A couple of recent threads here have really brought to my attention that much of our pracitce isn't based on any sound evidence. We practice out of fear, or tradition, or even misinformation. We do intial, 90 min and 6 hour cardiac panels on 20 yo's with no risk factors and reproducable chest pain for example. Now in that case we as nurses may not have any say in the matter, but there are area's that we can make a difference in how care is delivered.
My question is, how do we as a proffesion, develop our practice to be based on sound evidence, tempered with the knowlege and gut feeling that is gained by experience? There is a lot of talk about Evidence Based practice and Critical Thinking, but in reading some of the recent thread, out practice is driven by dogma. I guess the first qustion should actually be, do we need to change how our proffesion advances the delivery of emergency nursing care.
