War on the summer cold

Wake up off and on all night. Get sleep in small chunks of time.

Wage war on congestion with:

• 2 pots of herbal tea with honey
• Multiple, multiple cups of every kind of coffee
• 3.5 liters of cold water
• Two Mucinex DMs (takes 16 oz of water all by itself!)
• Four Aleves
• Liberal amounts of Vicks Vapo-Rub (I'm old school)
• One nap before dinner (refreshing!)
• Ate three light, but vitamin rich meals.

If I don't flush it out, I'm going to make things very inhospitable with a veritable flood.

That is all. Back to sleep and thinking good thoughts. Hopefully, all the barking dogs will go in for the night soon!

Nuggets for July 22

Yes, it's back on its regular day. It's gonna be a long post with all the interesting stuff out there, so sit back and enjoy yourself or read in bits if you're working.

I'm really enjoying the heck out of this vacation so in between housework, networking and shopping (the other important "work"), I've been surfing away. Please enjoy as you see fit in your neck of the woods.

The nursing shortage

It's incredible how there is a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing on reporting on the nursing employment. One minute it's dire, the next minute, wonderful, since all those nurses contemplating retirement are staying. I'm just going to chalk it up to American business and the "short term syndrome". Basically, if it's not a problem now, it won't be later, even if demographic trends suggest otherwise.

I'm also crossing my fingers that I don't break my hip in the next 10-20 years, since I'll have to be my own rehab nurse the way things are going.

ACP internist (MD) weighs in on this topic and the glut of nurses.
Kathy Quan (RN) presents the other side: shortage.

Health news of note

Here are a few stories I found very interesting in the health arena. Somebody needs to take me to Greece to complete the one study, though. A long, faraway vacation would be very nice, thank you!

Sex and sleep are just as important as antioxidants (from the 360 blog at www.cnn.com)
This study about people on a Greek island was pretty hopeful in the long-term view.

Want to know if your health habits are making you younger or older? Check out the Longevity Calculator.

Disclosure: I do take an extra vitamin and mineral, but I don't traditionally recommend these as treatments to my patients. This article called Docs and nurses use and recommend diet supplements from www.reuters.com was interesting because it discusses how most doctors and nurses had little education in supplement use.

From the NY Times

This article from the NY Times shows Vets' Mental Health Diagnoses Rising among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Cases-Our Scars Tell the Stories of our Lives made me think about how I look at scars on my patients.


Etc.

Yes, they're released annually, and Madison didn't even make it in as an honorable mention, although some of our system hospitals did show up....way down the list. The US News and Report of America's Best Hospitals even has a couple not far away, if I do need one for specialty care.

Our friends in Canada put a great story in The Globe and Mail recently: Pop culture gives way to peep culture.

Fun!

And last, but not least, who's not going to have fun on vacation? Well, I surely am, and from the looks of some of these goodies, even people at work are having fun and entertaining others, wittingly or unwittingly.

Lost on the Floor just moved, but he is finding some fun in Chart Bloopers.

Braden and many of the ER nurses are always finding great patient complaints. Here's one of his latest patient reasons for visits to the ER at 20 out of 10.

Ahoy! Yes, I'm married to an escaped sailor, so I'm just going to have to order one of these nursey things for my locker, because somedays, I'd really like to raise the Jolly Roger when storming the poop deck on evenings.