Category Archives for "Nursing"
Should a Nurse Refuse a Patient Assignment?
In today’s healthcare climate, patient acuity has increased and patient care assignments have become more labor intensive for clinical nurses. When is it acceptable for an RN to refuse a patient assignment? With the national shortage of RN’s, facilities are increasing the nurse-patient ratios, resulting in heavier workloads and busy patient assignments for nurses. In […]
Read More...CVICU’s Post-Op TOP 10 List
Don’t Miss the Forest for the Trees A Cheat sheet for immediate post-op recovery 10. If the patient’s BP & urine output are down, check ABG for metabolic acidosis. 9. Do not give diuretics immediately post-op. 8. If your patient’s HR is down and BP and/or C.O. is down, turn on the pacemaker. If […]
Read More...Drug Diversion – A Major Issue
A major problem in hospitals over the past few years, drug diversion is the illegal distribution or abuse of prescription drugs or their use for unintended purposes. The hospital policy is very strict regarding partial doses of controlled substances, like opioids and benzodiazepines. The protocol calls for employees to “waste” any excess medications while being […]
Read More...Critical Cover-Up Receives Award
Exciting News! CRITICAL COVER-UP has won an award and has been selected as a Finalist for the Book Excellence Awards. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I received the email with the Congratulations Announcement this week. Congratulations! You are a 2018 Book Excellence Award Finalist! 🏆 It is with great pleasure to announce […]
Read More...The Stress of Critical Care Nursing
Critical care nursing is challenging. Not only mentally stressful, but physically demanding, it’s ideal for the twenty-something and thirty-something nurses. Yet the average age of an ICU nurse has continually increased in recent years. Today it’s forty-seven or forty-eight. The level of experience of those nurses is phenomenal, and makes one wonder how they are […]
Read More...