Monthly Archives: November 2011
Euphemisms
AJN published a post on their Off the Charts blog entitled “On Euphemisms and Learning to Be Present.” The point of the post was really about a student experiencing her first death, but as luck would have it I received … Continue reading
Obligatory Thankfulness Post
Here in the United States, we just had our Thanksgiving holiday. Mostly it consists of families gathering to stuff themselves with an unbelievable array of food while (mostly) the men in the family watch football. The point of it is … Continue reading
Should We Report Errors?
I read this article about, basically, how we’re more likely to report errors if we exist in a blame-free environment rather than the witch-hunting one that more generally exists in hospitals. I’ve long been a fan of the Institute for … Continue reading
Are Patient Satisfaction Scores Keeping Us From Doing Our Jobs?
Lately it’s all about reimbursement and patient satisfaction. The patient is always right, and hospitals have had to become even more like businesses than they’ve always been (I’m waiting for “come to this hospital, and you’ll receive a complimentary Percocet … Continue reading
Drunken, Drugged Nurses
It happened again…someone I know, not well, but know, admitted she’d been “diverting narcotics.” The first time I heard that term, I didn’t know what it meant (why don’t they just say “stealing drugs”?). As usual, everyone is shaking their … Continue reading
Do You Want to Be a Psych Nurse?
I’ve always had an informal division in my own mind between psychiatric nursing and medical nursing, but recently I had an opportunity to talk to a nurse I went to school with, and whereas I’ve gone straight down the medical … Continue reading
FMLA and Nurses
I ran across this message sequence on allnurses.com and felt the urge to blog about it. On the message board, FMLA is called a “scourge,” and one nurse states, “it seems that it is invariably the biggest abusers of sick … Continue reading
