Allison S.

Three things: When I exercise, I have more energy for other things, like reading, cooking, really USING the internet to learn (I consider this reading), calling folks on the phone, crafts. When the Sunday paper comes, after I get the coupons, I highl...

Done the motorcycle thing. Prefer yoga. See you at the organ bank.

Regarding RSD: I'm not being callous. We treat this all the time, and treat all cases as though they are real, even when the pain is the only symptom and even when the pain is only evident when we start talking about sending the child back to school...

Love yoga. Go whenever I can. One of the things it helps me with is correcting my nurse's slouch. I also use yoga to practice breathing and focusing my mind, which helps keep me organized at work. I also think i thelps me strengthen and protect my...

We see a lot of this under our chronic pain program for kids. 1. one whose reflex sympathetic dystrophy "moved" from limb to limb as discharge approached. 2. One whose legs went numb causing falls, but only in front of the objects of crushes. 3. O...

Assault is the crime of threatening someone, and is prosecutable. Good luck.

I waS pretty dIsappointed with My sMall private wOmeN'S college in boston, on an administrative level. We had verbatim re-runs of lectures. Our schedules were constantly being re-arranged--this was a big problem as most students were working adults ...

If you like his work, know that Samuel Shem is actually Stephen Bergman. He was a resident at Beth Israel in Boston in the 70's. I have a friend who knew some of the "characters" in the book. Hilarious! Seriously, though, it sheds a lot of light ...

Sounds normal to me. (BA English, BS Biology, BSN) Being scared keeps you on your toes. It is scary to take care of people's health. The stakes are high. It can be a tough way to make a living, but I think it's good to be scared.

Moses parted the sea, Noah opted for an ark, and I sometimes take the commuter boat. I'm not sure how i feel about meds in rooms. It sounds like it is more trouble than it is worth. In our instance, it would also mess with our inventory control sys...

This burns me. Of course, we are "responsible" for the actions of those we supervise, but realistically, we also have to trust that they do what the say they do, and that they tell the truth. If we as nurses had time to check up on everything the ai...

For cranberry juice without sugar, try R.W. Knudson "Just Cranberry" 100% cranberry juice. It's very tart, but I like it with some water -- it's sort of an herbal tea experience.

When we have a trach patient, I always hang a sample tie behind their bed that is sized. Then I size the new one against the model before I start. It saves all those adjustment steps.

Believe it or not, a nursing aid I work with has just made the same decision. She was a letter carrier for a while, and has just decided to go to nursing school. My uninformed opinion? Although nursing is very tough, intellectually, emotionally, an...

A preculiar friend of mine just had a vasectomy. He not only detailed me on the use of the stirrups, but on how he thought they might be improved. "Four bungie cords is all they would need," I recall him saying. Not sure I understood.

There are lots of things that give me the willies, but in my experience, at the end of the day, I go home with memories of social interactions (good and bad) with the kids and their families, and little recollection of the grossness. Besides, nurses ...

Congrats to all of you quitters! I've never been a smoker, but I witnessed my husband quit, and my father fail (and suffer). I'm a mind-body type, and something that I remember from nursing school comes to mind. While you are quitting, do not deny ...

We just wing it, and make the adjustment when it is clearly wrong, e.g. when the liquid is at a line, or when the amount seems to be clearly wrong -- 5 ccs or so. I guess we just have to trust each other. In peds, we can use some extremely small dos...

We call this Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), a term applying both to babies of drug abusers and of mothers with prescribed narcotics. I work in a pediatric rehab (not drug rehab) unit, and we treat these kids with a combo of phenobarb and dena...

I never thought of suing my nursing school, but I certainly think that some of the "education" I got was negligent. There were verbatim re-runs of lectures throughout the time I was there. Identical handouts, the works. There were also instances of ...

Mario, I've had a couple of patients in pediatrics who pinch and have drawn blood. It's not like a two fingered pincer grip, more like grabbing a handful of flesh, say around your forearm, and diging in with their claws. (Is there an easier way to...

Regarding photography: In the early days of photography in this country, people didn't own their own cameras and photographers would travel the country to take family portraits. It was not uncommon for families to save the winter's dead so that they...

Only one of our nurses, and one of our therapists that I am aware of smoke. Most of us nurses at our place DO NOT SMOKE! Interestingly enough, at a previous job, we had an emphysema patient, post lung transplant, burst into flames in her hospital be...

I had five patients the other day. All were children. None were accompanied by adults. Three were mentally retarded, as well as medically ill. One was a near quadraplegic. One was an infant. And one of them pinched my arm until it bled. My offense? ...

Ooh. My clipboard itself is one of those prepreinted with handy info that I never use, and a calculator which I use always!