NursingFx @nursingfx - Tumblr Blog

With her husband near death from an antibiotic-resistant superbug, a scientist found a cure no one had used in the US -- intravenous injecti

she put phages inside her husband, and saved him🥰

macgyvermedical

Prioritization in Nursing

I don't know what new nurse needs to hear this, but I want to give a little insight from being a nurse for 5 years and then going through orientation again in a new position:

They will tell you everything is 11/10 important.

They will not differentiate importance-wise between getting someone a blanket (because prompt customer service is 11/10 important), encouraging someone to walk ASAP after surgery (because preventing bad outcomes through good nursing care is your job and therefore 11/10 important) and initiating CPR (because that's an emergency and is obviously 11/10 important).

And if you're outside of nursing (or medicine in general), you might think "well obviously the CPR is the most important of those things, how could anyone think getting a blanket would be equally important?

But then new nurses have just spent the last 4 years being told that everything is 11/10 important, and that no decision you make is the right one in any circumstance. But also that they'll never make it if they don't learn to prioritize.

And that gives you a really special kind of anxiety. The kind that makes it full-on impossible to prioritize in any meaningful way.

So I just want to say: Despite what they've been telling you for the last 4 years, some things are genuinely less important than other things.

The mnemonic is CURE: Critical Urgent Routine Extra.

CPR/titrating a drip/assessing a change in status/responding to a monitor alarm is Critical.

Taking a call from a doctor/drawing a time sensitive lab/giving a time sensitive med/pain and nausea management/cleaning up soiled patients/assisting patients to the restroom is Urgent

Passing daily meds/doing routine assessments/educating/discharging patients/charting/bringing patients things/basic customer service is Routine

Tidying up a patient's room/calling a pt's family member*/refilling ice water/looking at your care plans, etc... is Extra.

And there will be people- patients, patient family members, people on tumblr who have had bad experiences in hospitals, maybe even your manager- who will disagree with your prioritization choice.

That's okay. They can disagree with you. Your job is keeping your patients alive until the next shift, and prioritization is a huge part of that. And everyone has a different perspective on it, and everyone thinks their choices are the only correct ones. Stand your ground.

*unless there has been a significant status change, then it would be urgent, or you've agreed to call them about something specific, then it would be routine

that-catholic-shinobi

In the beginning of the pandemic I was called a “Hero”

I was told countless times thanked for “working on the frontlines” like it was a war

In the beginning of the pandemic my patients were suffering. Crying and begging to be allowed to see family, to see friends. To go out of their rooms. To open their windows. I comforted them, and had to bear their pain as well my own.

In the beginning we were understaffed, overworked and underpaid and still are

In the beginning I hadn’t even graduated nursing school

In the beginning we were told there would be no vaccine mandates

Now i’m going to lose my job less than a year out of nursing school in two weeks if I don’t comply. I will be blamed, ostracized and the companies will bemoan “shortstaffing”

Cause you’re only a hero when its convenient

sheathandshear

man there’s been a lot of talk about how nurses are acutely suffering during COVID times but almost no one – including and especially hospital administrators – seem to grasp how royally this is going to fuck everyone over after COVID for years and years to come. experienced nurses don’t grow on trees! burnout, depression, compassion fatigue, and trauma are near universal, half the nurses and doctors I know crack jokes about how “it’s not a drinking problem, it’s a drinking habit!”, and the only thing anyone is talking about is “how can we leave here” – travel nursing, retirement, cushy outpatient private practice. why break your soul working inpatient when you could get paid x4 your current rate to inject rich housewives with botox? anyone who’s got the credentials and experience to do so is jumping ship while they still can. like hey, anti-vaxxer, you survived COVID but end up in the CVICU for a massive heart attack five years from now. fantastic, your treatment team will be one divorced veteran nurse with PTSD who hates everyone now and the three junior nurses with borderline alcoholism and chronic workplace back injuries whose nursing skills all come from virtual simulations and preceptors showing them workarounds because no one had time to actually do anything properly. and everyone, including people who are pro-vaxx, who are as sick as I am with our fellow citizens’ bullshit, seems to think that once COVID goes away, the healthcare workforce will snap back to where it was before late 2019, and it won’t!!! you will be seeing the effects of COVID in our healthcare system for decades to come, and they will be bad.

thepersonalquotes

themedicalstate

Suturing Techniques

by The Apprentice Doctor

catchymemes

20 COVID-19 Lifestyle Advice & Tips based on what I learned from work: a Public Service from Tatchie, your NEIGHBORHOOD NURSE 😘

1- The PROPER WASHING OF HANDS is the #1 weapon against most illnesses. Do it for a full 20 seconds and do it everytime you touch something or someone. AVOID touching your face, nose & mouth or rub eyes.

2- Consider everyone is a carrier of COVID-19 including yourself, and everything as an agent of contagion.

