special experiences wanted...

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hi, my name is Kim, i'm an italian student nurse preparing for my final thesis, dissertation...

i'm trying to find nurses that have been working in developping countries and/or in war zones.

my thesis will be on "nurses in operational theatres": educating the population and the future nurses, the art of figuring out new ways to do those things that are extremely easy in a hospital (such as hanging an IV to the IV stand) but that may be hard to achieve in the savanna or in a warzone, nursing in a refugee camp, survival nursing, tricks and tips...

if you had any kind of special experience,out of a hospital, in a rural area, abroad, during an emergency, a catastrophe... please share your experience with me!!!

thanks

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You use whatever you have available. IVs can be taped to walls, have done that many times before when evacuating a facility, etc. Pumps of course would not be used, all IVs are calculated the best that you can the old fashioned way.

IVs can also be placed under the patient's head, you get just the right amount of pressure, and that is with or without a pillow. Works great when you have nothing to hang the fluids from. Actually use it occ. when having to transport a patient.

But disaster nursing is quite different than what you find in operating theatres where your only focus is the patient on the table at that time.

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You may want to limit your thesis to only one area, or you can end up with a few hundred pages. You will have better luck with only picking one area, such as the operating room, labor and delivery, a medical unit, etc.

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I've done this kind of work. (Sudan, Liberia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Panama, Nicaragua etc) The big problems are not things like figuring how to hang up an IV bag at all. In these situations, generally the answers just present themselves. The bigger problems are logistics, which is what I fiddled with a lot even as an expatriate nurse - such as getting large amounts of heavy theraputic food to a remote population, having appropriate drugs, getting the population to use the medications appropriately. The actual technical nursing part is pretty simple, its other stuff that presents the problems.

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thank you for your replies!

the IV example was only... an example!!

unfortunately i can't limit my thesis to one part as suzanne suggested, and thesis here in italy ARE supposed to be about a hundred pages or even more...

i hope to be able to get more tips from you all out there

the logistic part is veery interesting too and i could add it to my work but i wouldn't know where to start, so if you have any ideas please let me know!

initially i wanted to concentrate on the educative part (population and future personnel) but i couldn't find enough material and anyway they request wider subject for our thesis, but i'm still very interested on the educational programmes...

so any kind of tip, idea, experience will be of great help

thanks again to all of you !!!

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