Did you know medical malpractice suits are up a bit this year? The insurance industry is blaming this on the new Medicare and Medicaid rules which are no longer reimburse for what they call “never” events, ie stuff that should NEVER happen (skin breakdown being the most example). I’m wondering if there is enough pressure on hospitals to prevent these “never” events if they will increase nursing staff, who are on the front lines of things like skin care. Learning what the beginning of skin breakdown looks like–on all different skin types and hues– is an essential nursing skill, and it’s an easy one to learn at clinical. At least in comparison to learning how to give an IM. In your initial assessment, always assess skin integrity (even if it’s not required for the chart) you may catch something the overloaded hospital stadd might miss.

…if I don’t say so myself. I was the guest on the Nurses Station Podcast that taped a little bit ago, and now it’s up! Check it out, and subscribe if you’re interested. They cover lots of interesting subjects in an very entertaining way.

There’s an interesting (not to mention heated) discussion going on over at the Nursing Link message board. The question posed is “How do you feel about nurses who have tattoos? Do you think this affects an employer’s view of you?” Answers range from “no one should show ink in the workplace” to “I have tattoos and they show at work and no one cares”

Of course this brings up all sorts of interesting questions, the central one being; how much of ourselves do we bring to our jobs? Is it therapeutic for patients to know anything about us besides the fact that we are concerned about their well being, and competent to provide excellent care.

In my opinion the answer is “it depends” What is called the “therapeutic use of self” is full-fledged nursing concept, and you can’t offer yourself to patient as a complete blank slate: we do bring ourselves. So to bring it back to the tattoo, I can say, anecdotally, that as a person with visible tattoo (well or two) I cannot remember one time in my ten plus years as a nurse when anyone (patient, family member, another nurse etc) made a negative comment about my tattoos. In fact, working with young parents in an urban area, I have had many positive interactions with teenagers about my tattoos; the subject is a great icebreaker.

Of course, my tattoos are pretty tame as tattoos go, and I work with a population who are likely to have tattoos of their own. But it’s something to consider: what can I give of myself? What will be helpful? What is appropriate?

When you ask teachers in general, and nurse educators in particular what their least favorite question is, they will almost always say “is this going to be on the test?”

For many teachers, this is an insult to their teaching, as if they are only teaching so that they can assess students’ ability to regurgitate the knowledge they are given. For nurse educators the question is silly for another reason: it’s ALL on the test. The NCLEX.

Just a little exam-time reminder, by way of my non traditional age nursing student sister who has text messaged me about students asking this question no less than three times this week.

Do you know what day tomorrow is? It’s World AIDS Day. If you didn’t know or forgot, it’s not particularly surprising, although someone at school should have at least mentioned it right?

But the remembrance brings to mind a disease that many would like to forget about or would like to think has been eliminated. And while it’s true that research (pushed from behind my angry activists who were watching while their entire communities were wiped out) has made huge strides against HIV/AIDS, people still die as a result of AIDS. According to the World Health Organization, in Sub-Saharan Africa, almost 8,000 adults and children died of AIDS each day. People die because of lack of access to the newest medicines and lack of food and clean water.

According to the CDC, even in the US last year there were more than 15,000 AIDS deaths. Tomorrow I will post more resources and some personal accounts of people living with HIV and AIDS but for now I wanted to mention to help readers remember the remebrance. And go to The World AIDS Day Campaign website to learn more about this year’s theme and find events near you.