hysterectomy/nutrition teaching project

Fiona59 · Jul 25, 2006

Well thats a new one to me and I've had a hysterectomy. When I worked Gyne we never really went into nutrition other than fluid and fibre and an all around healthy diet.

I remember being told protien to help the body repair, fluid and fibre to keep stool soft to prevent straining.

regglynn · Jul 25, 2006

When I did my care plan I put all that in there and thought about going in that direction for the nurtition part. but then she said I should look into and present natural estrogen in foods.

Fiona59 · Jul 25, 2006

To me it would only be relevant if the ovaries were taken at the same time as the womb (many women keep one or both ovaries).

Also I see it more of a health food issue and not appropriate for every patient. Information on the availability of natural soy products might be supplied but I wouldn't see it as my job to tell a woman to include it in her diet. Most of the patients I've had over the years have religious concerns with diets, or are very set in their ways, or just plain old economically challenged.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2006

first of all, i would also bring the issue of estrogen replacement into your discussion. there is a lot of controversy about hrt (hormone replacement therapy) because of the risk of it causing cancer. that takes you to premarin, which you might just mention briefly, and then launch into the alternative, which is nutritional estrogen replacement, one of the main ideas of your talk. i've also found you some links that you should also give to your classmates that have information about natural sources of estrogen replacement and information of how this works in the body. people love to get handouts with good information in lists when they attend a teaching session. you can present a lot of information in a handout that you aren't going to even discuss verbally, but refer the attendees to the handout throughout your talk. i think it would be too difficult and burdensome to make smoothies for everyone. once you know what kind of foods you're looking for, you should be able to go to any health food store, or even a large supermarket, and buy a commercially made soy product that you could easily pass out for people to sample. i've listed several websites where you can get soy recipes as well. the chocolate chip soy cookies are just calling out to me! i'd wrap one or two in colored napkins tied with ribbon and tell your attendees it's a soy gift for each of them as you pass them out. make extra in case looky loos get curious about what is going on. the main thing is to have an outline, a flow, a rationale for what you are presenting. know your subject well enough so that if people ask questions when you are through you will have the answers to give them.

:twocents: don't make the mistake of thinking that a 5-minute presentation only requires an hour of prep time. the actual presentation is only the culmination of your research, development, construction and planning of the information and the sequence in which you will present it, the objectives you intend to achieve and determining whether or not you were successful. and next time. . .don't put all your eggs in one basket, even for one test. i'm getting off my soapbox now. good luck with your presentation. bowl 'em over with more than just a soy bean.

http://womenshealth.gov/faq/hysterectomy.htm - about hysterectomy from womenshealth.gov. this is written for the patient.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorials/hysterectomy/htm/index.htm - this is an interactive tutorial about hysterectomy that is on the medline plus website. you can print out the pdf version (text summary) for a handout if you like it well enough, it's 5 pages. it will also give you a ideal of the direction to take in presenting your information about a hysterectomy. it is also aimed at the patient, not the professional.

http://www.medem.com/medlb/article_detaillb.cfm?article_id=zzz596tuckc&sub_cat=0 - hormone replacement therapy: risks vs. benefits from the american medical association

http://www.drugs.com/pdr/premarin_tablets.html - pdr monograph on premarin

http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?id=1376 - foods to eat for good health. this article has a very good discussion of how estrogens are excreted from the body and the importance eating whole grains plays with the whole estrogen thing (it's under the section about "whole grains"). it also discusses the several forms of estrogen and which ones are good and which are not so good.

http://www.womens-menopause-health.com/natural_estrogen_replacement.htm - although this is actually a product advertisement, it has a list of foods rich in estrogens. it also has some suggestions of soy foods.

http://www.holistic-online.com/remedies/hrt/hrt_food_and_estrogen.htm - now this is an interesting webpage because it has lists of food that contain natural estrogens and foods that inhibit estrogens.

http://www.thesoyfoodscouncil.com/soyfoodproducts.html - a listing of food products made with soy to give you an idea of just what is available to consumers

soy recipes:

http://www.talksoy.com/recipes/default.htm

http://www.soyfoods.com/soyfoodguiderecipes.html

http://www.silksoymilk.com/appetiteappeal/recipes.aspx

http://www.revivalsoy.com/community/recipes/index.html?flash6=yes

if i see a recipe for chocolate chip soy cookies one more time i'm gonna scream!

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2006

Also I see it more of a health food issue and not appropriate for every patient. Information on the availability of natural soy products might be supplied but I wouldn't see it as my job to tell a woman to include it in her diet. Most of the patients I've had over the years have religious concerns with diets, or are very set in their ways, or just plain old economically challenged.

