And the things of earth shall grow strangely dim......

my life is playing at about 150bpm. what to say................... too many ellipses in one post..... .........lots of drama........ ..........or too much captain Kirk............

It's a two-fer. Nursing v. Medicine, Round 2

My practice setting is focused on patients who have very acute physiological problems (medical issues). In Neuman terms, their intrapersonal, physiological stressors are penetrating their system nearly to the core, and since per Maslow, physiological stressors are first priority anyway, it follows that everything else would fall to the wayside, making it seem like nurses are only concerned with medical issues. What about discharge planning? What about calming fearful relatives? Even in acute care settings, we deal with broad issues. Plus, nurses work in other settings as well, i.e. case management, psychiatry, family practice, community/school health, etc.

NURSING IS MORE BROAD THAN I ORIGINALLY THOUGHT

Finals Week

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 'til he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope! This weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees and hear the angels' voices. Oh, night divine, when Christ was born.
0-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o0-0-0o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o0oo-o-o-0oo-o0--o-0-0-o-0o-0-o
This may very well be the most important week of my life: for my career, for my education, and for my family; which is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is I still don't have a Christmas tree.

Nursing Theory --- Epiphany

I had a vision of sorts today. Admittedly, it was sort of a weird vision, but it's probably the closest thing I've had to a true epiphany, a paradigm shift perhaps.

We were doing nursing theory presentations in our Professional Seminar class today, and all of the sudden, it dawned on me.

For the last probably 6 months, from the end of the Associate's Program until now, I have struggled with the definition and role of nursing. Are we the doctors' servants? If so, then why do we work just as closely with social workers and therapists?

The answer is NURSING THEORY! Nurses do not just deal with medical conditions, we help our patients achieve integration with their environments. That means helping them through family disputes, money problems, and explaining their medications. Roy, Neuman, and many other theorists have worked very hard to give us this vision of nursing.

I was brought up on Neuman. I did not see its significance at first. By studying Roy, it's like learning a second language. When you're a child, you don't understand the complexity of English, but when you learn French, you see all of the aspects of the language you took for granted. I have seen that nursing theory is there to tell us who we are, and establish our true identity as the ultimate patient care profession.

Big Snow = Me Happy

Snow lays down absolution upon the corpses of autumn.

The Redheaded Step Child

So apparently neurology is a money pit for the hospital. Some bum cracks his head on the sewer grate when he passes out? Admit him to neuro. Some young girl with psych problems and no parents is faking seizures? Only one place to go! No one chooses neuro, neuro chooses you.

Apparently, orthopaedics is extremely lucrative. Old rich old lady wants a handcrafted hip? Bring her in! Some homeless guy has a bum knee? He can forget about it unless he has some infection ravaging his body, and then he is probably a medical patient with an ortho consult. Orthopaedics is like a surgical get-a-way for old people and golden young athletes; whoever has the time and money to get elective surgery. (In fairness, they also take some trauma patients and some medical overflow like the rest of us.)

Combine these two units, and who gets what they want from the brass?