Do you ever feel like this?

There are days that you feel like your patient is speaking and asking for help, and you have the solution, but they are not open to hearing about it. Does this ever happen to you? (It also happens with my hubby, but shhhh, don’t tell him.)

Ethics of Caring in Nursing Practice

Published in Med-Surg, April 2012 issue, this article on integrating care into your daily nursing practice interweaves some of the caring theories, as well as case study info, which you’ve got to love since it is talking about a real patient and their experience.

Click to access Applying-the-Ethics-of-Care-to-Your-Nursing-Practice.pdf

Being a nurse – in full color

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Great video! So many things here to agree with, whether you are a new nurse or seasoned pro. Comments about night shift and washing your hands, beginning to end, this video covers the full spectrum of nursing. Enjoy!

Dementia – Losing the ability to care for oneself

As a geriatric nurse working in a memory care unit it can be easy to forget that not everyone is familiar with the process of dementia, and that those experiencing the progression personally are usually not aware that it is occurring. The attached podcast is from a conference hosted by Dartmouth University on geriatric medicine. As stated by one of the conference speakers, Dr. Santuly of Dartmouth University of Medicine, “Dementia is an acquired loss thinking and functioning sufficient enough to interfere with daily life.” For anyone one of us this loss would be devastating, but we are not alone in feeling the effects of the loss. For each individual afflicted, there is typically a number of family members who are witness to the decline and are grieving the loss of the physical and mental person that they have known and loved. From a medical perspective, we have not one patient but an innumerable number of patients when just one family member is touched by dementia. Our job is the care for the physical needs of the one afflicted, but to support, encourage, listen to, and grieve with each family member that we come into contact with. Let us not forget that dementia is not a disease of singularity, but one of plurality, with a slow, painful progression for those who are witness to it.

Dementia Care and Palliative Medicine