Debra ACRN

Debra ACRN

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About Debra ACRN

Latest Activity

  1. Favorite sayings

    Dryer than a popcorn fart
  2. Practicing NG Tube on each other?

    Oh me, my class had to. It was in 1982 so it was ages ago. It was horrifying! I remember it was Bev, one of my good friends who did me. She inserted the tube about an inch per painful, grueling, minute. When she finally got to the stomach and th...
  3. Differences: Nursing then and now...

    OK, here's another one. I started working in HIV/AIDS in 1989, then we spent a lot of time figuring out how to pay for funerals. Now, we spend a lot of time how to pay for medication. We always seem to figure out a way, now it's just way more satis...
  4. remember when...

    I'm so old that I used to smoke in the nurses station while charting. Can you even imagine? For the record, I gave up that nasty habit years ago. Hey we used to have to make room assignments based on if the patient smoked, and I remember putting clea...
  5. What's your nursing kryptonite?

    Those long honking loogies that take as long to cough up as a cat with a fur ball, I'm sure I turn green and then they want you to look at it...........ugh
  6. Theraputic Privilege: An Ethical Dilemma

    I've actually refused to HIV test a patient who stated that they would commit suicide if the test was positive. We got the patient some psych assist prior to testing. Your first duty is to do no harm. If the results of a biopsy would or could cause s...
  7. needlestick injury

    I think you have an amazing chance of being just fine. First, it was someone who knows they have HIV, hopefully they are on antiretrovirals and have an undetectable viral load. Then you didn't get stuck with a hollow bore needle and that has a decrea...
  8. Nursing and needle pricks

    Well I've worked in an HIV clinic for 18 years and never had a needle stick. I think there are less then 300 total health care workers in the U.S. that have contracted HIV from a needle stick in all the years HIV has been around. Thats not many. I'm ...
  9. I worked at the bedside for two long and overwhelming years. I too knew it wasn't for me but I loved the patients and staff so it was bearable. After, I worked for an Indian nation running a home health clinic and then started an HIV nurse run clinic...
  10. How to survive clinicals

    It's been a hundred million years since I did clinical but I wanted to offer my advice anyway. I started out nervous and have a habit of talking to myself. I found that I would do each task with my patient and state what I was doing, why I was doing ...
  11. What kind of nurse are you?

    In 1989 a group of us started an outpatient HIV clinic. We were federally funded in 1993 and I have been the director ever since. It's small enough where I get to see patients and it's a nurse run clinic with a physician back up. I love every second ...
  12. Problems with obtaining needed orders- advice appreciated.

    I think this is where our advocacy skills must be brought to full fruition. Drs are influenced by facts so have it all written down. I would have stood in his face and asked him since when is a pulse ox of 80, crackles throughout, VS of blah blah bla...
  13. Help us answer this question!

    My guess is chicken. The most common mouth sores my patients get are either thrush or apthous ulcers. If a patient is pretty depleted immunologically esophageal thrush is pretty common and it has been described to me as if a big wad of soft bread is ...
  14. Tidbits, facts, save-your-butts...for new nurses in LTC

    Engrave the name of every resident on their dentures. I had a nightmare of epic proportion years ago when all the residents decided to swap. EWWW!
  15. I feel like an absolute fool!

    Speaking of patients transporting themselves to a bar, I can do you one better. I once had a patient who was in a 4 man room in a nursing home. He was much younger then his fellow roommates but liked them all. So much so that he went out a got a coup...