A recent article in the Miami Herald highlights Kate Emily Yeadaker, a trauma nurse who has a unique way of relieving her job stress. DJ Dharma, also known as 'the Night Nurse,' spins tunes for dance clubs in Miami.
AJN received this advisory earlier this week from the CDC:
In July 2009, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made recommendations on who should receive vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1) when it becomes available, and which priority groups should be vaccinated first if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities. Five key populations were focused on by the committee to help reduce the impact and spread of novel H1N1. The key populations include those who are at higher risk of disease or complications, those who are likely to come in contact with novel H1N1, and those who could infect young infants. The committee recommends that when the vaccine becomes available, the following groups, accounting for approximately 159 million people in the United States, should receive the vaccine first:
• pregnant women,
• people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age,
• health care and emergency services personnel,
• persons between the ages of 6 months through 24 years of age, and
• people from ages 25 through 64 years who are at higher risk for novel H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.
The committee does not expect that there will be a shortage of novel H1N1 vaccine, but availability and demand can be unpredictable. There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities. In this setting, the committee recommended that the following groups receive the vaccine before […]
One of the feature articles in the August issue takes an unflinching look at a shameful yet little-known episode of nursing history: “The Third Reich, Nursing, and AJN” by Mary Deane Lagerwey, PhD, RN, examines AJN’s coverage of events in Germany during the Nazi era—before and during WWII—and in the postwar years, and compares the reporting in this journal with that of other professional and popular journals of the day, such as Life and JAMA.
In nursing, we need commitment, caring, and a desire to further the profession, not individuals who choose it because they can’t be something else. The former physicians in this article may become excellent nurses, and I give them the benefit of the doubt—but even so, when I read an article like this I can’t help thinking, not for the first time, that our system would have better outcomes if there was a little more humility.
Here’s a recent post from Not Nurse Ratched that lists five things she uses her iPhone for at work: the programs/apps or features she uses are Epocrates, the calculator, Ratios, DrugInfusion, and Instant ECG. A Web site called Software Advice recently sent us the results of a useful survey on the use of smartphones among medical personnel. The figure below shows the most popular uses of smartphones at work, not just for nurses but for a variety of health care industry workers.
We know many nurses have already begun to use whatever smartphone they may have to access 5-Minute Clinical Consult, a Wolters Kluwer product (full disclosure: AJN is owned by Wolters Kluwer) that “provides instant access to the essentials of 700+ medical conditions” and “includes dermatology images, videos of medical procedures, AAFP patient handouts, drug database and more.” It can be downloaded to many types of mobile device — iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, Android, or Windows Mobile.
But let us know: how are you using smartphones/handheld devices at the bedside? If not, do you plan to start using one? And do they really help?
–Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor
