Teresa McCoy, RN, works at Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, FL. Today cell phones are everywhere. People cannot seem to live without them. When an emergency occurs, if you have a cell phone, help can be notified faster. It is estimated over a million people carry a cell phone. Cell phones are being used by nurses and patient care techs to ...

Most nurses are natural-born caregivers. The oldest of four children, I loved to babysit as a *** and teenager. Now, I have three children of my own and, of course, a career in nursing. Nurses are generally people who want to take care of others and who have the knowledge and skill to contribute positively to peoples' health ... just, not always ...

In almost every facility I have worked, including hospitals, I have noticed a shortage of wheelchairs. Not only that, but wheelchair leg rests. Where do all of these go? I worked in one facility where the aide would spend an hour or two every morning searching rooms for the hidden leg rests and cushions.  If we spend between a half hour to ...

I was writing a response to a comment on ''Balancing Expectation'' (blog post 7/16) when I realized it really deserved a post of its own. Paula writes, ''...sometimes I think I let my kids down and they don't do things or think more of themselves cause I didn't have higher expectations and said just that.'' Paula makes a good ...

Our department is on our third DOR in about six months or so. When the first one left we were all notified that he was leaving. And everybody in the facility was notified about his departure.  When our second DOR left it was apparently supposed to be a secret. I ask you, how do you hide something like that? She was not to tell anyone in the ...

Life may begin at 40, but so does deterioration. I haven't worn glasses since college, when I was doing way more reading than anyone should have to do in a day.  Now I need glasses to read the laundry instructions on my clothes' tags. I can't even see how many dots are in that tee-tiny washing machine symbol. And don't even get me ...

After being exposed to it for a while you begin to think ''medical English'' is your actual language, whereby everything you learned in school becomes a second language that you have to use with patients. This really gives ''English as a second language'' new meaning. I recently saw a license plate that read ''HCT436,'' and immediately saw it as ...

An editorialist for The Washington Times wrote an article about the DNP last week that makes some interesting points worth pondering. In Dane Stangler's ''Doctor nurse will see you now,'' he says he believes the DNP is a bad idea, mainly because with a requirement for more education, the number of NPs will decline: Today, we no longer face a ...

  Mitch Woldt, BSN, RN,  is a nurse at the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. I am a male who recently became a registered nurse. Through college and my first few months working, I have noticed and felt many emotions. There are two main and important points I would like to share so others know and understand what ...

I like Mike Rowe. He seems like the kind of guy I would want on my team. No matter how hard it gets, no matter how bad it seems, he is the one who is smiling and joking around with the crew.  We are like that at my facility. No matter how busy, no matter how many upset folks we have, we smile, joke and put our patients at ...