bethisonline

First of all the BP of 139/93 is NOT a low blood pressure, so you cannot say that you did anything unsafe. AND alot of women who are larger or who have fibromyalgia do experience pain from BP cuffs on their upper arms regardless of the size. I work with pain management patients and on occasion have taken their BP on the radial artery on the lower arm, just like we take the BP on the leg for breast cancer pts. AND by the time the larger cuff was put on the upper arm the hydrazaline could have started working. The other thing that needs to be realized is that patients who have high BP that goes untreated will probably not respond very quickly to medications for BP. Chronic high blood pressure is a viscious cycle and it just takes time for meds to kick in and probably repeated doses. It would behoove us all to do some research and comparison of radial artery BP and Brachial artery BP, because I guarantee that another patient you will come across will complain the same as your pt did and you will want to place the BP cuff elsewhere so you do not cause pain in the upper arm.

Bad experiences do and will occur as a result of poor management and weak leadership. If you ever have a really good nurse manager and effective leadership, do not ever quit that job! Effective leadership in healthcare is very difficult to find. Your article is EXCELLENT Thanks for posting it.

Naomi Judd

nursing practice is almost as diversified as the people we care for. Just because someone does not work in the ICU or ER does not mean a darn thing. Let's say we put an ICU nurse on med/surg? We all know that they may have a difficult time functioning. Or how about we put a labor and delivery nurse on med/surg and certainly there would be issues. A med/surg nurse may not function well in the labor and delivery area as well. Y'all need to realize that with each area of care there is special knowledge needed in order to function properly. Put an ER nurse on med/surg that has no prior knowledge or experience on med/surg and he/she will have difficuty and vice/versa. Some nurses get big headed and think they know it all. WRONG ANSWER! Just when you think you know it all put up the red flag and giveyourself a warning.

I was reading craigslistpotings for medical assistants and they all want 5 years experince, so where is a new medical assistant supposed get experience? They do 4 weeks of externship where they do not get paid anything and then, where do they go from there?

Medical Assistants can work in settings where there is a physician present always. Outpatient and ambulatory care centers DO like to hire Medical Assistants, especially pain management clinics and these places are on fire! They have SO MANY patients and they will hire a medical assistant versus a CNA because the patients do not stay long and only need discharge instructions, monitoring of vital signs and assistance to stand and get to a wheelchair and into a car. So there is a place for medical assistants. They learn excellent customer service skills and how to deal with people. They do not get hands on training for patients that are bedbound or wheelchair bound, but they can learn as much as they want to learn in these settings.