Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Grand Rounds and Other Interesting Tidbits!
God Bless Grand Rounds!
It’s hosted this week over at Envisioning 2.0 (nice job, Fard!).
Get this, the topic of the week is exactly what I have to write a paper on for my Leadership and Management class that is due February 11th.
Can you believe that? I now have access to twenty-four differing opinions from all over the blogosphere to draw from, all in one handy place.
How did I ever get through college without the internet back in the day?
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Can I give you some really good advice?
Do not, under any circumstances, watch “The Sixth Sense” twice in one night and then walk through your house in the dark.
No, I didn’t see any dead people, but I swear I heard about fifty of them behind me.
I’m just sayin’.
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Speaking of seeing things, Radiology Grand Rounds are up at Sumer’s Radiology Site.
I got to see a pneumomediastinum on film once. Totally cool! Not for the patient, of course but in the context of an educational experience. I can barely see air in lungs, let alone a mediastinum….
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The vast majority of the ERs I have worked in did not insert arterial lines in the department. The patient would get them put in on arrival to the the Intensive Care Unit. Well, this week I assisted in the insertion of my first arterial line since the Reagan administration. The tubing still has that danged “piggy tail” thing for flushing. That seems so tenuous, like it could break off any time. One would think after all these years a more suitable device for flushing an art line would have been invented.
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I have not gone deaf!
Seriously, my ability to auscultate lung sounds seemed to have dropped dramatically in the last few years I was afraid I might have lost the ability to hear some frequencies due to the decible level of the occasional (!) rock concert. I used to be able to hear a single rale from the doorway.
So, you can imagine my delight when my brand new Cardiology II stethoscope came in the mail and I used it on my first patient. Clear, concise breath sounds filled my auditory canals with joy! And it was even better when there was rhonchi and rales to hear! Got wheezes? Bring ‘em on!
Totally cool. Not for the patient, of course, but in the context of being able to make an appropriate assessment.
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Dr. Crippen hosts the best of the British Medical Blogs every Sunday. Another good read with my morning coffee!
Change of Shift will be hosted at Nurse Ratched’s Place on February 8th. Submission can go via Blog Carnival or directly to nurseratchedsplace at yahoo dot com.
Reminder: Nursing Jobs.org is offering $5000 in nursing scholarships via their essay competition. You know why you went into nursing, right? Well put it down on your blog, give it the title “Why I Chose Nursing” and send it in! First place is $3500 and that will cover a lot of units! The information is “below the fold” so scroll down when you get to the link!
A Bohemian Road Nurse...
January 30, 2007 at 10:48 am
I gotta get me one of those stethoscopes you’re talking about…
Rachel
January 30, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Wow, how about that for a coincidence (re: Grand Rounds)!
Barbara
January 30, 2007 at 6:43 pm
One thing I’ve noticed over the years in regard to breath/lung sounds…the thicker folks get, the harder they are to hear! Once and a while a thinner person shows up and damn, I can hear everything. I have a DRG scope and it works very well.
BJ
Erica
January 31, 2007 at 1:49 am
Re: art lines = wow, how lucky. I don’t enjoy them, but we do ‘em a couple times a month, I’d say. And I’ll have to blog about the horrid experience I had last time I hung nipride; I’m damn glad I had an a-line, as well as a good large-bore IV.
And Re: auscultation = I found (after my Littman was stolen from the nurses’ station when I went up to the helipad for a hot offload) that gel eartips make a humongous difference in sensitivity of even a cheap scope. I use a $25.00 “ADScope” I think (It’s red, though, so inherently cool) with these gel-filled eartips that cost about eight bucks a set, and I hear as well as I heard through my Master Classic 2SE.
Candy
January 31, 2007 at 6:07 am
Gotta get me some of those gel eartips — my scope has concrete (or at least that’s what it feels like)!
DrDork
February 1, 2007 at 3:41 am
Hi Kim,
This “blogging synchronicity” stuff weirds me out sometimes.
I just wrote a post waffling on about a new stethoscope I bought today - and 10 minutes later visited here to find you discussing your new ‘tubes’ as well !
Weird.
Kind regards
Dork
Susan
February 1, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I like my ultrascope much better than my old littman classic II. Breath sounds are sooo clear - and it’s got the sparkly stuff in the bell too!