Thursday, November 5, 2009

Patient Centered Care Revisited


Patient Centered Care is when the number of cars in the employee parking lot on Saturday and Sunday is the same as the number of cars in the employee parking lot on Monday through Friday.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Pracice Changes and Staffing


Has your staffing changed to accommodate the amount of precautions required by the current flu epidemics?

Monday, November 2, 2009

Not Just the Docs



Most formal research centers on intimidating and disruptive behaviors among physicians and nurses,

But evidence shows these behaviors occur among other health care professionals: pharmacists, therapists, and support staff, as well as among administrators.

Source: The Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert Issue 40

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Friday, October 16, 2009

Real Productivity

Why not include meal time not taken by staff in nursing care hours? This practice would force managers to ensure that staff had breaks before the manager could meet productivity goals.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Nurses can learn from other oppressed peoples

The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others....One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body....
--W.E.B. Dubois in The Soul of Black People

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Swiss Army Nurse

I had to go to the Pyxis (drug cabinet) three times. The first time a patient’s family wandered up to me. They had an “important question.” I never got to finish. The second time a coworker needed a stat drug. I let her go ahead of me; then I got a phone call while I was waiting. Then I just plain got distracted and forgot. Thirty minutes later everybody is upset because he hasn’t gotten his medicine.

-from Confessions of an ADD Nurse

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Scrubsgallery.com You've Come A Long Way Baby Contest


The Scrubs You'll Wear


Congratulations!

You are now a nurse.

You're off to Med-Surg!

Please don’t wear a skirt!


Your scrubs are form-fitting,

But don’t fit too tight.

No colors for you,

They are whiter than white


Not making anyone guess

Who said gesundheit.

The back is stamped RN

Out in plain sight.


You have wireless on your head

And GPS in your shoes.

You can be found

Whenever they choose.


You'll scan up and down halls. Look 'em over with care.

About some you will say, "I don't need to go there."

With your head loaded with sensors and your shoes full of feet,

your legs are rested and don’t feel like concrete.


And, if it should happen

That your patient has a bug,

Your scrubs are woven with a bug-killing drug,

And sleeves that cinch up when given a tug


If your patients are resting

Or simply digesting.

Put your sensors on stealth

Cause quiet is good for their health.


With noise and beeps you’re not fed up,

‘Cause safety glasses are heads-up.

And, you’ll know what you need to know

Without information overflow.


And when things start to happen,

Don't worry. Don't stew.

The fabric is cooling

Keeping you fresh the whole shift thru.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Old school isn't always the right school

The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors,
--Paulo Freire from Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Watch as Paul Farmer Talks About His Life

Toys in the Attic


They have no consciousness of themselves as persons or as members of an oppressed class.
---Paulo Freire from Pedagogy of the Opressed

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Over Stimulated



I left work an hour ago, but my brain brought mementos along for kicks. In the shower the running water first sounds like the monitor. Then the phone rings. No, wait that really is my phone. I don’t know. The sounds keep coming back like mosquitoes surveying your head. I can still feel my stethoscope around my neck. Finally, I sigh, “I wonder if I’m getting overtime for this.”

--quotes from Confessions of an ADD Nurse

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Healthcare Napkins All

I found this presentation to be clear and concise. I think other visual thinkers will find it worth viewing.

Metaphors to Live By

United States Postal Service

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Context Trumps Values


Context trumps values. A study at the Princeton Seminary found that intentionally hurried, seminary students, conflicted between being on time to help with an experiment or to stop to help a “victim” they encountered while walking to the experiment, ignored or “did not perceive” the ethical dilemma the victim created and continued on to the experiment 90% of the time. Gladwell paraphrased these findings saying:

. . . the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less importa nt than immediate context of your behavior . . . the words “you’re late” had the effect of making someone who is ordinarily compassionate into someone . . . indifferent to suffering.

Dawn Freshwater has written, “As nurses we would do well to question our own responses in situations of stress and conflict and the manifestations of oppression in everyday clinical practice”

Wednesday, September 30, 2009



Standing in the middle of the station, I have just spun in two complete circles. I can’t decide which way to go. The noise in my head is overwhelming, deafening. No one else hears it. Finally, I sigh and say aloud, 'This isn’t life or death?' With a shrug, I decide to go do the easiest thing. To just to do something.

-from Confessions of an ADD Nurse

It's a matter of priorities.



Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Busy and Lonely


Ever notice how the busier you are the more alone you become?

Monday, September 28, 2009

Indexed Based Practice



With apologies to http://thisisindexed.com , Indexed Based Practice will be a regular feature of Sairey Gamp, RN. This is a feature that allows me to poke fun at some aspect of nursing or healthcare. It may help make sense of others. I am very visual.