’t need it! I would have happy, non-demanding patients, and if I happened to get an unhappy patient, I would use the therapeutic communications I learned during our psych rotation.
Now that I’m a ‘real nurse’ I’ve had a chance to identify some of the most outstanding contrasts between student nursing and ‘real life’ nursing. (more…)
Hi Everybody! Welcome to the March edition of JNJ, our Student Nursing Spectacular!
Student nurses are near and dear to my heart: over the years I’ve been both a student nurse and a nurse instructor. It’s precisely when you’re learning the ropes and routines of nursing that humor proves its value.
The humor we need — for ourselves, and for our patients — is therapeutic humor. This is the healthy, healing humor that can be used to lift the spirit. Make no mistake: healthy, healing humor can be dark at times, sophomoric and silly at others. Laughter happens when we’re confronted with the uncomfortable, unpleasant or unusual — which is pretty much a normal day in the life of a student nurse! (more…)
photo by Jesse Miksec
My sister Barbara, a student nurse, was walking down the hall when she smelled a fould odor coming from the surgical unit’s kitchenette. Upon investigation, she found a classmate heating a bowel movement in a pan upon the stove.
When Barbara asked, “What are you doing?” the classmate replied, “The patient’s Kardex said warm stool to lab.
by Donna Trim, RN, M
As a student, I was assigned to a patient: after a bed bath, it was time to get her out of bed. Try as I might, I could only find her right shoe. A fellow student who walked into the room found me on all fours, looking under the bed for the elusive second shoe.
I told her what I was doing, and then it hit me. The patient had a left AKA!
By Amy Nemetz
As a nursing instructor, I have had a lot of experience with students who shake a bit when they draw up medications for injections. One of my students took the cake. She shook during the entire injection procedure, especially when it was in the buttocks.
Unknown to the student and myself, one of her patients was a member of the staff at the hospital. After the nervous student had completed the injection, the patient looked over her shoulder and said, “That was the best vibrating injections that I have ever received!”
By Susan Carlson
It was a warm spring day when my student called with a question on her assigned patient. The physician had ordered a stool for Ova and Parasites, and she wanted to know how to collect the specimen. I told her to obtain the specimen on a tongue blade and take it immediately to the lab.
Shortly after, I was at the elevator when the door opened and there was my student, in the middle of a crowded elevator. She looked so prim and proper in her crisp student nurse uniform wearing her nursing cap. Then I noted the uncomfortable faces of everyone else in the elevator.
The student was holding a tongue blade with a large lump of stool precariously balanced on it!
In Lesson Two, I taught the need for proper containers, the labeling of lab specimens, and the importance of the feedback loop in communications!