Charts and Notes

A Nurse's little corner in her journey to become a gainfully employed RN.

[uberzers]

HEY. HEY YOU! Stop what you’re doing and pay attention for a second.  You see these bits of arts? Well they’re by my friend, Mari, who sadly has recently been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Due to this she’s had to quit her job since she’s too much of a liability at any company. She lives in the Philippines where unemployment benefits are well… non-existent. Healthcare is something you need a job for, which as stated 2 sentences ago, has posed as a bit of a speed bump. So she’s now trying to turn commission work into her full-time job. 

Mari is such a lovely girl and a great artist. Not to mention- her prices are cheap. Like- I wanted to hit her on the head for going so low kind of cheap. Prices range from $5-20 and she’s very open about negotiating prices.

If you want to enquire for a commission, you can contact her through her deviantart: Iyachaa

or email her at: [email protected]

[chartsandnotes]

It's been a while: updates

Greetings, Tumblr!

I've managed to waddle my way back here after a long hiatus. I must admit, it's mostly because I've managed to finally get my license and after a year or so, I'm still quite employed in a sector I didn't study for (I currently work as an outsourced phone rep, quite a common scenario in the Philippines). It sucks, but I'm hoping things will change!

[chartsandnotes]

Things you pick up in the field of Medicine/Nursing

Happy New Year, Tumblr. :) Did you have a meaningful Holiday?

Homo Sapiens are an ever evolving species. Henceforth, as an organism, we are more or less destined for change - though change is not always drastic. I guess I can say that over my 4 years of studying Nursing, that I've managed to change myself quite a bit; not to mention pick up certain quirks.

Back in High School, I was more of a background person - I kept things working behind the scenes and I more or less avoided leadership positions. As I stepped into college, it became a huge change to be pushed towards that position and if anything that gave me several PR problems on my first and second year of study but that eventually started to resolve.

I guess I could blame my awkwardness on that; plus the fact that I was more or less more of an individualistic worker. I liked and appreciated working by myself - and as you all very well know, Nursing doesn't work that way. It was a huge adjustment that eventually led me to start becoming more social to the point of giving up a 5-year relationship to accommodate to the change. None the less, it was a welcomed one; it turned out to be for the better.

Speaking of welcomed change, one Habit I've managed to pick up from the Medical field would be a LOVE of books. Though my uncle had this vast collection of medical e-books I would be always referring to, I would always look first at the books I already have first -- then sigh in disappointment if I couldn't find it and see if Mokona (My purse I bought from Comic Alley of the same Character) had enough money to afford a book; I guess I've managed to make looking in the internet a last-resort. :D I enjoyed flipping pages and reading when I felt like it. As an artist I guess it was comfortable having to move my hands as a whole rather than just my fingers I guess?

Can't be too sure, though.

My own quirks and changes aside; how has the medical field changed you? :D

[chartsandnotes]

I just happened upon your blog... noticed you are an RN student.. how much longer until you graduate?

Oh, I'll be graduating on March 2011. :)

[chartsandnotes]

A Pessimistic Nurse VS An Optimistic Nurse

Pessimist: Patients are always bitching at your ears for not getting enough attention. Optimist: Listen to them anyway. Here's to hoping they'll remember you for being patient with them when they finally get discharged!

Pessimist: Professors are always at your back dissing you for a mistake you didn't do intentionally. Optimist: Move on; better get that nagging now than deal with Malpractice Lawsuits later! Pessimist: Doctors are always rolling their eyes for you confirming their orders a bit too much, despite it being protocol. Optimist: They'll thank you for it once it saves them from getting sued for negligence.

Pessimist: Hospitals are not even giving me enough pay! Optimist: I have a job in this shitty economy! Huzzah.

Pessimist: Nursing Schools are asking you to pay incredibly expensive tuition fees for randomly selected professors who lack consideration for their Students. Optimist: You won't have to deal with them after graduation; for all it's worth you leeched off their knowledge for your own benefit! SUCCESS!

Pessimist: Bookstores are overpricing medical books you would've bought to study better... Optimist: In the back of my head, I am supporting an underpaid Educator! SOCIAL MINDLINK GO.

Pessimist: Nursing is surrounded by death, pain, anger and a lack of sleep. Optimist: I love what I do and those things will not stop me. <3

Which of the two do you see yourself saying?

[chartsandnotes]

What is Nursing?

Sometimes, I wonder - throughout all the stresses of work in the hospital and the academe, do some nurses even think of the feelings of others?

Their patients?

Their students?

