In the news: Byproducts edition

One of my friends posted recently, "I just got hit by C-diff and VRE all at once." Yes, the gross part of being a nurse sometimes stands out more than others.

Note to new nurses: always know where you can get an extra set of scrubs. If you have a good sized locker, this is something you may want to stash, along with an extra pair of underwear and socks. It's good for those gross days, as well as for those times when you have local emergencies, due to snowstorms (as we did recently.)

Blow up
Yes, if you have enough methane in the form of gas and belches, you can indeed cause an explosion, as these folks in Germany found out recently (thank you BBC).

Tales from the ER
I really enjoyed this post from Florencenightnday about gross stuff in nursing. Yes, the trick is really: don't breathe through your nose (sometimes you have to limit how much you breathe through your mouth, too.)


Take a picture
Someone did here. Yes, it's gross, but this is the holy grail of rehab nursing.

Not a nurse, but worried about caregiving?
The Visiting Nurses of New York have this article for you. Don't worry. They won't gross you out too much. 

Last, but not least
Probably one of the mother of all poop posts you can find on the internet from jo at Head Nurse. Read the comments, too, they are valuable.

Nuggets for August 13

There were a whole lot of interesting items out there recently, so here are a few of them for your viewing pleasure.

You've got questions...

They've got answers, and no, it's not an electronics store. ConsultantLive had this great article on the ubiquitous purple urine bag. I've seen it a few times before (also blue) and asked questions about it, and never got a straight answer until I found this article. They also have a number of other articles of interest, so peruse at whim.

Crispy and brown

Feeling burnt out? Need to read something to get you going? Laura Wisniewski has this great article over at www.nursinglink.com called Re-Engage Your Passion for Nursing that has a few interesting points to ponder.

A telling anniversary

It's been ten years (yes, it was 1999) that the IOM published To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System.

There are still lots and lots of mistakes happening out there. The Houston Chronicle (a Hearst Newspaper) recently ran a series called Dead by Mistake on what the state of error reporting is in the US, and it's not so hot. Don't miss it.

Study, study, study

I'm still doing some certification study (yes, it seems like forever...) and I ran into some terms I didn't recognize, so I went searching and found some articles of interest.

Glossopharyngeal breathing is used with some ventilated SCI patients. This article explains what exactly it is and how it works.

Figure ground deficit is explained in this Google Book called Neurological Disabilities: Assessment and Treatment.

I always feel weak in my studies of the brain, so I found this article about a particular TBI patient very interesting as an aside. (from http://www.nytimes.com/)

Privacy (or lack thereof)

And you thought a prescription was private (from http://www.nytimes.com/)
I just shuddered reading this article...what will they think of next? I'm sure all you pharmacists out there have some stories like this.

And everything else about bloggers

It seems like life is very electronic these days...with good and bad results. Here are a few articles about various topics related to blogging I've seen lately. And, no, some things just don't need to be blogged or explained electronically, at least not in my little world, thankyouverymuch!

Mommy bloggers and ethical conflicts (from http://www.cnn.com/)

A no tweet, no blog party (from http://www.nytimes.com/)