The real tragedy of getting a medical education is not the understanding of your own mortality or quantification of personal risk factors. It's not even the fact that friends and colleagues want you to look at something awful that is growing out of their body (I was sure that was a myth). It is the loss of good television. An EMT friend of mine ...

Last month during the lull of winter break, I had a sudden fear that I would not be able to find a job after graduation. I guess it was because of the lull, no case studies to do, clinical hours completed for the semester, and final grade deemed passing, that I had the time to contemplate a life after school. This month, as my classes resume ...

I am currently in a  class called ''Societal Forces'' as a precursor to my first semester of advanced assessment in the Adult/Gero Primary Care Nurse Practitioner track. The teachers are passionate and well informed. The speakers are excellent, but the subject matter...The subject matter is frankly depressing. The class theme seems to ...

Terry Clarke, student nurse here. I am in an accelerated nurse practitioner program at UMASS Worcester. We just finished our year-long RN BSN equivalency. I've been feeling like a hand-stamped 18-year-old at a bar, able to join the conversations but not order a beer. As my NCLEX draws nigh, I finally feel competent to write about this experience. ...

It still amazes me how much of the public doesn't know what a NP is, does, or what it takes to become one. And what I find even more amazing is the difficulty I have at times trying to describe what it is I am in school to become. Not too long ago, as I was dropping my daughter off at daycare, one of the staff members who knew I was attending ...

The other day, I came across an article about Val Patterson, a man who was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. What made his story memorable was that before passing away on July 10, 2012, he wrote his own obituary. It was printed in his local newspaper and then throughout the world. Thousands of people have read it; hundreds have left comments ...

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 ...

In discussion with a colleague, we came to an impasse. Both of our viewpoints were opinion based; neither of us was willing to sway. She ended our exchange by saying, ''This is why you are going to die old and alone.'' I know this to be a joke of affection, but also a reference to one of the things we, as a culture, fear most. What brings this ...

Last semester was rough. For the first time in my life, I feared not passing a class. I believed I was sure to be devastated.  I did not do well on one test, which seemed to shake my test-taking confidence to the core for the entire rest of the semester. So it seems I have lost my test taking mojo. I tried to find it all semester, and there ...

Doctor: ''Nurse, the diabetic patient in room 8 is waiting for his insulin shot.'' Nurse: ''What diabetic patient? Bed 1 or 2?'' Doctor: ''Umm...the bed by the window. I'm blanking on the name right now. John? No, Tom. I think. To be honest, I'm not quite sure. Check the chart. He is the cellulitis patient who is been here for 2 ...