I have to disagree with this. I don't see this as a health food issue at all. Food is part of our existence. Soy products are a big part of the diets of many cultures. Soy products are utilized as a protein substitute in many cultures that don't have the plentiful supplies of animal protein that countries such as Canada and the U.S. have. Other sources of natural estrogen such as whole grains are hardly health food issues either. American Diabetes Association promotes whole grains for their low carbohydrate value. Providing estrogen is just one more added benefit of these very important foods. I see this as important information that should be presented to patients by incorporating it into their religious, financial and cultural beliefs. This is what I and thousands of other nurses were taught in nursing school.

Fiona59 · Jul 26, 2006

Daytonite: Thank you for your "uplifting pm". I was unaware that I was turning this into a confrontational forum until you pm'd me.

However the patients economic status must be taken into consideration when giving teaching materials and students need to know this. Women I work with live in shelters, survive on Welfare and the foodbanks, so the students that come in to the facilities that I work in have to know this and streamline their teaching to cover the needs (both physical and financial) of the women they serve.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2006

Daytonite: Thank you for your "uplifting pm". I was unaware that I was turning this into a confrontational forum until you pm'd me.
However the patients economic status must be taken into consideration when giving teaching materials and students need to know this. Women I work with live in shelters, survive on Welfare and the foodbanks, so the students that come in to the facilities that I work in have to know this and streamline their teaching to cover the needs (both physical and financial) of the women they serve.

When you put it in that context, you are absolutely correct! I've worked in a large city hospital where we had a huge population of indigent patients. Some of them have a much different view of the world than those of us who go home to a much different life. Still, we have to try to share some of what we know is good and right with them. After all, we are the professionals. You never know who is really listening and which seeds of learning we spread that will sprout. I learned this lesson the hard way with a patient who tried to commit suicide and I didn't think was worth trying to save. I had the great fortune of learning of her fate some years later from her own lips. What a dummy I was the night I had her as a patient! But, to my credit, I did for her and said to her what I had been taught in school although in my mind I kept thinking what a waste of my time it was. Let me repeat. . .what a dummy I was.

regglynn · Jul 28, 2006

Thanks for the tips. I used both suggestions. I put into my presentation the improtance of HRT after a TAH and salpingo-oophectomy. I aslo talked about how improtant proetin is for the rebuilding and healing of tissue and to increase fiber and fluide to prent straining.

I handed out pamphlets I made about HRT the benifts and risks. I also included the natural estrogen foods in a list and 2 recipes using soy milk. I also brough for the class, the staw nana smoothies and the chocoalte chip cookies. Everyone enjoyed the smoothies and cookies.

Thanks to both of you for your tips. I used info from both suggestions. I got a Satisfactory.......for the grade qe get unsatisfactory or satisfactory.

And your'e right Daytonite, I shouldn't wait until the last minumte again. I need to learn how to put time into everything. I had just gooten so stressed out ftom that test. I need better time managment skills when studying esp. when something like a pass/fail test and a teaching project in the same week. Just like next Mon/Tues. Monday we have our last test, then Tues. we have our final. I have already been studying for the test and today I'll look at he final. We did get a study guide for the exam so I have already taken out all notes to go with the study guide and have them all together. I'll go through that along with the test stuff this weekend.

But thanks for everything

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 28, 2006

Yeah! :yelclap: Oh! Good for you! I wish I could have been there to see how your talk went! Congratulations! :balloons: You will always remember the importance of HRT.

RE: Time management and organizing. This is something that you have to conquer. In most nursing jobs most nurses find themselves having to multi-task with a handful of things going on at the same time. This is where learning to prioritize comes in. It's not something that you need to be terribly concerned about yet, but it is going to hit you square in the face when you get your first nursing job. This is all something that you don't learn overnight. It takes trial, error and time. So, when you have a situation like this past week, what you do is re-think what happened and think about how you could have done it differently that would have been an improvement. The next time a similar circumstance comes up, and it will, you'll have another opportunity to put your time management skills to the test. And, if it doesn't go the way you wished it had, you merely repeat the cycle the next time. And so on, and so on, and so on. It takes a lot of time to be good at time management. It is a skill, like any other.

Here's some "handouts" for you:

http://www.getmoredone.com/tips.html - a list of helpful time saving tips

http://www.ascp.com/public/pubs/tcp/1997/sep/helpfulideas.html - as I was reading this I was marveling at how many of these things I do on the job. Then I noticed that this was written for pharmacists who are also in healthcare!

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_HTE.htm - advice from Mind Tools.

http://www.psywww.com/mtsite/page5.html - list of links to information. Notice, particularly at the bottom of the page, the links to action plans, activity logs, time estimates and prioritized To Do Lists.

http://www.timethoughts.com/ - Time Thoughts.com. You don't need to register to get into the site. Just click on the links that interest you on the left side of the page. Some very useful explanations and tips here.

http://www.localcareers.com/links/time.htm - Thirteen Timely Tips for More Effective Personal Time Management

Carry on, Nurse! :nurse: