January 2012
5 posts
Get With the Lingo
Health care practitioners definitely have their own language and no, it is not meant to confuse the layman. Abbreviations have been a way for doctors and nurses to communicate quickly and efficiently for centuries. We don’t say “the patient has inflammation around his heart,” we say it’s “endocarditis.” When we want a patient to fast after midnight for a...
10 Surprising Health Benefits of Beer →
Excerpt from Nine Lives by William Dalrymple
“One of my favourites tells the story of two disciples of a guru, called Chaitra and Maitra. One day the guru gave them one rupee each and took them to two empty rooms. He asked them to use that one rupee to fill each room. Maitra rushed out to the bazaar and tried to find something for one rupee with which he could fill his room. Of course there was nothing for that price. And...
“Most of us have many brief moments of happiness every day- regardless of what...”
December 2011
8 posts
Let the Little Things Go
It is that time of year again for New Years resolutions. Such easy words to say, but such hard words to actually follow. We could be simple like my dad and say “For the 15th year in a row, I am going to give up eating potato chips.” Usually by February, he is asking my mom why she hasn’t bought potato chips. Mission failed, but not much lost with the chips.
Or we can be lofty...
Eat, Drink and Be Sleepy! 5 Natural Sleep Aids →
Quick Tip
When admitted to the hospital or while in the office, have questions for the doctor prepared. Write them down and be assertive. It will save the doctor time and provide you with faster care. Nurses spend a lot of time paging doctors and awaiting call backs when patients could easily have asked when the doctor rounded.
A Guide for Families
As a nurse I often get asked the question, “What is the hardest part of your job?” Most expect to hear about blood, guts, and death. Although, I find those aspects of my career difficult, I never respond with that answer. I always say, “Dealing with the patient’s family members.” There really is a sense of dread when you see a certain patient’s family members approach the desk. Dread in...
When Death comes
“
When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox;
when death comes like an iceberg between the should blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look...
Daily Meditations Cures Seasonal Depression!
Winter
There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you…In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. Ruth Stout
Our bodies and our souls need the seasons. In spite...
November 2011
2 posts
“I am tired, yes; fatigue is an occupational hazard of this...”
– Emily R. Transue M.D.
“Life beats down and crashes the soul. Art reminds you that you have one.”
– From a beautiful mural in the Philly projects
August 2011
1 post
Writer's Block
My August remedy for fighting the sad is simple, Delight your ears with Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. Skipping lovers leisurely sunset stroll to “Home.” Those craving the ones who left us too soon soak up “Brother.” And those who just need variety keep “Janglin” to your own “Desert Song.”
July 2011
1 post
“Words can never fully say what we want them to say, for they fumble, stammer,...”
– Margaret Weis (via pressured)
Would Florence Nightingale Own a Smartphone?
On a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, I perused the nurses’ station. The usual characters were present. The congregation consisted of a few docs, a few nurses, and nursing assistants. One doc was hovering over a nurse practitioner discussing a case with the help of an IPhone, while another doc was consulting a fellow physician for technical support for his IPad. One nurse was playing the...
June 2011
5 posts
Twenty-First of June
The yellow elegies of spring Burned up in the heat Weeks ago, dead Before their time. And now It’s official. I lay this Wreath of words
On the rose; I throw a handful Of dirt on the dirt. The green shoots,
The rootlings brave in snow, Grow fat and lazy now, And the big trees
Bulge with birds, a leafquake Of wind and raw song, Piping hot.
The season’s just begun, and already I can...
Man Cured of HIV →
I brought this up on a coffee break today and didn’t get much of a response. One, person said, “you’d think they would have cured breast cancer already.” HIV!! This is a huge breakthrough. Congrats docs.
Save the Grumbling for Politics
Admitting paperwork pops up on our nursing station from the ER relentlessly on an average day. The only information we receive is patient name, room number, admitting physician, and diagnosis. On a telemetry floor, chest pain is standard and manageable. While, a patient with acute ETOH withdrawal, makes us want to head for the hills. Our snap judgment is to judge the diagnosis before we even...
