"that's another thing; wouldn't the hr people from hospital say "you're an artist? do you think you'll handle nursing job? there's zero creativity."
anybody who tells you there's no creativity in nursing is talking through his hat. i can't begin to tell you how many creative things i've seen done by nurses in every field:
= figuring out ways to cajole a small burn victim to take lots more calories p.o. to stave off a feeding tube that would have required the toddler to be in restraints
= getting an injured worker's wife's employer to set her up for fmla so she could do his personal care at home when he wouldn't let a stranger touch his private areas-- and getting his comp insurance to pay her what a cna would get for the same work (but that was a lot less than they would have paid the agency who sends cnas)
= taking a 6-month icu patient on a ride through the hospital late at night so he could see the stars over the parking lot, just once
= the whole staff of a dementia unit dressing up as smurfs for halloween (that was some day!)
= deriving show-and-tell posters for transplant recipients (personalized for each) on meds, treatments, and follow-ups
= figuring out how to explain an lp to someone with acute stroke and receptive aphasia, using drawings
hospice is famous for coming up with the most creative things you can imagine for quality of life. so is nicu and peds in general.
there are so many patient teaching programs, support programs, and recreational programs all begin by a nurse who said, "what if we could..." where do you think those come from, the nursing fairy?
i'll bet people can think of a whole lot more. i may even start a new thread with this.... yup, think i will. what are some of the most creative things you've ever seen in nursing, small or large?
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
What a great thread! absolutely true, too! If it had been as easy to get a job as an artist as it was to get a job as a nurse back in the day, I would have been happy to spend my days making the most awesome window displays (which ironically involved nylon filament and some sewing) probably for the rest of my career.
A creative solution for a custom-shaped "dough-nut" applied under a bony prominence that finally gave my patient some relief . . .my elegant taping skills and rockin' pressure dressings, to the cutest blankets and best wrapped babies on my unit (I made a bee line for that linen cart).
I've re-organized and re-labled cupboards and drawers, made flow sheets and signs, figured out systems for keeping track of sample drugs and figured out how to do a tricky shampoo for someone who really needs it . . .the list goes on and and on!
I shuffled through the supply cart and came up with.... tampons.
Our battalion medic always had a stash on hand. His claim was that they were perfect for bullet wounds (as an initial intervention - followed by conventional bandages on top). I have a good friend who was a Ranger and he concurs.
As far as "creativity" as a nurse:
- I once explained heart disease to a patient using a coolant-system diagram. He had been a machinist in the Navy. :)
- This is specialty for my hallway-bed patients since the hallways lack a ceiling attachment to hang fluids - I often use thumb-tacks to "raise" the height of the infusing bag of fluids when I don't have enough pumps (or stand alone poles) to go around and the pole attachments on the stretchers don't go high enough.
- I learned to apply this other trick from my sepsis patients who are undergoing SVP monitoring - ever have a bag of fluids running through gravity run dry and leave an air pocket in the line? Pain in the butt when you have to hang more fluids to get that air out? Solution: When you spike the bag initially, spike it upside down and then squeeze the bag till all the air is expelled from the bag and fluid enters the drip chamber. Prime drip chamber to the level you want and then invert the whole contraption and let fluid prime tubing the usual way. Now when the bag is completed, all you have to do is briefly spike new bag, remove spike, squeeze air outta bag again and then re-connect tubing spike!
- When having a hard time 'intubating the bladder' of an 'anatomically altered female', a pillow or two under the hips can make just quite the difference (also helps to have a pair (or two or more) of helping hands.
Of course, none of this counts the endless MacGyverisms entailed - be if fixing the prescription printer (paper clips are more useful than most folks think), the balky computer, the BP cuff with the leak (ever worked on a leaky airhose before?), the TV remote/call-light in the room that wouldn't work etc.
I think I've had too many post bad night at work glasses of wine to think of something I've done, but a story a good friend of mine told me comes to mind.
She got her preceptorship in homecare hospice in nursing school. While out and about her preceptor gets a call from a co-worker whose car bumper has fallen off... So of coorifice her preceptor goes to the rescue and ties the bumper back up with the only thing she had in her trunk... Oxygen tubing!
oh, lord, i just remembered a mcgyver i had to do once. i was doing trach care and had to cut off a severely tight tie, and even though i was as careful as i could be i cut the dang balloon lumen. quick like a bunny i grabbed a fat #16 needle, cut the point off it to about 1/2 inch long (love those long-handled bandage scissors-- you can cut anything with 'em), stuck it in the lumen, screwed on a stopcock, and put a syringe on that to inflate the balloon and closed the stopcock to hold it. worked great.
sorry about the size (it doesn't come up big on my screen), but i kinda like the color. is this better?
Using a yankauer to unclog a toilet, because the tech flushed a bunch of disposable washcloths yet again. If engineering finds that a toilet is clogged with those, they won't help us.
This probably won't sound very original, but at the time, no one else thought of it, and it sure did the trick!
Post op patient, abdominal surgery...midline incision. Oozing quite a bit, enough to soak through dressings. Call surgeon....he says pressure, and ice packs. It can be quite uncomfortable to put pressure on a new incision, not to mention, sadly, hard to have one person stay and do that as long as required when you have 6-7 other patients.
What I ended up doing was laying the icepacks along the incision, plenty of gauze, and then putting a very snug abdominal binder over that set up. Worked beautifully, and provided even, continuous pressure. Bleeder stopped.
If we have a postpartum mom that's engorged and getting cabbage leaves or ice packs to her breasts, or hydrogels for sore nipples, we take our sexy Victorias-Secret issue stretchy underwear and cut straight through the crotch...bam! Instant tube top. All her 'stuff' is held in place but it's not cumbersome to take out/off so she can nurse.
Occasionally we have antepartum pts who have to be on strict bedrest and are going to be with us for the long haul. They feel really grody being in the bed for so long w/o getting up to shower. So of course we do the bed bath thing, but to wash their hair we use a sitz bath. Put the head of the bed down, fill the bag up with water, put some chux over the head of the bed and have them lay their head slightly over the edge. Cut the end off the tubing and use it to wet and rinse their hair. They LOVE it.
Our 'homemade heating pads' got outlawed after a patient (not on our unit) got burned. Heat some wet towels in the microwave (I never did more than about 45 seconds, and always checked it, and nobody ever got burned) and wrap in a chux. Worked SO much better than a K-pad, which isn't (IMO) worth a tinker's damn.
In the absence of a cord clamp remover, which seems to find legs fairly often, I have seen nurses use either safety pins (kind of scary, don't recommend it) or the end of a paperclip to jimmy the 'lock' on the clamp.
Our battalion medic always had a stash on hand. His claim was that they were perfect for bullet wounds (as an initial intervention - followed by conventional bandages on top). I have a good friend who was a Ranger and he concurs.
nursel56
7,122 Posts
What a great thread!
absolutely true, too! If it had been as easy to get a job as an artist as it was to get a job as a nurse back in the day, I would have been happy to spend my days making the most awesome window displays (which ironically involved nylon filament and some sewing) probably for the rest of my career.
A creative solution for a custom-shaped "dough-nut" applied under a bony prominence that finally gave my patient some relief . . .my elegant taping skills and rockin' pressure dressings, to the cutest blankets and best wrapped babies on my unit (I made a bee line for that linen cart).
I've re-organized and re-labled cupboards and drawers, made flow sheets and signs, figured out systems for keeping track of sample drugs and figured out how to do a tricky shampoo for someone who really needs it . . .the list goes on and and on!