Right now, I'm slightly convinced that some are too into keeping their names "clean" at the cost of others. What happened to the Therapeutic Relationship we were supposed to be the prime users of?

Isn't Nursing all about caring for the sick and well?

Why can't we all start caring for one another, as a start?

It isn't all about how much you know or can do - those things can come through experience and study; but learning to care for people truthfully and sincerely for far more than just their physical well-being is something that is rarely seen in the profession nowadays.

Today, I grieve.

Sometimes I see that Nursing - no, the entire field of medicine - has become nothing more than a profession that solely lies on protecting something called a "license". Qualification is important; sure, we all need to be qualified. No one wants to be treated by an incompetent Nurse or Doctor.

I'm quite sure no one would want to be treated by a Nurse or Doctor who completely forgets that their patients, their co-workers, their superiors, their employees - have feelings.

Maybe it's time our generation started something.

Maybe it's time we started looking at everyone around us as people and not merely as competition, numbers, or "patients of the day".

Reblog, if you agree.

[chartsandnotes]

white-coat:

How your nerves communicate with your muscles is quite a complex ordeal, so I’ll try to keep it simple. You think “Hey, there’s an ant on my foot. Maybe I should kick it off,” (yeah, I know it’s random, but there really was an ant as I wrote this). You think it, and it happens, seemingly...

[chartsandnotes]

white-coat:

In case you missed it, the human heart has 4 chambers: 2 atrium and 2 ventricles. That’s why heart sounds are divided into “Lub Dub,” with each set of chambers contracting in sync with each other. Sometimes the chambers don’t agree on when to contract. In the case of the ventricals, it leads to...

[chartsandnotes]

white-coat:

You always hear it on tv, it sounds so exotic! What is edema? It’s swelling (kind of anticlimactic, huh?). So while you might not think your swollen ankle after hiking a couple miles is a big deal, to doctors edema is an indication that something somewhere in the patient’s body is going horribly...

[psychotherapy]

[chartsandnotes]

psychotherapy:

“…As a card-carrying introvert, I am one of the many people whose personality confers on them a preference for the inner world of their own mind rather than the outer world of sociability. Depleted by too much external stimulation, we thrive on reflection and solitude. Our psychic opposites, extraverts, prefer schmoozing and social life because such activities boost their mood. They get bored by too much solitude.

Over the past two decades, scientists have whittled down to five those clusters of cognitions, emotions, motivations, and behaviors that we mean by “personality” factors. Extraversion, and by inference introversion, is chief among them, along with neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness—psychology’s so-called Big Five. Although introverts and extraverts may seem like they come from different planets, introversion and extraversion exist on a continuous dimension that is normally distributed. There are a few extremely extraverted folk, and a few extreme introverts, while most of us share some extravert and some introvert traits.

Although there is no precise dividing line, there are plenty of introverts around. It’s just that perceptual biases lead us all to overestimate the number of extraverts among us (they are noisier and hog the spotlight). Often confused with shyness, introversion does not imply social reticence or discomfort. Rather than being averse to social engagement, introverts become overwhelmed by too much of it, which explains why the introvert is ready to leave a party after an hour and the extravert gains steam as the night goes on.

Scientists now know that, while introverts have no special advantage in intelligence, they do seem to process more information than others in any given situation. To digest it, they do best in quiet environments, interacting one on one. Further, their brains are less dependent on external stimuli and rewards to feel good.

As a result, introverts are not driven to seek big hits of positive emotional arousal—they’d rather find meaning than bliss—making them relatively immune to the search for happiness that permeates contemporary American culture. In fact, the cultural emphasis on happiness may actually threaten their mental health. As American life becomes increasingly competitive and aggressive, to say nothing of blindingly fast, the pressures to produce on demand, be a team player, and make snap decisions cut introverts off from their inner power source, leaving them stressed and depleted. Introverts today face one overarching challenge—not to feel like misfits in their own culture.”

[psychotherapy]

[chartsandnotes]

psychotherapy:

Washington, DC (AHN) – Teenage girls “at risk” of becoming obese could benefit from educational psychotherapy, according to a new report.

Researchers with the National Institutes of Health said in a statement that girls who participated in what they call interpersonal psychotherapy may be able to prevent their body mass index from increasing over the course of a year, compared to girls who took traditional health education classes.

The therapy focuses on improving interpersonal relationships by targeting the underlying social and personal difficulties that influence someone to lose control while eating. The researchers said interpersonal therapy has helped both depressed adults and younger people gain healthier eating habits, and to help stop binge eating in adults.