3- Because of #2 therefore we have to practice Social Distancing by maintaining 6 feet distance from everyone.

4- COVID-19 is spread via droplet spray: cover your cough & sneezes, be mindful when talking as some drops of spit can come out while we talk. Droplets fall to the ground that’s why maintaining 6 feet of distance can help minimize the spread of the disease. Wear eyeglasses if you have them to minimize droplets getting in your eyes.

5- COVID-19 lives in the air for up to 3 hours but it’s not for sure if it can be contracted by being airborne but it’s possible. Make sure to increase ventilation indoors and not recirculate air but also be mindful that you are not exposed from outside pedestrians who could be carriers & can cough toward your indoor space.

6- Wear NON-SURGICAL grade masks or any facial coverings (because PPE is in short supply) to help protect others from your droplets & vice-versa if you are heading out to do essential errands such as being the chosen TRIBUTE to do grocery shopping. Make sure you are covering your nose fully and have a tight seal under your chin. If your facial covering is not done correctly then you are as good as not wearing any.

7- AVOID touching your masks while on your face. When you do, you have contaminated your hands and you will have to wash your hands. If you have to adjust the placement, you can, but do it where you can wash your hands immediately after doing so. Also wash & re-use non-surgical masks after use or immediately after it’s contaminated

8- FOMITES or objects where germs can live can also spread the disease when you touch them. Here’s the list of common things and how long COVID-19 can live on these surfaces:

*CARDBOARD- 24 hours

*PAPER- a few minutes up to 5 days

*WOOD- 4 days

*METAL- 5 days

*PLASTICS- 2 to 3 days

*STAINLESS STEEL- 2 to 3 days

*COPPER- 4 hours

*ALUMINUM- 2 to 8 hours

*GLASS- 5 days

*CERAMIC- 5 days

*FOOD- no proof at this time

*WATER- no proof at this time

9- WASH everything you buy from the grocery store, including fruits & vegetables, with soap & water for 20 seconds like you would wash your hands. Try to buy fruit & vegetables in pre-packaged containers so you can just run it with water (example LETTUCE). When in doubt follow #8 according to their surfaces. If you are in doubt of buying fast food or carenderia food then DON’T.

10- When you use disinfectants, follow contact time as seen on container instructions on the back. Most require 3-5 minutes of contact time in order to kill the virus. This means the surface has to stay wet with the disinfectant from 3-5 minutes before it kills the virus. If using disinfecting wipes, you may have to use more than 1 to keep it wet for the required time.

11- Do not forget to disinfect your FLOORS, DOORKNOBS & Light SWITCHES.

12- Use GLOVES 🧤 if you have any, in handling your mail. Take the contents to a clean area with clean hands and discard the outside and consider it a contaminant for up to 5 days for PAPER. Same applies to BOXES. Take the contents and bring it to a clean area and throw the boxes in the trash and consider it as contaminated for up to 24 hours.

13- If you have a limited amount of gloves you can wash with soap and water and re-use when thoroughly dried.

14- If you have hand sanitizers, apply after handwashing. 70% of ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL kills the virus better. Rub hands until thoroughly dry.

15- Leave your shoes outside the house.

16- Wash your clothes in HOT WATER & a good amount of LAUNDRY SOAP. There is no proof that the virus can be contracted via clothes at this time but there’s nothing wrong with taking extra precautions.

17- Do your part & STAY @ HOME. Do it for our Lolos & Lolas and all the other at-risk population who will suffer the most if they get it.

18- Keep in touch with friends and family. Do something fun inside. Take good care of yourself. Your loved ones, your community and the ENTIRE WORLD will thank you for it.

19- REMEMBER that this world has been through SMALLPOX, the BLACK PLAGUE, the Spanish FLU, INFLUENZA, POLIO, TUBERCULOSIS, HIV-AIDS, EBOLA & many, many more. Let’s add COVID-19 to that list.

20- Thank GOD for the blessings in our lives and PRAY that He will protect us and our loved ones from COVID-19.

brightfell-deactivated20211019

The science world is freaking out over this 25-year-old's answer to antibiotic resistance

mindblowingscience

A 25-year-old student has just come up with a way to fight drug-resistant superbugs without antibiotics.

The new approach has so far only been tested in the lab and on mice, but it could offer a potential solution to antibiotic resistance, which is now getting so bad that the United Nations recently declared it a “fundamental threat” to global health.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria already kill around 700,000 people each year, but a recent study suggests that number could rise to around 10 million by 2050.

In addition to common hospital superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), scientists are now also concerned that gonorrhoea is about tobecome resistant to all remaining drugs.

But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.

“We’ve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways,” Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. “One method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself.”

The research has been published in Nature Microbiology, and according to Smith, it’s already being hailed by scientists in the field as “a breakthrough that could change the face of modern medicine”.

