Quiz the Nurse

This lens actually started some 30 years ago when my sister, Vicky and I used to play around after I first became a RN, sometime when fire was invented...it seems.  Vicky would pretend to hold a microphone on me and ask some insane and insanely funny-assed question.  Since, I was a new nurse, it was a joke that of course I knew 'everything.'  Here's one of the questions: 

Dear Quiz the Nurse:  I have a weepy, fulminating boil on my ass, what should I do? 

Answer from Quiz the Nurse in all my magnificence: Divorce HIM!

My sister and me did this all the time.  I miss that play time with her.  She's alive, it's just we don't joke like that anymore.  I went off to do other nursey things. 

Recently, I gave a talk to a Rotary Club.  We talked around Heart Health, since I know 'a little' about it, being a 25 year member of the Open Heart/Heart Transplant team at Cleveland Clinic.  My talk fortunately was not the usual spiel of about things you can readily read about.  Instead, we talked about things that I have experienced in the OR and the hospital.  One point of concern was having a Nurse Advocate be with you when you go to the hospital.  That person, a RN would essentially look out for you, make sure your medications were correct, make sure everyone knows what you are in the hospital for.  Like I said essentially look out for you in that vast and scary hospital land.  Which is a great idea!  People going to the hospital should have an advocate.  Someone should be asking pointed questions and adding to that patients good outcome.

Which leads me to this, as a nurse, I believe that everyone can have a positive hospital experience and hopefully healthful outcome if they would invest in just one thing.  That investment is in the Registered Nurse.  The RN is your patient advocate.  The RN sees more of you and your family than the Doctor or Surgeon.  The RN notices physical, psychological and emotional changes with her/his patients that may change the course of your disease and/or healing process. 

As a nurse, I know how it is to be invisible.  People in the hospital, the public and the media only see RN's as a shadow to the Doctor.  The work we do within our practice appears to be held against the litmus test of medicine, meaning doctors as opposed to standing on its own merit.  Nurses humanize the hospital environment.  Specifically, Surgical Nurses (perhaps the most invisible group) humanize the surgical setting for a patient.  A recent example of invisibility is the patient who called wanting to speak to a doctor about her medication.  The nurse stated that the doctor was not available, but could she (the nurse) help the patient with her concern.  The patient replied, "I don't think so" in a haughty manner.  Instead of the RN getting upset with this putdown, she stayed on the phone with that patient for 30 minutes explaining everything in detail the patient needed to know about the medication, and then so.  That person, that nurse is a true patient advocate.  Also, that nurse is invisible. 

Everyday, every hour, every minute, a RN performs above and beyond the call of duty...as a matter of routine.  Everyday, every hour, every minute, that same nurse and others will hear a doctor get the entire credit for what is a collaborative, or efforts to obtain optimal health for a patient. 

Please, invest in the RN, your RN!  Invest in a relationship with your RN when you enter the hospital, a doctor's office, an urgent care center, or at the gym.  Invest in that someone, who will look out for your interests and your well being.  Start by saying hello.  Leave the attitude at home, or better yet, channel a bad attitude into the energies you need to heal and/or help a loved one to heal.

I am a CNOR in the Cardiothoracic Operating Rooms.  The CNOR means 'certified nurse operating room' I took a certification test and have to take continuing education courses to update my practice.  Yes, nursing is a practice!  A profession.  There are many like me, certified and not who are the best of the best! (No, at this point I'm not modest, just truthful).  You want us on your team...believe me.

Another point is that nurses 'know' who the good practitioners are (both nurses and doctors)!  Nurses know who 'they would let touch them' if anything were to go wrong.  We have insight and first hand knowledge that few patients ask about.  (I should start a business recommending surgeons...believe me!).  Even within my practice, I know who I would want for my 'team' if I needed, say CABG's (coronary artery bypass grafts), or if I were a Reoperation, I'd know who I would want to do my reop!  I know who I would want to put me asleep (anesthesiologist). Quiz a Nurse!

Patients today are so lucky.  You have the internet and the ability to read up on not only your disease but who can most effectively cure or treat said disease.  Today, you and I as patients are empowered!  Do not let a hospital stay take your power away!  Be the squeaky wheel!  Speak up!  Just Do It as they say in that Nike commercial.

Quiz the Nurse!  That's where the best answers are.

GREAT ARTICLE/SERIES FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES ON HEART DISEASE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/health/08heart.html?ex=1333771200&en=94a80219e739a555&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
 

 

 Permalink HealthLessons of Heart Disease, Learned and IgnoredBy GINA KOLATAPublished: April 8, 2007The toll from the nation's No. 1 killer could be reduced if the medical system delivered care that is known to make a difference. The toll from the nation's No. 1 killer could be reduced if the medical system delivered care that is known to make a difference.

TALK TO YOUR NURSE, HE OR SHE IS ACCESSIBLE!!!!
And now the shameless plug:

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'NOTES FROM THEMOTHERSHIP ` NAKED INVISIBLES'  is coming out September 2007. 

It is a collage of stories of patients, my personal evolution and FAMILY in its intentional and unintentional forms.  Notes is a nonfiction work, and it is very authentic!

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