A very cool, slightly edgy exporation of New York City’s underbelly, guided by guerilla historian Steve Duncan. Duncan’s website can be found here. Worth watching for the exploration of the abandoned subway station alone. Filed under: Friday Night Flicks Tagged: New York City, short films, Steve Duncan, Undercity
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Those Emergency Blues: Nurse Love, The Real Kind
Some real nurse love — and incidentally reminding us why we have the most tremendous profession in the world and how we each day make a powerful difference in the lives of our patients. Via the blog The Spohrs are Multiplying, Mike Spohr writes about the day his child died:
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Breastfeeding Makes Sane People Crazy
Why does any discussion of breastfeeding makes people a little insane? I don’t exclude myself: even I get a little agitated. Here are some examples of what I mean: Exhibit A: a recent post on breastfeeding at KevinMD.com sparked a small flame war in the comments. Barbara Bronson, an RN wrote there: A
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: The Insanity of It All
Warning: my semi-annual politicalish post. When I read this, I admit I gawped: $26,659: Our 2011 Medical Expenses Yes, you read that right. And we had insurance coverage for everyone last year, including daughter, 16, and my son who is 23 years old. Let me break it down for you: Insurance
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LII
The execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Raleigh wrote this poem as he awaited execution, the victim of the wrath of a monarch and of some treacherous diplomatic expediency between England and Spain. The Lie Go, Soul, the body’s guest, Upon a thankless errand: Fear not to touch the
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Friday Night Flicks: Meet Buck
Funny with a pretty obvious lesson in social tolerance — and bonus points for doing so without being didactic or preachy. (Couch mode here.) Filed under: Friday Night Flicks Tagged: animation, Short film
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Observations and Assessments
NOTIONS TO SMALL FOR A BLOG POST, ALL IN ONE PLACE, A.K.A. THE PERIODIC LINK DUMP. Nursing Related: New (to me) Blog Shoutouts — “This blog hopes to present a different perspective on the Vancouver 2011 Stanley Cup Riot. Here, we’ll try to post letters of those that were working
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: More on When Labelling Patients Causes Patients to Die
In the comments WhiteCoat (of WhiteCoat’s Call Room fame) strenuously objects to my take on the Anna Brown case: Wow. Someone on my blog suggested that I check out this post after I just posted about this story yesterday. To all of you who think “something more should have been
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: On Your Feet, Nurse, the Doctor’s Here!
Should nurses give up their chairs for physicians? A nursing professor named Susan Kieffer writing at NurseTogether.com thinks so: If you have been a nurse for any length of time, you know how precious the seats at the nurses’ station really are. These seats are a rare commodity; one to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Just Because I Don’t Remember You Doesn’t Mean I Didn’t Care
In the Emergency Department where I work, the number of patients we see pushes 200 some days. We assess and treat a lot of people, mostly for lumps and bumps, breaks and bruises, but also for major, cataclysmic, life-altering events — MIs, trauma, stroke, what-have-you. I have a problem. The
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Poem for Easter
My own, with at least Easterish themes of death and rebirth. Originally published on 7/10/10. VSA You came to us, no vital signs, no breath Found dead, or nearly so, by the mall You last saw cars, careening carts, a child. Then falling, hard pavement, blood, a void empty Of
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Easter 2012
Happy Easter. One thing you may or may not know about me, dear readers, is that I’m a retired Catholic. Like many other people, I left because what some Catholics would call “below-the-belt” issues, but also because the (ongoing) sexual abuse scandals, the treatment of women, and the utter hatred
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LI
Easter in Pittsburgh Even on Easter Sunday jungle of lilies and ferns fat Uncle Paul who loved his liquor so would pound away with both fists on the when the church was a stone pulpit shouting sin sin sin and the fiery fires of hell and I cried all after-
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Friday Night Flicks: Logorama
Imagine a society where the entire physical environment, even ourselves, is branded. . . and life is lived as a Hollywood cliché. Features a campy Mr. Clean and a very evil, psychotic clown. Couch mode is here. Filed under: Friday Night Flicks Tagged: animation, branding, logos, Los Angeles, short films
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: When Labelling Patients Causes Patients to Die
I found this story how a homeless woman died very disturbing: Anna Brown wasn’t leaving the emergency room quietly. She yelled from a wheelchair at St. Mary’s Health Center security personnel and Richmond Heights police officers that her legs hurt so badly she couldn’t stand. She had already been to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Best Laid Plans of Mice and Bloggers
Here I was planning to post on multitude of topics, including some stuff on breastfeeding, restraints, the duty to care, more twists and turns in the Amanda Trujillo case, the usual CVSaturday poem and Friday night short film, and I even had a wicked April Fools’ joke to launch on
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Fat Nurses Need Not Apply
A Texas hospital has declared war on the scourge of obese nurses: A Victoria [Texas] hospital already embroiled in a discrimination lawsuit filed by doctors of Indian descent has instituted a highly unusual hiring policy: It bans job applicants from employment for being too overweight. The Citizens Medical Center policy, instituted a
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Arizona is Where Educating Patients is Bad, Bad, Bad: An Amanda Trujillo Update
Just a few words about Amanda Trujillo. Jennifer Olin at RNCentral.com has detailed at the latest twists and turns of her case. I won’t repeat everything, but I want to comment instead on the Arizona State Board of Nursing’s latest action. The BoN has added a further charge that Trujillo
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Scripting Nurses is Bad for Patient Care
This might be a new low in nursing management. Instead of actually providing caring, empathy and compassion, some hospitals would like nurses to provide a simulacrum of caring, empathy and compassion, believing patients are stupid enough not to tell the difference: Nurses unions say an increasing number of hospitals nationwide are asking
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems L
Yes, the fiftieth edition of Favourite Poems. You might wonder why a blog about nurses and nursing (and some other stuff, but mostly nursing) does poetry. The answer is simple: because nursing is far more than all the mundane tasks we need to do to care for our patients. Poetry
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