Before we get too carried away, it’s still very early days. So far, Lam has only tested her star-shaped polymers on six strains of drug-resistant bacteria in the lab, and on one superbug in live mice.

But in all experiments, they’ve been able to kill their targeted bacteria - and generation after generation don’t seem to develop resistance to the polymers.

island-living-vetmed-chronicles

Yes. All the yes. Women in STEM deserve ALLLLLLLL the applause. All of it. And cake. All the cake, too.

brightfell-deactivated20211019

The science world is freaking out over this 25-year-old’s answer to antibiotic resistance: from Edward the Booble http://bit.ly/2MABk2O via IFTTT

andrewiam

I love this solution because it’s just… So simple. Everyone is getting deeper and deeper into pharmacology trying to find new stuff and new combos that’ll overcome bacterial resistance (while Big Pharma rakes in the profits) and this student was like “what if.. We just.. Physically rip it the fuck apart?? What’s it gonna do? Develop resistance to me cutting a bitch?”

Iconic

slapspert

Medicine: How do we defeat anti-biotic resistant super bugs?

Shu Lam: What if we just beat the shit out of it?

nevercure

Just ninja star it to death

unmaiden

“It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bones and muscles, herbs and drugs, while physicians were still deriving their prognoses from astrology and alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold. So great was the witches’ knowledge that in 1527, Paracelsus, considered the ‘father of modern medicine,’ burned his text on pharmaceuticals, confessing that he ‘had learned from the Sorceress all he knew.’”

— Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses - A History of Women Healers (1973)

copingnurse-deactivated20240217

Rules for patients/their family members for hospitalizations…

1. Thy family member shall realize the nurse is present and responsible to careth for only the patient, not thy family member. Therefore, thy family member shalt not make demands of thy nursing staff for blankets, pillows, drinks, etc. etc.

2. Thou shalt not demand the nurse call thy doctor every minute.

3. Thou shalt not ever expel any bodily fluid onto the person of thy nurse.

4. Thou shalt not act like thou knows better than the teams of doctors and nurses caring for thou self. Therefore, thou shalt not refuse treatments or go against medical advice. If thou doth so, thou shalt go the fuck home.

5. Thou shalt not complain about light & noise in the ICU. Thou art in the ICU, be grateful thou art alive and can see and hear.

6. Thou shalt not fall in the hospital. Repeateth, thou shalt not fucking fall.

7. Thou shalt realize this is a hospital not a hotel.

8. Thou shalt not ask about thy nurse’s age or martial status.

9. Thy family members shalt not stare at the monitor and worrieth over every number. Thy nurse is present and seeth the monitor. Thy nurses also have the medical training and knowledge to asses and act based on thy monitor and thy patient, unlike thy family member. Thou input is neededth not and is in fact, annoying and distracting.

10. Thou shalt not harass thy nurse for refreshments and narcotics. RN standeth not for these things.

11. Thou shalt never attempt to hit, punch or otherwise harm thy nurse. Thou will find thyself restrained if thou threatens thy medical staff.

12. Thou shalt refrain from verbally harassing thy nurse. Look, just don’t be a dick, bro.

copingnurse-deactivated20240217

Old post with a few additions, still applies!

nursingtheheart

My union has been making some ads about violence against nurses and this one felt so many levels of too real.

nursingtheheart

I love how someone always has to hop on and say something about nurses deserving it etc lol.

This post is about awareness for violence AGAINST nurses, I get that our unions aren’t perfect and that there are some nurses out there who are bad seeds. Just like in most professions. Please make your own post for that instead of jumping on this one to share that tidbit with me when I was scared a pt was going to beat the shit out of me earlier this week.

lifeluvr01

“Respiratory rate of…uh,18…”

nursingfx

😂it’s always 18 🤣

warb1rd

When you see this on handover sheet…

and the handing over nurse says “Which brave soul want to take on this one…?”

warb1rd

Nursing Thoughts 2

In general medicine - the (ideal) patient to nurse ratio is 5:1, on a bad day it’s 6:1, on a really bad day a nurse will have to take on 7. Out of the 5 or 6 patient load every nurse gets 1-2 independent patients, 1-2 patients that need minimal assists, and atleast 2 full cares or critical patients. If you don’t see your nurse for the day much other than giving you medication and taking your vital signs, you should be GLAD. It means you are not in danger. But i got thrown a comment by a patient that’s not even part of my load, saying “all you nurses are good for is taking blood pressures”. well, that’s 1 thing we do yes, but what people do not see is what each nurse is doing to manage his/her patient loads of 5 or 6 patients.

