#nurblr

[iheartvmt]

Gotta love vet techs lol

[macgyvermedical]

I don’t know what nursing or medical student needs to hear this, but you need to take a first aid course if you have not done so. Preferably a higher level one like wilderness and remote first aid or even an EMT if you can spare the time.

Someone is going to get suddenly hurt or sick and everyone is going to look at you. And you’re not going to know why you have no idea what to do because all you’ve been doing for the past few years is learning how to take care of hurt and sick people.

The thing is, knowing what to do in the moment, being able to keep yourself and your patient safe while not making anything worse is a completely different skill than taking care of someone in a hospital or nursing facility. And its okay if you never want to do remote or on-scene medicine as a job, but everyone is going to expect you to be able to for some reason so getting some first aid skills is going to really help you in the coming years. Promise.

[populationpensive]

Abdominal Pain PSA

I've had a run of people admitted to the ICU after have 1-2 weeks of abdominal pain who were struggling to eat or drink that ended up having conditions leading to necrotic bowel. Dead bowel makes people incredibly sick. Like, death's door sick. Anecdotally, I'd say maybe 60% of our patients make it through such an ordeal. Every time I talk with their families, their loved ones say that they looked bad and they tried to get the patient to go get some help. Often, these people wait too long.

So.

PSA: if you're having abdominal pain and can't keep anything down for more than 48 hours (especially in the context of N/V WITHOUT bowel movements), you NEED to go to the ER. Not urgent care. Not your PCP. The ER. Please get checked out. Do not let things sit. If you have known GI disease like diverticulosis, a hernia, etc, even more of a reason to get checked out.

[quisters]

normalize gay nurses.

[sarcasticbabywhispererjess]

[lamentations44]

Hey hey hey- its MELANOMA AWARENESS MONTH!

Put your sunscreen, hat, longsleeve, full coverage bathing suit, etc on!

April 2016 I had a malignant melanoma removed from my back- I still have a significant scar as a reminder. My husband had a melanoma removed a few years after that and we have been vigilant since.

Unfortunately- I had a mole come back after my last visit as a “severely atypical nevi” and had to have a surgical excision( today). These moles or nevi are not ALWAYS cancer or dangerous- but from what I gather, convert easily to melanoma. Given my sordid history with melanoma- the choice was a 2.5cm surgical incision/ removal. I was grateful it was less than the 11cm from the previous melanoma. However- this one is slap dab in the middle of my abdomen. So now, thanks (likely) to my idiotic youth and bikini choices- I will sport- not a cute bikini- but a large surgical incision on my back from 2016 and a medium sized one on my abdomen from today.

Please- be careful. No matter what beautiful skin tone you are- be careful and get SCREENED.

We can PREVENT two cancers- SKIN and COLON. Be smart and screen regularly for both.

(Abdomen from 5/5/23). Back from (4/2016)

[somuchtostudysolittletime]

28/5/23 // 13.46

Yes these are my uni notes from 2018. Yes I’m glad I’ve kept them because today, I, a fully qualified pharmacist, could not figure out how beta blockers work and had to use these notes. Help

[sweetdreamspootypie]

Yet another PSA from your friendly neighbourhood ward nurse

If you or a close person ends up in hospital please check in and make sure we have your contact details correct.

We go over the personal info form with all newly admitted patients, but these days most people don't have phone numbers memorized, and even though we check, contact numbers for next of kin often don't work when we try to call you.

Check your phone and make sure you've got an emergency contact number set up

Make sure your important people are clearly labelled (I have my people saved by actual name, but then also labelled with relationship like mother and housemate, and have them starred as important contacts)

Check in with your older relatives or neighbours - make sure that they have this set up in /their/ phones as well

And if they are older and at risk of becoming confused when unwell, it may be worth setting up their phone so it does not require a password

I don't know if that's official recommendation or not

All I know is that the other night, we had a new admission brought in by his neighbour, who had checked on him because she hadnt seen him in a few days

She found him collapsed at home - weakened because of Covid

None of the contact numbers we had on file for his family worked

He collapsed again within an hour of us receiving him

He was dead within 5 hours

The only person we could call was the neighbour who brought him in

The only reason we managed to contact his family at all was because he had his phone in his pocket, it didn't need a passcode to unlock, and the doctor could go through the numbers that shared his family name

Please

Wear a mask

Get vaccinated

Check on your neighbours

Check on your elderly and at risk community members and family

Go through safety precautions with them - make sure they have these things set up

Help them set up their phones so they can easily use them even if feeling confused

That's the difference between dying alone or not

[theglowstickchronicles]

Not me spending my day off practically writing a textbook for my orientee because I have a really bad feeling again, but if I let another new grad fail orientation I will kms because I literally have a masters degree in this.

