Nurses and Anxiety

While driving home from the grocery store on Sunday ( I know, I know my life is just that exciting).  I was listening to NPR and this show came on that had me so gripped I actually stopped in the driveway of my house to listen to the end of it and had to text my husband to come and get all the cold and frozen stuff out of the car because I could not move (I really did this....and he was really thrilled!).  The show was given by an Emergency Room Chief Attending who reports how he was the perfect student, aced everything, memorized everything and was going to be the best physician ever until....he made a mistake.  He sent an elderly woman home from the ER in acute congestive heart failure because he missed it, he was not perfect.  Two hours later the family rushed the woman back where she died in the ER. 

 This began a quest for this physician to not only face his own imperfection to find other physicians that had made mistakes too.  He found that not only did physicians not want to admit they made any kind of mistakes they did not want to talk about it as it was anxiety producing.  This anxiety led to a decrease in performance, increase in stress,  and a false culture in their profession that all is well.  Physicians have a reputation of closing ranks around each other when a mistake is made leading to sometimes never getting to the real story...but more importantly those involved and colleagues around them from learning from an important teachable moment.  Now this physician runs meetings where mistakes are openly talked about  so everyone can support each other and more importantly learn from it, be honest and support each other.

Several of the nursing students, who I love and adore, are entering their final semester of nursing school.  I stay in touch with many of these students on Face Book and their stress at facing their last semester, passing finals, onto the NCLEX and finding a job has sent their stress off the scale.  I could feel it and see it from their Face Book posts and the panicked multiple texts I was getting.  I realized this stress and anxiety was at worse going to hold back these hugely talented future nurses and at best deny them from really enjoying their final semester of nursing school.  This is not OK.  In Nurse Education we are very good at setting objectives, measuring academic progress through testing, evaluating clinical skills, benchmarks, case studies, computer generated tests over and over to give a normal person carpal tunnel syndrome.

So the first week of October we are starting a NCLEX review/support group at Angie's house.  All my students are invited, no-one will be denied.  There is no cost for this but you have to bring your A game and a good attitude ( I have a really low tolerance for whining!)  The session will start with 30 minutes of yoga, continue with lots of review and end with tea and cake and sympathy (it is a British house after all).  We are teaching these future nurses how to care for their patients and their families.  We must not forget to teach them how to care for each other and most importantly how to care for themselves. 

Back From Vacation

I'm back.  Hope you had a great summer.  I cannot believe that summer is almost over but for me I am afraid it is.  This week was the start of faculty meetings at the Philadelphia university I teach at, and I am well into 2....yes 2 online classes that are lots of fun but proving quite time consuming.

One of the classes I have taught before, its a Community Health class which is one of my nursing passions.  I know the syllabus quite well by now and its fun to be back, have not been involved in this class for a few months.  The other class is called The Professional Nurse.  It is the very first class that online students take and is a means of orientating them to the online world, sending them on scavenger hunts to access the library, put references in the APA correct way (I always found this a curse until I found a very handy dandy online tool to help me!).  Anyhoo these students need a fair amount of hand holding, I remember well my first online class and how stressful it was. It has kept me occupied

But back to Summer.  It had to be one of the best summers I have had in many many years.  For the first time in living memory I worked from home and loved every minute of it.  Another advantage of being my own boss, I am always employee of the month!  My boss (me) gives me days or hours off whenever I want.  One look from Toby and we were out the door running around the reservoir.  It was a stress free, wonderful 4 months.

However, I feel ready to get back to a routine of teaching outside the house, continuing with my online teaching and some other business opportunities I have been building.  One of those is building my health and fitness business. I launched a new website that has been fun to build and blog about.  Here is the link

Curves and Carrots

Pop in and enjoy, I try to blog on this site several times a week.

More to come on a weekly basis.  Its good to be back even if the days are warm and the evenings are balmy.  Toby sure loved having me around and we acquired 2 new kittens.  All I know is I have never been that much of an animal person until all the kids left for University, now I have these surrogate children.  I am going to end up being that cat lady.  One day I will be found dead in my home at a very elderly age surrounded by 15 cats and 5 dogs......perish the thought!!!