Nursing

Many nurses speak disparagingly about free nursing CEUs as less than optimal training classes for new procedures or information pertinent to their practice as a nurse.  True, some of the free CEU classes offered by our employers seemingly have nothing to do with the type of nursing we practice, but in tight economic times, free is better than having to pay for every one of the classes.  Many free CEUs are designed for workers throughout the facility, not specifically targeted only to nurses.  Employers should, however, offer at least one “nursing law” class to their nurses as a free CEU.  Many states require that one hour of the total CEUs required for license renewal, be a one-hour law class.  In trying to keep up with areas of increasingly liability, one law class every two years may not be enough, but at least the foundation can be revisited and your knowledge further grounded.   (more…)

We’ve all had them.  The patient whose room we would avoid all shift if it were possible.  The patient who, when receiving report from the off-going shift, made us groan.  What I have found, however, is that frequently it takes a change in nursing staff to elicit a different response or different interaction than the previous nurse experienced.  I would need both hands and feet to count the number of times that my experience with a patient was amicable, workable and downright fun when the previous nurse labeled them as “a piece of work that will have you in their room the whole shift.”

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