Clinical practice

Nurses Don't Take Snow Days

People will discuss the enormous amount of snow that fell on the East Coast during January 2016 for some time to come. It was predicted, and the snowfall lived up to the hype. My daughters have lived with healthcare professionals their entire lives, and they know that healthcare providers do not get a day off just because the weather is bad. There are no snow days. Patients are still sick. Many people do not stop to think about the sacrifices and extra time it takes healthcare providers to get to work during inclement weather. Just prior to the big snow, there had been a smaller one in St.

February 01, 2016
Clinical practice

Heal Through a Remember Tree

We had a problem—we knew it, and we just couldn’t find the right solution. The problem was that we had no time or way to grieve patients' deaths in our outpatient clinic. When a patient would die, some of the staff members would not find out for days or sometimes weeks. This left staff members feeling angry, sad, frustrated, and embarrassed if a family member would call and that staff member did not know about the patient's passing.
April 16, 2015
Side effects of radiation therapies
Clinical practice

The Case of the Suspicious Sunburn

William calls your office complaining of painful redness and blisters on his chest. He admits that during the recent warm weather, he hadn’t been wearing a shirt while working in the yard. He initially thought it was a sunburn, but the symptoms continued to worsen and were unrelieved by typical sunburn remedies. Upon reviewing William’s chart, you see that he recently received radiation and chemotherapy therapy for Hodgkin disease. What would you do?
June 18, 2013