Change of Shift: Volume One, Number Nineteen

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of Change of Shift! An eclectic selection of posts can be found in this edition and we welcome some new nurse bloggers to the fold! Grab your coffee and dig in!

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New blogger AZRN from Researchgrrl submits a heart-wrenching story of connection and loss in “Memories of Amy”. Welcome to the blogosphere, AZ and especially to Change of Shift! The rest of you go get your kleenex. You’ll need it.

Mama Mia presents the ins and outs of triage in What do you do with a Drunken Sailor?. I can so relate! Check it out, it’s posted at ~ Dust in the Wind ~. Still have your Kleenex with you? Good. Mama Mia gives us another side of ER nursing in Follow the Leader.

Flight nurse Emily, another first-time Change of Shift blogger discusses how our outer self is often at odds with our inner anxieties at Sometimes we just go fast posted at crzegrl.net.

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If you’ve ever wondered why anyone would ever want to work in the Emergency Department, let me tell you we ED nurses often wonder the same thing. And then something happens and it all comes back to us. ERnursey gives a great example in Wheelchair to the parking lot posted at ERnursey.

Hey! I’ve got a theme going here! The ER nurses are out in force. Nurse William describes the difference a mere ten seconds can make to a life in For All the Marbles, posted at Nurse William. I had palpitations looking at the EKG strip!

Student nurse Markie presents a public health care dilemma in Free to be TB? posted at Mark On The World. How would you handle this scenario?

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OH, HECK NO! I DID NOT JUST READ THIS! I am sputtering with indignation and can’t do the topic justice. Check out Marcia at Ant’s Marching and her report on corporate sponsorship in Fashion Emergency.

Nurse M takes on the ethical issues of High Risk Pregnancy ,posted over at Code Pink. We have the power to save the babies, but at what cost?

When will nurses start utilizing the power inherent in their very profession? You want to get jazzed about our profession? Don’t look to the big organizations. They have their job in promoting nursing and we have ours. Get informed. Get invigorated. Get involved. N=1 presents ?There were no nurses.? posted at Universal Health. And don’t stop with this post. Read and link this blog – it takes on issues and is written by an activist for the nursing profession!

What happens if we don’t become vocal? Who is going to take care of the nurses of today when it’s time for us to retire? Girlvet wonders Is Nursing Dying a Slow, Agonizing Death? over at Madness, Tales of an Emergency Room Nurse.

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Pixel RN is still working in her MICU, but no matter what she writes about she is always entertaining. This week she shares her frustrations of a questionable gestational diabetes diagnosis in My Glucose Woes, Part 1 and My Glucose Woes, Part 2 posted at PixelRN. Did you know they made sugar-free Peeps?

Get a fresh Kleenex. First-year family medicine resident Liana tells a tale of a code and unexpected tenderness in On Codes, posted at her blog Med Valley High.

Ah….from Nurse Ratched’s Place comes a mmtake on the “compliant nurse” image. Check out Stepford Nurses. And pray we don’t recognize ourselves in the description.

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Kudos to our favorite ER chaplain, Susan at Rickety Contrivances of Doing Good for going above and beyond the call of duty when asked for help by a total stranger. Read about it in the post entitled “Quitters”. Susan also runs the “Carnival of Hope” and the deadline for posts is today. If you have a recent post about hope or of a hopeful nature, the link can be sent to Susan. The directions are in the “Quitters” post.

The Medscape Nurse Bloggers are out in force, with three submissions this week! Julie takes stock of her life now that her cancer treatment is over in My Dear Readers. Priorities have a way of changing after an experience like this – find out how Julie’s blogging life will change.

Fellow blogger Beka finds a book in Barnes and Noble that reminds her of her first experience with mortality, which she shares in the eloquently written Final Exam. She also makes a decision regarding her nurse practitioner employment and looks for advice from other nurse practitioners in My NP Resignation.

My contribution for this edition equates a popular aerobic program with working in the emergency department. It’s called jazz-ER-cise.

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There were a couple of unique entries this edition!

Senior nursing student Christine is working on a Power Point presentation about the right to live vs. the right to die for a healthcare issues class. She is soliciting opinions on this matter from both students and veteran nurses. Help our future colleagues!

• Visit Exploring Constitutional Conflicts. A brief synopsis of the Cruzan case is on the left, the questions presented are on the right.
• Please send your answers to these questions to cmprzystas at hotmail dot com
• Christine notes that: any replies may be incorporated in our PowerPoint presentation to elicit group participation. We will present a scenario as well as questions to consider. And requests us to please post your responses regarding this matter based on how you feel the situation should have been managed.

Lillian Wald, RN has been chosen as the 2007 Honoree of the non-profit Jewish-American Hall of Fame. Ms. Esther Wacks, RN whose husband is the director of the Hall of Fame was nice enough to send me an email with the press release. The information is now in a post on Emergiblog. Here is the link to the biography and medal information.

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The next edition of Change of Shift will be hosted on March 22nd by Geena at Code Blog: Tales of a Nurse.

Submissions can be sent to Geena via Blog Carnival or to “geena at codeblog dot com”.

Thanks to all who submitted and to all who visited this week!