May 2011
4 posts
Yahoo's Anatomy Refresher →
Meditations for Living in Balance
May 23- Emptiness- Relationships
We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. (Tao Te Ching) Modern day society has developed a cultural need to be filled up. We want more food, more alcohol, more drugs; we have come to believe that we need more money, more things, more sex, more power— more more more. We are so afraid of any emptiness that we...
Ethics and Dialysis circa 1962 →
A groundbreaking article written by Shana Alexander for Life magazine in 1962. It takes some navigating but this article is worth a read. Alexander examines a decision making process created to choose which patient’s should receive treatment and who should not.
The treatment is a brand new kidney dialysis machine for those patient’s in end stage kidney disease. The problem is that...
C-A-B it up! →
April 2011
4 posts
Pedometer madness
Because my hospital is so cool, it has started a program to encourage employees along a path to wellness. Basically colleagues create teams and challenge each other to exercise. Each participant gets a pedometer sent to their homes for use in the challenge.
I clipped this little gadget to my scrubs today and yielded 10,047 steps in a 12 hour shift! That equates to approximately 5 miles (each...
Better
A patient told me the other day that it is the small things that caregivers do that means the most. Small things like stopping by to say good night after a long shift or just sitting still with them for a few moments and listening. Our health care world is so fast and stressful that we forget the little things. We forget to be humans in hospitals. This patient motivated me to keep doing the...
March 2011
4 posts
HD TV Sale!!
I was motivated to post something about Japan for one of two reasons. One being that I seem to be quite saddened by the extent of devastation these people are facing and two because of a scary comment that I overheard today by a fellow American. The comment was “we should all run out and buy HD TVs now because the Japanese won’t be making them anymore.” Hopefully, the majority...
Lessons to Learn from Japan →
January 2011
1 post
“Be thirsty heart,
seek forever without a rest.
Let this soundless longing...”
– Rumi “Whispers of the Beloved”
November 2010
1 post
“True nobility isn’t about being better than anyone else; it’s about...”
– Wayne Dyer (From Portia De Rossi’s memoir Unbearable Lightness)
October 2010
1 post
“In a time when there are more choices to make in our lives than ever before, it...”
– Morris E. Chafetz MD
September 2010
2 posts
“The first step to better times is to imagine them.”
Stand Grounded
Ruffled feathers of memories disengage and float on a long and nondescript path These winds are never together in their game They push, coerce, draw you on, twist you about on a path unseen Always flowing Pulling Time clicks by, changes you
Into view comes the hard earth— a rapturous, tortured mix of soil, wood, leaf, rock, water, crystal, fire and the heated breath of all that...
July 2010
3 posts
Great Guide to Seafood Choices →
“It is much more important to know what sort of patient has a disease than what...”
– Sir William Osler
June 2010
1 post
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Mark Strand
May 2010
1 post
“It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an...”
– George Orwell 1984
March 2010
2 posts
Where's the Love?
Being a nurse in a hospital setting is challenging but lately I find my job to be degrading. Healthcare providers are not just getting a lot of slack from patients, but we are getting attacked by the family members of the patients. The internet, the media, and the increasing number of lawsuits are causing families to stop trusting us.
The top 3 annoyances:
1) “The Phone Tree”- ...
February 2010
4 posts
Go London! →
With advancements in medical technology, our elderly are living longer but at what cost to the quality of their lives? London is taking the initiative in making an elderly playground to help improve the health of the elderly through exercising outdoors!
Blizzard Mayhem 2/10-2/11
I had the unfortunate luck of working two 12 hour shifts in the recent blizzard. Blizzards have the ability to completely change the dynamics of the hospital. For one, the employee dress code goes out the window. Doctors seem to go missing and those that do make it only wear turtleneck sweaters and jeans. Nursing assistants suddenly think it’s ok to wear boots instead of bringing their...
“My only sketch, profile, of Heaven is a large blue sky…larger than the...”
– Emily Dickinson
A Set of Favorite Words
Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and...