Nursing practices and current trends

It surely sounds like I'm ready to go into an infomercial, doesn't it? No, I just got out of my state's "What's new in nursing" continuing education class recently.


The first part of it was, "Here's what YourStateNursingAssociation is doing in the Legislature", which is often very dry. When they started going over how a bill turns into law which turns into nursing practice, I had to imbibe in my highly caffeinated soda, since I got sleepy. Thankfully, we got a break right after this part.


After the break, we had the biggest, most rousing part of the seminar--the use of Propofol and nursing section. I almost felt like I was in the new Harry Potter movie, since the presenter and some others referenced "the recent case" (about Michael Jackson), but they never said any names. This issue is a big deal, not just for nurses, but also for physicians who use this drug. Just reading the package insert opens up a whole new world of liability if CRNA is not after your name in the right setting. Lots of ERs in our state are using this for small procedures, like dislocated shoulders, bone setting and stabilization, etc.

We also had fun stuff, too. A collegue of one of my mentors in nursing school gave a presentation on electronic records which was really cool, especially the one that compared drug prices for patients in our area. The disparity was glaring. Atenolol 20mg in one county was $3 for 30 days and in another section of the same county, $30. There were a couple of glitches in the presentation, as happens with just about anything technical. It would have been even more interesting if all of the government websites she referenced were actually working. I guess those pesky hackers are still loose!

Outside of that, I'm still taming the paperwork monster. I'm starting to view our paperwork queen for scholarships as Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde. One day, it's one thing, the next day another. I'm not sure why Paperwork queen wants all this stuff now, when I was told to wait for a cold day in the hereafter mere weeks ago, but I'm pushing the paper back and forth as fast as I can. They must have unearthed some money somewhere, somehow...and I'm not questioning it.

And school starts in a few weeks....and I already have homework. I'm so glad vacation is coming soon.

More later...