Topics About 'Family Dynamics'.

When the ambulance rolled up to the ER, I could see the EMTs doing chest compressions on my dad. I remembered a guy his size who had coded when I was working on the floor- that guy did not make it. I started to shake and sob loudly. The ER nurse came...

Reflection: Moral CourageMoral courage is sometimes a shared experience. I have always had the realization that sometime in my Nursing career, I would be faced with the task of assisting my patient while they receive a terminal diagnosis. Allowing th...

Dear floor, ED and ICU nurses, Please forgive me. I know he's dying. I get it. I do. We were told five years. Five years on an outlier and he would be gone. We were told transplant was an option but with the dismal survival rates, we opted for rehab....

We were all trained on how to recognize anxious behavior that may lead to violence, and 'deescalate' the 'crisis'. For example, lets say that a man(free of mental illness) that has a painful toe begins shouting about the wait time and throws a chair ...

When I tell people I'm a mother-baby nurse, the usual reaction is, "Oh, what a great [fun, exciting, happy, insert positive adjective here] job that must be!" Sometimes, that's a true statement. But what most people don't realize (or if they do, they...

I have a friend who once made her teenage daughter throw up at the dinner table by telling a story about an accidental shooting. It was quite a night to remember. My family and I were having supper at her house, and over the lasagna she began to tell...

When dad was ill, my sister went to the hospital and told everyone that she was a nurse and she'd be watching them. She is a nurse -- sort of. She's a "Gucci nurse". She comes to work in her Gucci suit and her Prada heels carrying her designer handba...

Tom was 35 years old when he got sick. A strong police officer, Tom never expected to be diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia. One day he was on the SWAT Team, breaking down doors, gun in hand, fighting the bad guys. That afternoon, he went to h...

The phone in my pocket rings. I have been an ADN for all of three days now. I am still orienting, though my preceptor scheduled to teach a class while I covered the house. Her presumption of faith in me is both inspiring and terrifying. The er is cal...

In 2003, my parents moved from Maryland to New Jersey. They were looking forward to the move. They were right across the river from NYC, my mother had accepted a great job, and they were excited about being able to go to the Broadway shows, dine out,...

Making rounds one weekend, I walked into check on a patient who was sitting in her wheelchair laughing hysterically. Her roommate was sitting in the middle of her bed with her legs tucked up under chin rocking back and forth. Since I had been working...

I filled the anniversary of Adam's murder with busy things so that I would not have to think about it so deeply. How does one mark the day when everything changed forever? It has taken me most of my life to see past the violent details of the day. So...

A small cot was placed next to her bed, so I could sleep beside her. In the middle of the night, my mother's small voice called for me to get the nurses (no call button then), the foul smell invaded the room and it hit me hard enough to wake me out o...

There are 2 types of Earthly hells in my opinion: the physical kind (like being tortured or murdered) and the Emotional kind (like losing someone you love and watching them suffer) I have lived through my own personal Hell and it is not something tha...

It was exciting to work on a busy medical-surgical floor. Although I was occasionally overwhelmed, I can honestly say that I was never bored. After I became confident in administering physical treatments, starting IVs, placing foleys, and so forth, I...

Displaced anger is the mental process of redirecting one's anger away from the real target onto an unrelated target that seems safer. Once vented, that anger can swiftly explode and set the stage for an unstable situation. Unfortunately, bedside nurs...

On our third clinical day I went to watch a nurse do a dressing change. Wound care, how exciting! I was absorbing information like a sponge. Then, suddenly it all hit me. The nausea, the exhaution, the weakness all came at once. I excused myself, wal...

Mr. P, 80 years of age, a war veteran man was admitted with a chief complain of abdominal pain and loss of appetite. Looking at Mr. P for the first time gave me an impression that he was a good looking, gentleman back in his younger days. His looks w...

I have just graduated from an RN program. A month before my grad, my dad needed emergency brain surgery for an injury he sustained at work. Due to a series of complications, what should have been a relatively easy surgery turned into him being put in...