dedjim

When I worked in Kotzebue, Alaska, folks would sometimes bring in muktuk. Now THAT was hard to get down. And you mustn't refuse when a sweet little old eskimo lady offers you a piece. It'd be impolite. Fortunately they were little bitty pieces. (BTW, in case you don't know, muktuk is whale blubber with a little skin attached. raw. )

BA in Political Science with a concentration in Soviet Studies. How useless is that?

I've never been offended by the Charge that comes into the report room, well out of earshot of any patients or family and starts out with :What a f****** day! Hearing my colleagues express themselves like this doesn't bother me, it's just understandable. But out in the Unit, where patients, families and others can hear is not OK. And I have reminded people before to watch their language. Never had a problem from anyone when I did that either. When I am out on the unit I have my "game face" on and people get what I think they have a right to expect: professional conduct.

Doesn't this just tan your hide? If nurses can get enough heat worked up to get a branded sneaker manufacturer to drop their demeaning ads and issue an apology to nurses, why can't we get the heat turned up on issues like this? It OUGHT to be on the front page of newspapers, the lead stories on nightly news and the crawls under CNN stories.

Hey, Don't apologize. I saw nothing wrong with the question either. I've known plenty of gay/lesbian nurses in my 20+ years of nursing. I think you see rather less discrimination against homosexuals in nursing. Mostly we just care if they are good nurses. I haven't known any that even seemed interested in such an organization, but I can't attest that they weren't. Probably, like the rest of us, they were/are just more interested in living our lives.

BTW. Angela Lewis, who moderates this board and whose post you replied to, is one of the "Names" in American Nursing Informatics. Can't get it from a better source!

For a better idea of the range of activities an informatacist, look at these: http://www.nursing-informatics.com/ http://www.ania.org/ http://www.imia.org/ni/index.html I manage a clinical information system for a small rural hospital in Alaska. I develop, train, maintain the system and other things ad hoc. I work out of the IS dept with 3 Technical folks. I am paid as a nurse at a rate commensurate with my years and accomplishments in nursing. Some folks are NOT paid in the nursing scale and that may vary be better or worse. Depends on locale, duties, preparation, etc etc. YMMV

Yep Carenotes is a good app. The only thing is that you have to interrupt what you are doing, sit down, log on, navigate to CareNotes then search for the med. I like whipping out the PDA while I'm standing in front of the Pyxis, waiting for it to open the drawer and in 3 or 4 stylus taps I'm reading the information I want. Gotta love it.

I recently set up 2 PDAs for use in our Barcode eMAR on the Acute floor of our little hospital and added UDG and... um... some Lab reference, name is escaping me...dang, this getting old is a pain... Anyway, I was going to add an ER reference but the PDAs never get down to the ER and the ER nurse is too busy to walk to the floor to get it, so I figured why waste the money. But I LIKE the application. Theres an updatable Procedures manual I'd like to add, too. Just have to convince the manager. You oughta check out one of the numerous sites devoted to nursing use of PDAs. PDA Cortex is my fave.

The way drug companies are shoving product onto the market you're nuts not to replace the thing every year. OR you can get yourself an inexpensive PDA and load UDG or DAVIS or ePocrates and it will update every month. (even sooner woth some guides) All the same information as you'll find in the books, better to search, easier to carry (fits in your scrubs pocket) and has features a book can't (UDG has a built-in dosage calculator