Archive for September, 2007

There’s a great post over at First Do No Harm about recerting for ACLS. She points out that the recertification process has been dumbed down because a lot of the previous drugs that were taught have been eliminated and the new emphasis is on effective and timely chest compressions.

I took this course less than a year ago and my understanding for this new emphasis was that they no longer teach some of these drugs because there’s no evidence that the drugs actually work. In fact there’s not much evidence that any ACLS interventions improve outcomes, aside from timely defibriliation. I know I must be oversimplifying this enormously but that’s the impression I got.

My only problem with the class was that they taught ICU nurses and floor nurses the same material. I’m ashamed to admit this but some of ICU colleagues were like, “Can you believe some of the floor nurses don’t know this?” And I was like, “Well yeah, when you work on a floor for 10 years and never experience a code then of course you don’t know some of this crap.”

Perhaps some new levels of ACLS are in order. I propose the following:

S-ACLS (Super-Advanced Cardiac Life Support) for critical care nurses, and
SD-ACLS (Super-Duper Advanced Cardiac Life Support) for emergency response team nurses.
RRC-ACLS - (Really, Really Complicated Advanced Cardiac Life Support) for health care providers that have completed all levels and still don’t feel like they know what to do in a code.

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Have you stopped byNursingvoices.com today? Don’t forget about the iPods they are giving away, courtesy of Nursingjobs.org

(For more about the iPhone contest at nursingvoices.com please click here. It’s sponsored by Nursingjobs.org)

It’s been less than 48 hours after Andrew Meyers was tasered at a University of Florida John Kerry appearance and you can already buy the “Don’t Taze Me, Bro!” t-shirt at cafepress. Apparently it’s quickly becoming the new catch phrase, as in:

YOU: “PixelRn, That was the most disgusting chili I’ve ever tasted!”
PixelRN: “Don’t Taze Me, Bro. I was just trying to help out by providing you with a nutritious recipe.”

Ever since I read that cancer article, I’ve been thinking about nutrition all morning.

I have one recipe that I swear by and would like to share with you. I’ve always had a low hematocrit and each time this is pointed out to me I am told to take iron pills, AND I HATE TAKING IRON PILLS. Anyone can take a guess as to why. I’ll just say there’s a GI issue with iron pills and we’ll leave it at that. At any rate, I’ve always looked for ways to improve my iron intake via food rather than supplements. It’s commonly known that ingesting vitamin C will increase the absorption of iron and so this recipe has healthy doses of both. The tomato has the vitamin C and the ground beef has the iron. Tomatoes and Beef: A nutritional marriage made in heaven. If they were running on the same ticket, I would vote for them.

Easy Breezy Bipartisan Chili

1 small onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp oil (olive, veg, canola, whatever)
1 pound of ground beef
A 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
A 15 oz can of kidney beans
1 small can of tomato paste
A few liberal dashes of Chili powder
A conservative dash of red pepper
A dash of cumin
A couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a large saucepan.

Throw in garlic first, then onion and let them get a little soft and golden.

Throw in ground beef and chop it up with the spatula; cook until just brown. you can drain the fat if you want but I don’t usually bother with this step because I use 92% lean beef).

Turn down the heat to medium-low and add the tomatoes (not drained) and kidney beans (definitely drained) and stir it all up, real good.

Add chili powder, cumin, red pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. These are all according to your taste. Don’t like it spicy? Go easy on the red pepper. Duh. I’ll say no more about that.

Add tomato paste and stir it up real good again. Don’t skip this step! You don’t want to miss out on all that good lycopene!

Cook on low heat for approximately 45 minutes. Watch 20 minutes of Brit Hume and 20 minutes of Wolf Blitzer and spend the rest of the time checking your email.

Serve with corn bread - or not. Top it with sour cream and grated cheese - or not. Either way it’s good. It’s also good the next day AND it freezes well.

Look, you’re probably not going to win any gourmet chili cook offs with this recipe but hey, it’s a good stand-by and it will make you feel robust.

Nursingvoices.com Thread of the Day:

What would you change about scrubs?

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Nursingjobs.org Job of the Day:

Clinical Nurse I - Labor & Delivery, Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC

(For more about the iPhone contest at nursingvoices.com please click here. It’s sponsored by Nursingjobs.org)

I’ve always had a non-scientific belief that fat is not the enemy with respect to diet, and in fact, sugar is. The strange thing is how tough it is to cut down on sugar. Try checking labels of every single food product you buy next time you go shopping. It’s almost impossible to avoid sugar and yet there’s a “fat-free” version of practically everything.