[nursinggeek]

So, I'm already using Grian's "Third Life is a series on YouTube. What color is my shirt?" in teaching how to approach tricky exam questions. (Literally, "What part of this question is telling you that Third Life is a series on YouTube?" has become an actual thing I ask my students during quiz reviews once they've seen and discussed the clip.) Here's the thing: it's a very useful way of demonstrating distractors in questions in a non-nursing context that makes them laugh ... so they remember it.

Now, I think I'm adding today's Imp & Skizz Podcast episode "The Thief of Joy" to my syllabus in the spring. That class is specifically about making the shift from student nurse to professional nurse, and one of the big things new grad nurses run into (besides all the systemic problems that make it harder than ever to give them a solid start) is comparing themselves either to more experienced nurses or to fellow new grad nurses who pick up certain things faster. Almost everything we'll be discussing is nursing-specific in that class, and hearing from a COMPLETELY different realm (Minecraft, drumming, poker) about how comparison can shut you down or hold you back ("I suck!") or can be used as a way to grow ("There's something I can learn here!") is something I think has the potential to be really helpful.

Giving them another reason to roll their eyes and say, "She's such a weirdo. Who assigns stuff like this in nursing school?" is just a bonus.

[macgyvermedical]

Did You Know You Can Pay Me for Things?

I am a Registered Nurse, have a Master of Public Health and experience in hospital floor nursing, outpatient nursing, public health nursing, and education. I am establishing a base of virtual offerings for anyone who is interested. Thanks for perusing my wares!

You can pay me for things like:

New Condition Education (Did you just get diagnosed with something the doctor didn't have time to explain well? I am happy to schedule a 1:1 videocall with you to help you better understand.) - Sliding Scale from $10-30/hr

Basic Health Education (Did the public school system screw you or your child over when it came to health ed? I can provide a basic (queer-friendly and non-fat-phobic) health education curriculum over 3 or more 1:1 videocalls.) - Sliding Scale from $10-30/hr

Nurse Troubleshooting (need some advice on setting up your living space so it is accessible for you? I would be happy to help via videocall if appropriate for the situation) - Sliding Scale from $10-30/hr

NCLEX Tutoring (Are you about to graduate nursing school in the USA? Feel like you need some extra help? I have been teaching medical and nursing students for the last 4 years and just finished a course on the new NCLEX, so if you're interested in some 1:1 help, hit me up!) - $20/hr

Historical Medicine and Nursing for Fiction (Are you writing something cool and historical that takes place less than 150 years ago? Need someone who has been quietly researching medical and nursing history for years and has a library of contemporaneous sources? I would be happy to schedule a 1:1 videocall to help!) - $30/hr

Contemporary Medicine and Nursing for Fiction (yes I know you can get it from this blog for free, but then you have to use the tumblr search feature and potentially wait a long time. A 1:1 videoconference would be much faster, don't you think?) - $30/hr

Medical Accuracy Review (did you write something you hope was medically accurate? Would you like someone to check it over and give advice to improve?)- $0.05/word for the portion reviewed

New! I also teach physical exam skills online. Great for if you missed them in nursing or medical school (I taught exam skills for 4 years to med students) or if you’re just interested as a lay person. I promise I am nicer than the last person who taught them to you!

Need something that's not on the list? Just ask!

[populationpensive]

Working in an ICU...

...Means that you meet people on the worst day of their lives.

A colleague of mine said this over the weekend, which was a very rough weekend for me in so many ways. My patients were complex and very sick. The families were challenging. So. Incredibly. Challenging.

I see the worst things that can happen to people. Every. Day. I am able to push it out most of the time. Some times, there is a true shit storm of circumstances that emotionally bankrupts me. That was this weekend for me.

I think it is sometimes easy to forget how vulnerable patients and families are in the ICU. It's easy to forget it is the worst day of their lives. And when these families can't control the illness of their loved one, I think they look for literally anything they can control. Sometimes that results in verbal abuse about policies, staff, and treatment. It can be so hard to deal with this. The amount of patience it takes is astronomical.

I will freely admit that I am very detached. You almost HAVE to be to a certain extent to DO the job. But even the most detached people have a breaking point.

It makes me grateful for every family that simply thanks me for my time. Every colleague that "gets it". Every person willing to listen to me when I am going home from work.

So, to all you health care people that struggle with this as I do, we've got this. Some how, we've got it.

[sarcasticbabywhispererjess]

[whatsyouremergency]

Happy Nurse’s Week, you bad asses.

[somuchtostudysolittletime]

8/5/23 // 22.28

Going on pretty walks: 1

Understanding neurology: 0

[sweetdreamspootypie]

So I need to do an education session teaching the other ward nurses something (for my professional development portfolio stuff)

Should.... should I do it on queer stuff?

Queer stuff 101: the gingerbread person and holy shit please stop misgendering the trans patients and using slurs

Inching closer to teenage me's aspirations

Problem.is that if I don't just chose something then I'm going to overthink way too much. I never could do assignments on time.

I would probably have to get proper sources for things besides "source: trust me"'

Technically none of those are related to the quality improvement groups I've been put on but. Eh.