Ok.........lahoma

So, I played about 36 measures of moderate tempo bluegrass banjo for my old high school this weekend. They're doing a pretty good production of Oklahoma. It's been fun seeing how everything is pretty much the same, just with different people. Things really don't change that much...

Other than that, it's business as usual. I dropped my transcultural health care class due to being busy as a cracker, but I'll take in next semester. I should still graduate at the end of this academic year if I can test out of a couple of classes (I should be able to!) I've been spending lots of time with the fam. I've been working and going to school as well. On a happy note, we may go to Europe during Winter Break. Brrr..... Oh well, we can't afford to go in the summer!

Sometimes it's depressing to hear what people think of nursing. I try to avoid the subject with those outside the field because people are usually unintentionally insulting or patronizing. I think that much of what people believe about nursing stems from outdated feelings about class and gender. Nursing carries the stigma of not only being a 'technical' rather than academic field (which is only partly true), but also as 'women's work'. It seems that many people carry around this faulty, inherited idea of nurses being simple, but caring as they dutifully scrub bedpans and hand out pills. I'm not trying to say that undergraduate nurses are medical experts (some advanced practice nurses do have very advanced medical knowledge), but it just seems to me that there is a widespread misunderstanding of the profession.

My blog is now linked with facebook, too. Yay?

"You're doin' fine, Oklahoma.... O.K.!"

Sweet stuff...

Check out http://www.denniskunkel.com it's very cool electron microscopy stuff.


Neuroblastoma

How Wilford Brimley got Diabeetus (it's got nothing to do with a so called: " Beetus-bird" )

SLOPPY LIVIN' AND TOO MANY PANCAKES!

Oh, Surgery *and* Patient Care as not just a profession, but a skill set

Remind me never to have surgery. There are just too many cases where: Patient A came in for an elective ______________. They went to OR, but then in recovery he/she went into acute renal/respiratory/heart failure (or had a stroke).

It's not like that's the majority, or even a high proportion of surgeries, but working in a Surgical ICU, that's a lot of what we see.


I'm learning to take advice better, too. When patients' family members/my nursing peers try to tell me how to take care of my patients, I need to realize that I have something to learn from everybody, even people who aren't "nurses". I'm working on reading Nightingale's "Notes on Nursing" and I'm realizing that nursing is a skill set, a knowledge base, not just a profession. Just like a layman may be able to teach a mechaninc or a plumber a trick or tip, they may be able to teach us ways to care for our patients that we haven't thought of. (BTW: Of course, it's imperative that we base our practice on research and not just the advice of strangers.) Many mothers have spent years caring for sick family members and may have valuable experience to share with us. Maybe.

Yeah, It is very much back to school time

So, I'm working full-time and going to school full-time. I tried that last semester and ended up dropping a class.... I think it'll actually work this time!

My classes are pretty low-key for the most part. I think I'll be able to get through them alright.

It's a very community-oriented semester for me. It's interesting to see nursing focused on something other than direct physical needs. The role of the nurse (advocate, etc.) is the same, but instead of focusing on one sick person, the community nurse sets up systems to improve the health of communities.

FYI: Community health nursing is different than public health nursing...

I recently purchased two books by F Nightingale: "Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not" and "Florence Nightingale: To her nurses". Very good stuff! It's creepy that I'm starting to enjoy nursing theory....

Oh, Google Image Search

apparently this is from some play about nursing called, "Too Nurse". I don't know whether I would like to see it or not! Kind of strange....

Back to school....

Well, it is that time again....... Back for another wonderful semester of RN-BSN completion. More classes that aren't quite 100% useless, even though they feel like it. I think since I work in an area that is so centered on my clients' medical problems, I lose sight of all that nursing really is. Anything that's not pathophysiology seem pointless to me as an ICU nurse. Sure we deal with psychosocial stuff, but we also have chaplains, case workers, social workers, patient advocates, and loads of other professionals who are better equipped to handle these issues than we are. Betty Neuman said that nurses should be holistic in their care, assessing and intervening not only on a physical level, but also on psychological, spiritual, sociocultural, and various other less tangible levels, but when someone is septic or in respiratory failure or whatever, their sociocultural needs (important as they are) don't seem to concern us as much as their need not to sink deeper into distributive shock. Maybe it's just me! It may really be a nursing problem, but it seems that we barely have the time and staffing to keep some of our patients healthy/alive.

Anyway, here's a rundown of my classes....

COMMUNITY/PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING (5 cr.)

I think that I'll either be working with a school nurse or in a community free clinic. I'm hoping this experience will broaden my view of nursing. As a future NP, I hope this will also show me some possible career tracks. This is my first clinical course since Spring of 2007, so I'm really looking forward to doing my first clinical as an RN.

HISTORY OF ROCK MUSIC (3 cr.)

Oh yeah... let's hear it for area IV general education! It was either this or Victorian Novels or something like that. I honestly wanted to take History of Jazz, but it wasn't available... It's a music class, so it focuses on the musical development of rock. How much sweeter does it get?

TRANSCULTURAL HEALTHCARE (3 cr.)

Lesson One: Don't stereotype people
Lessons Two through Twenty: Various accepted stereotypes about the peoples of the world

DISASTER NURSING (1 cr.)

The title of my autobiography? No, silly, it's the title of the one credit hour weekend course I'm taking in September. I hear it's more of a pain than it ought to be.

That's right suckah, 12 credit hours. Did I mention I'm also working 36 hours per week in a challanging setting that require 4-12 hours on call per month with madatory upstaffing? Or that my wife is also taking 12 credit hours? Or that I have a four month old? Yeah, it's going to be busy. No, I will not get to eat a meal at home during the week. Fortunately we've hired my lovely 20 (soon to be 21) year old sister to watch our child. Unfortunately, I've had to drop my guitar lessons.... That made me sad, but there was really no other way. On a happy note, the federal government is paying me almost $600 to go to school this semester. That number will probably go up after my wife gets her Financial Aid package through. If I can do 12 credit hours this semester and 11 credit hours next semester, then I will get my bachelor's degree in the spring.... THEN ON TO NP SCHOOL! Yes, it's true, I'm pretty excited about that.