That’s why this Time Magazine article caught my eye:

Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer?

This article is interesting and the theory is so simple:

“If most aggressive cancers rely on the fermentation of sugar for growing and dividing, then take away the sugar and they should stop spreading. Meanwhile, normal body and brain cells should be able to handle the sugar starvation; they can switch to generating energy from fatty molecules called ketone bodies — the body’s main source of energy on a fat-rich diet — an ability that some or most fast-growing and invasive cancers seem to lack.”

I hope that more research will be done in this area. I’ve always had a belief that there is a connection between nutrition and cancer.

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Have you stopped by Nursingvoices.com today? Don’t forget about the 2 iPhones they are giving away, courtesy of Nursingjobs.org

(For more about the iPhone contest at nursingvoices.com please click here. It’s sponsored by Nursingjobs.org)

So I finally got an assignment through my new agency. Starting next week, I will train to be part of an Emergency Response Team in an outpatient PACU. I will admit I’m a tad nervous. We had plenty of codes in the MICU but 99% are patients who have been spiraling downward for days and so you automatically prepare for the worst. PLUS, I was always surrounded by people who knew what they were doing and now I will be the one who is expected to know what I am doing. Yikes.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little more than a “tad” nervous. I have my ACLS certification so I guess it’s just a matter of using the knowledge that I (hopefully) have. We shall see. At any rate I do miss nursing, if you can believe that. I’ve only worked about 5 shifts since Ben was born and I’m ready to get into something new and exciting (but not too exciting if you know what I mean.)

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And on that note it sure would help if I had an iPhone…
Have you stopped by Nursingvoices.com today? Don’t forget about the 2 iPhones they are giving away, courtesy of Nursingjobs.org

(For more about the iPhone contest at nursingvoices.com please click here. It’s sponsored by Nursingjobs.org)

From the LA Times:

Clinton unveils new healthcare plan

1. Mandating large employers to provide employees with health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage.
2. Small employers (<25 employees) would receive tax credits to start or continue coverage.
3. Individuals up to a certain income level who were not covered through employers would be eligible for tax credits to either buy into the current health benefit program for federal employees, or to buy into a new program which will be based on Medicare.
4. It will be funded largely by savings incurred by “modernizing” the current health care delivery system, and by rolling back the Bush tax cuts.

My initial thoughts? Let’s not create a new program “based on Medicare” until we can actually fix Medicare itself. If Medicare can’t even pay for treating hospital acquired UTIs then I would question the effectiveness of basing a new system on it.

Wouldn’t “modernizing” the way we deliver health care incur a greater expense rather than creating savings? Updating to new technology is always expensive.

Rolling back the tax cuts to pay for this new system has a huge potential for backfiring. First of all, mandating businesses (large or small) to pay for health care benefits is going to cause a huge down turn in the economy, and therefore the tax revenue will not be sufficient - tax cuts or not.

I’m not saying I’m against “healthcare for all” - I’m just wondering how we are going to pay for it.

As a wife and mother I feel obligated to call your attention to this article:

Hand-washing police’ find some men still slacking in bathroom hygiene

One-third of men didn’t bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women, said the researchers who spy on people in public restrooms.

Well, what can I say except for, EWWWWW gross. C’mon guys. Aren’t you the ones who actually need to place your hand on your genitalia whilst you relieve yourselves? Wash yer damn hands!!!

I like how the researchers actually had to spy on people in public restrooms. Isn’t there something illegal about that? Maybe it was legalized under the Patriot Act.

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Nursingvoices.com Thread of the Day:

What Does Blogging Mean to You?

Nursingjobs.org Job of the Day:

Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurse Coordinator - Alexandria, VA

(For more about the iPhone contest at nursingvoices.com please click here. It’s sponsored by Nursingjobs.org)

According to this story:

Man’s arm bitten off by gator in South Carolina

The man stumbled onto a group of picnickers with his arm missing and his wound gushing blood. Luckily there were 5 nurses among them who put his wound on ice and kept him awake until help arrived. He’s currently in critical condition at the Medical University at South Carolina.

Kudos to the nurses who helped out. I really don’t know if I would have been able to hold it together after seeing a man gushing blood out of the spot where his arm used to be. (Then again, I don’t do trauma nursing.) The amazing thing is that he actually stumbled upon the picnic site.