There are limits to our profession, we can’t overwrite Doctor’s plans, we can not discharge patients just because they don’t want to stay in hospital or getting impatient of waiting, we can’t give whatever medication the patient want without the doctor charting it and following the correct timing and dosage charted. We are here to look after the sick, while the doctors write up the plans. When patients complain and threaten to walk out, we inform the doctors or the psych team (if patient is here for a certain psych / suicidal reason). When they can get here to review the patient we have no control over. And all the while, we have 4 or 5 other patients to worry about, maybe 1 having an out of control fever, 1 is dying, 1 is in pain, 1 is needing help to go to the toilet; and just maybe 1 phone is ringing for you because a family member have loads of questions and another phone is ringing for you from the pharmacy, CCU, radiology that you need to now escort a patient down to get ultrasound done…..etc etc

I understand that patients are stressed, unhappy, uncomfortable. Yes i get that. But healthcare professionals are here to assist and help and we try our best. I’m not saying all nurses are perfect, but majority are trying our hardest. Throwing a fit at a nurse because you only saw him/her during vital signs and medication administration, and you are a fully independent patient not in any pain or discomfort make absolutely no sense, and making a belittling comment like that is straight up disrespectful. We are humans too, we try to multi-task and we would love to have more interaction and build rapport with all of our patients. But our time is limited because our priority will be with the dying, the unstable patients.

Today i woke up sore all over because i had to wrestle to give haloperidol to a confused + aggressive + highfall risk patient with my colleagues. And comments like “…if you nurses do your jobs properly”, “where are the doctors, can’t you tell them to come”, “all you people do is give meds and take blood pressures” plays over and over in my head.

I often wonder when did the disrespect and disregard for healthcare staffs began, why are patients becoming less grateful and more aggressive towards our profession. We deal with high level of stress mentally and physically; we have all the same emotions as all patients, because after all we are humans too.

chaoticum

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites.

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

adventuresintraumaland

There’s a pretty annoying situation going on at my work right now. The short version is we had an adverse outcome with a patient, an investigation was opened, a new policy was introduced in direct response to the situation, this new policy makes the nurse’s lives infinitely harder, our director of nursing is the one to make sure this new policy is being enforced, and she has decided to prove how important it is by coming to our unit and bullying, belittling and straight up telling us that we are incompetent nurses and she can’t believe nothing has happened to our patients before. (Well I guess that wasn’t really the short version… but.)

This has been going on for about 5 days but it came to a head yesterday when she came to the unit to berate and belittle my coworkers (I wasn’t working but heard accounts from two people who were). Yesterday, last night actually, I was fuming. Explosively irate about the whole situation. But I woke up this morning in a very different mood.

Today I am just tired. I’m tired of doing a job that takes more out of me than I have to give. I’m tired of charting so defensively that it consumes a large portion of my day because I’m worried about the constant possibility of being sued, having upper management audit my chart, or being written up for missing charting a spot where my patient got up to the restroom. I’m tired of leaving work 30 minutes after I’m supposed to. I’m tired of getting the “special” patients who need a little extra love (aka ass kissing) because I am nice and smiley and bubbly and I don’t complain much. I’m tired of no lunch breaks. Ever. Away from the desk, uninterrupted. Or some days there’s not even time to eat at the desk. I’m tired of doing my best and trying hard every day to give the patient the best possible experience they can have in our hospital and being told that we get reviews like, “The trash was overflowing in my room”. Or “The nurse didn’t take out my dirty lunch tray.” I’m tired of cleaning, fluffing, buffing, fetching drinks for you entire family, soothing, placating, promising, apologizing. I’m tired of feeling like a concierge at a five star resort. I’m tired of worrying and stressing over every potential complication that might be happening with my patient or someone else’s. I’m tired of that sick feeling in my stomach when we get a patient that is critically ill and seconds count in saving their life or their baby’s. It’s happening more and more frequently. I’m tired of upper management trying to turn me into a nurse robot who says exactly the same phrases to every patient, in exactly the same way the nurse before did. If I am told one more time to use the word “clean” to a patient and family I’m going to lose it. I’m tired of people who have no idea how our unit/job works making arbitrary decisions about staffing and how many nurses we’re “allowed” to have. I’m tired of my concerns about patient safety and needing more staff or a float nurse being met with, “That’s not in the budget”. I’m tired of being told when we bust our asses for 12 hour and do some amazing team work that we weren’t “productive” according to some dumb algorithm. As if our hard work counts for nothing.

I love my job. I love helping women through arguably one of the hardest things they will do, give birth to their child. I love helping women labor, offering coping and pain management tips. I love getting to see a family’s first glimpse of their newborn baby. I love the emotion in the room when the grandparents get to meet their grandchild for the first time. I love the reward of helping a woman through pushing and seeing the smile on their face when they tell me “Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you.” I love connecting with patients and their family members in glorious and intimate ways. I love holding a fresh little baby and teaching dad how to swaddle his peanut for the first time.

I love my job, but I am so tired.

nursingfx

It’s good to know that I am not the only one going through this whole Circus called Nursing...

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