Ultimate Nurse Blog

Nurse Leaders Happy with ACA Ruling

June 29, 2012

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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News

Huge news for healthcare yesterday as the Supreme Court decided to uphold the Affordable Care Act. The decision was uncertain enough that many hospitals suspended their preparations for the ACA; now the changes that began soon after the passage of the law in March 2010 can continue, with the core measures going into effect by 2014. The president of the American Nurses Association, Karen A. Daley, is quoted by Nurse.com as saying, “This decision means millions of people will have…
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Gaming as Training for Nursing Students

June 28, 2012

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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News, Nursing School, Nursing Specialties

Practice makes perfect and nobody is a perfect nurse right away. So it would be nice if nurses could make their rookie mistakes on virtual patients rather than real ones. The University of Minnesota School of Nursing is helping to develop a bunch of computer games that allow that kind of practice for nursing students, the Minnesota Daily reports. A clinical professor at the U of M named Tom Clancy (apparently no relation to the novelist) is working with the…
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Teaching Empathy

June 22, 2012

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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News, Nursing School

A health care professional may have the best possible technical skills, and encyclopedic knowledge, but one more element is needed to be truly effective: empathy. Studies have shown that this important attribute has been declining amongst nursing and medical students. The benefits of empathy go far beyond the exam room. Greater empathy levels is associated with fewer medical errors, better patient outcomes, more satisfied patients, and fewer malpractice claims. Traditionally, empathy has been thought to be inherent — you have…
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Developing Healthy Habits

June 20, 2012

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Posted in Nurse Safety, Nursing, Nursing News, Obesity

Physician, heal thyself — and nurse, get thyself fit. It’s one of the paradoxes of the health care field that often the very people who are dispensing valuable advice about fitness have a hard time following it, themselves. According to several studies, more than half of all nurses are obese, and more than 10% smoke. Many nurses feel they are too busy to take care of themselves, tending to help others first. Why is there this disconnect between the clinical…
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Nurse Practitioners No Threat To Doctors

June 19, 2012

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Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties

History has shown that physicians don’t always appreciate sharing with nurses. The field of obstetrics, which was once dominated by midwives and lay midwives, has been a battleground for years, with physicians laying claim to the right to attend all deliveries. Physician’s groups in the past went so far as to say that women who were attended by midwives were putting themselves and their babies at risk, although statistically this notion was never proven to be a reality. Midwives fought…
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Love Me, Love My Microbiome

June 16, 2012

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Posted in Maryland, Nursing News, Obesity

Bacteria is bad. Right? That is now being rethought. The New York Times has a fascinating article about new research into the “good bacteria” that live in or on the human body — all 100 trillion of them. They’re needed for digesting food, forming barricades against the bad bacteria, even synthesizing some vitamins. But we’ve known remarkably little about them — what they look like in healthy people, and how they vary amongst individuals. The Human Microbiome Project has been…
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UC-Davis Graduating First Class of Nurses

June 13, 2012

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Posted in California, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing School

Five years ago, philanthropist Betty Irene Moore donated $100 million to the University of California – Davis, moving the School of Nursing from dream to reality. This week, the first group of nurses will graduate from the program. 25 students who were recruited for their talent and whose education was fully funded by scholarships will be graduating. The hope is that they represent a new breed of well-educated nurses who will transform the health care system. In this article in…
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School Nurse Visits Up

June 8, 2012

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Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, School Nurses

Visits to school nurses have significantly increased, likely because of the difficult economy. People often lose health care when they lose their jobs, meaning that they will sometimes send their kids to the school nurse before their primary care doctor. In Rhode Island, increases in the last five years total in the thousands, according to this article on in the Valley Breeze. Linda Newbury, a school nurse, provided figures that indicated that visits doubled at one school (3,800 visits to…
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K-9 Team Puts Nurses at Ease

June 6, 2012

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Posted in Maryland, Nurse Safety, Nursing, Nursing News

The emergency department in a hospital can be a very tense place. Injured people want to be tended to immediately, their family members get upset on their behalf, two people from an altercation can both wind up at the same hospital — there are many reasons why emotions can spill over and difficult situations can develop. And such situations can be stressful and dangerous for nurses as well as patients and their families. At a hospital in Baltimore, a two-member…
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On Discouraging Unnecessary Medical Tests

June 5, 2012

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Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News

Recently, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, working in conjunction with numerous medical specialty boards and Consumer Reports, instituted an initiative to decrease the number of medical tests ordered unnecessarily by physicians. It also has contributed to new recommendations for annual exams. The initiative is called “Choosing Wisely.” The following are some of the pros and cons of this initiative. Pros: Reduction in healthcare spending: An article appearing in Kaiser Health News reported that $6.8 billion dollars were…
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