If I could give any future medical student advice about the ER, my three most important words would be: Vicks Vapor Rub. When I first entered the ER, I was prepared to be jaded, but I was not prepared for the smells: abscesses, STDs, rotten teeth, body odor, mildewed t-shirts, alcoholics, chain smokers, drug-addicts, and diarrhea diapers, to ...

During my first rotation in family medicine, we had a patient present to the clinic with a random collection of symptoms that seemed to come and go with no particular pattern. She had been experiencing sweating, dizziness, nausea and shock-like sensations around her chest. A work-up was done for a pheochromocytoma but all the labs came back ...

''Suicide is so frowned upon in this society, but honestly, life isn't for everybody.  It's sad when kids kill themselves 'cause they didn't really give it a chance, but life is like a movie: if you've sat through more than half of it and it sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the very end for you and ...

There have been times in my nursing career when I have put the pieces of a clinical picture together only to see something entirely different than the treating physician. The picture I would see was not based only on the lab work, or clinical manifestations of an illness, but was guided by the narrative of the ...

Last week, readers commented on two of our recent orthopedic articles. In response to ''After Your Patient's Knee Replacement,'' reader Thomas said, ''Nice article Jennifer - I had my TKR in 2010 and you described my overall experience quite well. Patients do really tend to forget that they lost their joint mobility slowly over a sustained time ...

As a future healthcare provider, I am learning a key concept when educating patients: be firm but kind; and it's ok to not get your point across. Many of the chronic diseases we face in healthcare require lifestyle changes and perpetual monitoring, which all hinge on our patients' vigilance. At a wellness class I teach once a month, I ...

I know, I know. You're all probably thinking that if you see another blog about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, you are going to need an emesis basin. Since the healthcare reform package was upheld by the Supreme Court, healthcare is back in the news and on the minds, lips and keyboards of just about everyone. I will attempt to ...

On Monday, October 17, 2011, I started my NP job at the Martin-Tyrrell-Washington District Health Department. Over the 5 days of my first week on the job, I rotated to all three HDs in the district and attended the October 17th grand opening of Martin County HD’s grant-funded satellite clinic in Oak City, North Carolina. I will be the sole primary ...

In watching the practice of prescribing psychotropic medications I am very hesitant about my own prescriptive practices and keenly observant of other practitioners. I am acutely sensitive to the issue. It seems like every other patient I see, irrespective of the setting, is prescribed SSRIs and benzodiazepines, and almost none of them are also ...