The researchers studied 38 girls, some with and others without loss of control eating. They were randomly designated to attend either interpersonal therapy sessions or standard health education classes currently taught to teenagers. All the girls completed their courses and received follow up visits for the next year.

Girls who were assigned interpersonal therapy were more likely to stabilize or reduce their body mass index than those who received the health education classes, the researchers said.

The study was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

[chartsandnotes]

CLEAR!

We all know Code Blue - or in some hospitals, Code 99 - as the code declared by the medical team in the case of where a patient's life is in danger; it's said to be used in the situation where in the patient 99% dead with a 1% of survival (I hope I got that right!)

I've witnessed a code only twice during my 2-year clinicals as a student nurse and it's honestly a little unnerving to watch so many doctors run around, Nurses wheeling crash carts and injecting epinepherine; there's a lot of things that happen in such situations so it's not exactly really easy to say what exactly transpires by my perspective at the moment - but it seems like something worth learning.

So, what things are involved in a Code blue situation?  A professor from my school taught us this:

C - Crash Cart O - Oxygenation D - Defibrillator E - Epinepherine B - Bag Valve Mask (also known as an "Ambu-Bag") L - Lines (IV) U - Us (The medical team) E - Equipment

Typical medications you can find being administered while in a code blue are the following:

C - Calcium Gluconate, an Antidote for Magnesium Sulfate. A - Atrophine Sulfate, an anti-cholinergic drug. M - Magnesium Sulfate, an anti-convulsant. E - Epinepherine, to encourage the heart to pump blood. You know it as one of two hormones secreted by the Adrenals thanks to the Stress Mechanism. It's also commonly known as Adrenaline. L - Lidocane, an anti-arrhythmic. Actually, you can consider Dopamine and Doputamine here too. S - Sodium Bicarbonate, to treat Metabolic Acidosis.

Hope this is of help :D

[chartsandnotes]

By SAMUEL P. MEDENILLA

The Manila Bulletin August 22, 2010, 4:57pm

Amid the decline in the global demand for Filipino nurses, more graduates of science-related courses are now pursuing a degree in medicine, the Board of Medicine said over the weekend.

Board of Medicine member Jose Cueto said the lessening of employment opportunities for nurses abroad seems to have contributed to the increase in National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) examinees.

The NMT is a requirement for undergraduates seeking a degree in medicine.

Six years ago when there was a high demand for nurses abroad, the Board of Medicine noted a sharp decline in medicine students.

“During the time when nursing was at the top on the list of (preferred courses by) students, there was a sharp decline on the number of students taking the National Medical Admission Test,” Cueto said.

However, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) noted a reduction in the demand of nurses abroad.

Based on recent statistics from the POEA , the number of professional nurses deployed to other countries only increased by 6.71% from 12,618 to 13, 465 in 2009; as compared to the rate in 2008 when migrant nurses rose by 40.13% from 9,004 to 12,618.

Earlier, reports by the POEA showed that the trend was due to the global economic recession which reduced the demands of Filipino nurse in some countries like the United States, Canada, Kuwait, Quatar and Taiwan, and the increasing number of competing nurses from other countries like Pakistan, India, and some African nations.

“Doctors used to take nursing course, now it’s the nursing graduates who are taking medicine. The reverse education has been reversed,” Cuteto said.

Nursing, together with other health-related courses like physical therapy and medical technology are considered as some of the best preparatory courses for medicine.

A 2009 report by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) showed that among the three courses, nursing is considered as most popular with 77,898 examinees, followed by medical technology (2,270), and then physical therapy (1,347).

Cueto said the decrease in the employment opportunities for nursing students contributed to the increase in the number of examinees in the medical board exam and the NMAT.

“Now the Center for Educational Measurement, Inc. which gives the NMAT, says there is now an increasing number of NMAT-takers,” Cueto said.

However, despite the increasing number in registered doctors, the board said it would still not be enough to address the lack of doctors in rural areas, since they would usually prefer to practice their profession abroad.

“Even if we increase the number of medical students, the problem is that many of them are still going abroad and for those who choose to stay in the country they usually only stay in the metropolitan areas,” Cueto said.

Aside from Cueto, the meeting last Friday was attended by PRC Chairman Nicolas Lapeña Jr. and three of the six members of the Board of Medicine, which includes its chairwoman Mildred Pareja, Miguel Noche Jr., Restituto De Ocampo.

This is something that should've been expected. :) I personally want to become a doctor myself. :P Interesting turn of events, isn't it?